More to the “study tour” than meets the eye?

ANC Youth League (ANCYL) Julius Malema’s apparent obsession of late with nationalisation and his so-called "study tour" to controversial destinations on the subject may have much less to do with South African reality and policy than has been recognised by most observers. The party disciplinary problems and the alleged struggle song controversy in which Malema landed himself probably contributed toward deflecting attention away from the most likely reason for his nationalisation fixation and study tour – his own and the ANCYL's international ambition.

The 17th World Festival of Youth and Students is to take place in South Africa in December this year. The festival will essentially be hosted by the ANCYL on behalf of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), which describes itself as an "anti-imperialist, left-wing" organisation and was founded in London in 1945.

The WFDY, which was formed as a broad international youth movement organised in the context of the end of World War 2, is described by some sources as “an international organisation of communist and socialist youth organisations”. It is headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.

Explaining much

Against this background, many of the developments around Malema in recent weeks can be better understood and explained, among others his choice of Zimbabwe as first stop on his nationalisation 'study tour' and his bias toward Zanu-PF.

The Zanu-PF Youth League is a WFDY member of high esteem, and Malema and the ANCYL could do with its support for both the December festival and for possible ambitions toward prominent roles within the organisation in the future. The Zanu-PF Youth League was mandated in Vietnam in 2007 to co-ordinate and represent the Africa region at the WFDY.

A spokesperson of the WFDY said about an African regional meeting held in Namibia two weeks ago that it would discuss the political situation in Western Sahara, “which is the last colony in Africa.

“It is within our programme to have a mission to Western Sahara and enable the youth of Africa to fully understand the dangers of imperialism and openly condemn the Moroccan government over this illegal occupation of a sovereign nation,” he said.

The meeting was also to enable members of the Zanu-PF Youth League to “brief the meeting on the impact caused by the illegal sanctions and also on the successes of the land reform programme in Zimbabwe.

“The members will also provide a clear understanding on the current indiginisation process, which seeks companies to give indigenous people an opportunity to control 51% of the shares in foreign companies, as this is the last move that will enable Zimbabweans to be totally independent because political independence without locals controlling their resources means nothing.

“We will also talk and brief members on Africom (the military bases being constructed by the Americans and Europeans in Africa). We will openly denounce such moves in the strongest terms,” the spokesperson said.

The ANCYL leader, as part of his international study tour – which increasingly is beginning to look like a lobby campaign – is scheduled to visit Namibia during the last week of May. A visit to Mozambique could also be on the cards.

Against this background, it may not be surprising that when Minister of Mining Susan Shabangu recently said that Malema’s plan for mining nationalisation will not be implemented during her “lifetime", he accused her of “sucking up to monopoly capital”.

Why

The World Festival of Youth and Students is described by the WFDY as “the biggest anti-imperialist event organised by WFDY, for the youth to fully understand the dangers being posed by the militarily powerful nations to those they deem not complying with their needs and to continue exploiting the resources of ‘small’ nations”.

The festival takes place every four or five years. The last one took place in Caracas, Venezuela in September 2005.

According to a statement issued by the ANCYL on 21 April this year, a delegation of the organisation was to “officially” visit Venezuela “primarily for two reasons: To officially accept the torch for South Africa to host the 17th World Festival for Youth and Students organised by the World Federation for Youth and Students in December 2010. The festival will bring more than 10 000 delegates from anti-imperialist youth formations from across the world. The ANC Youth League will officially accept the torch from Venezuela’s revolutionary President Hugo Chavez, whose country hosted the 16th World Festival for Youth and Students in 2005.

"Secondly, the ANC Youth League will utilise the visit to Venezuela to conduct a thorough organic study on the nature and character of the Venezuelan’s State ownership and control of strategic sectors of the economy.”

At this stage, it remains a mystery why the ANCYL and/or the ANC itself has chosen to camouflage these visits as being part of a 'study tour', or whether the media has simply missed the WFDY angle.

It will also be interesting to see how the ANCYL’s prominence at the WFDY in the longer run plays out within the governing alliance.

A cursory look at the profile of the WFDY quickly reveals that it is a space one would expect the South African Young Communist League to have occupied. It could just add to the already tense relationship.