A fine precedent for youth engagement: UN delegates participate in panel discussion for South African youth leaders

Ask any frustrated mother: the youth loves to question everything. We still have the vigour and arrogance not to accept reactions or circumstances at face value. We love to challenge outcomes and roadmap responsibility for these conclusions.

It is no different for the youth leaders of South Africa. When the team of fifteen students from the South Africa Washington International Program met with a representative of the UN for a briefing, we heard that our country “bowed to no one”. We heard tales of implied International power, of a symbolic significance that gave South Africa a special influence among nations.

Yet the supposed disregard of the African Union and South Africa’s efforts in Libya by the UN was burning at the back of several of our students’ minds. It is with this ambiguity of opinions that we met with three delegates of South Africa’s Permanent Mission to the UN.

Our panel consisted of Dr. Jongi Klaas, first secretary and representative on terrorism issues for the Security Council; Mr. Tshimangadzo Jeremiah Murongwana, first secretary and a member of the Third Committee, specialising in children and armed conflicts and Dr. Dire David Tladi, legal adviser to the Mission and member of the Sixth Committee.

For a youth starved for answers, this panel represented some of the best resources and leaders the country had to offer us. To the credit of the panel, they opened by telling us they would answer all our questions to the extent of what is in their power. Throughout the conversation the panel allowed us liberties in our robust and sometimes critical conversation, never once patronizing us based on our youth.

Dr. Tladi opened the session with a description of the finer structural machinery of the UN. The discussion on the veto power structure in the Security Council naturally led to questions regarding Security Council reform and the division of world powers regarding the issue. The validity of an African claim for a permanent seat was debated, focussing on the disproportionate and non-permanent representation of a continent that houses an alleged 70 percent of all conflicts put before the Security Council. Dr. Tladi also spoke on the differentiation between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal court, followed by a discussion on the seemingly selective prosecution of Africans in the ICC.

Issues regarding international conflicts were addressed to Dr. Klaas, who spoke very eloquently on the unrest in the Maghreb region, as well as the application of Palestine to become an UN member state. He also addressed a very interesting question posed by a student, inquiring if he observes South Africa’s influence growing in the international community, but dwindling in Africa. The status of LGBT rights in Africa was discussed by Mr. Murongwana, who spoke of the patterns of violence and policy reform briefly.

The session was ended by a frank discussion on the ambiguity of South Africa’s undersigning of Resolution 1973 for Libya, only to criticise the UN and western powers for interfering in a regional conflict. The students posed questions on the undermining of the AU by these actions.

This panel discussion was about more than just literal questions and answers. It was about leaders investing time in the next generation to inform our global perspectives. They acknowledged our need for a platform where we could engage with institutions like the UN to understand the structural delicacies that result in the conclusions we live with everyday, as well as having our leaders authoritatively answer our questions and hear our voices.

The South Africa Washington International Program would like to thank our panel members, for setting such a hopeful precedent for youth engagement by our leaders.