Given the profile of the audience and the nature of the organisation that has kindly invited me to chair this remarkable event, it might be unfair of me to speak seemingly against the concept of youth leadership. However, as I’m just under thirty and a proud alumnus of AIESEC itself, I feel I have the license to avoid the necessary “motherhood and apple-pie” statements about “free spirits” and cut to some of the serious challenges facing youth leadership. I will start by briefly highlighting two examples, one historical and one contemporary, that demonstrate some of the strikingly real dangers that youth leadership can fall to. From these, I will generalise four core obstacles that leaders must wrestle with in order to avoid such disaster. Finally, I shall describe what the world might learn from youth leaders should they master their puzzle of immaturity before the dreary and dangerous acceptance of age befalls them.

Case 1: Youth “Red Guards” in China’s Cultural Revolution

In the year that followed May 1966, a movement of students and young people would begin by denouncing the administration of their local university, grow to over ten million members drawn from almost every school in China, and just as rapidly be forcibly repressed by the national Army. In these twelve short months, a campaign of terror led by these “Red Guards” would result in hundreds of thousands dead and disabled, large swathes of political arrests from every sector of society, a large percentage of historical sites destroyed, and would firmly establish the personality cult of Mao Zedong.

Chairman Mao had quickly recognised the potential that youthful disdain for establishment, limited critical thinking and boundless ideological energy would offer his “cultural revolution”. Within days of the first Red Guard formation he and his political organs encouraged the youth to embrace their “right to rebel”, directing them to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Chinese Communist Party as they saw fit, and to attack the ‘Four Olds” of Chinese society (old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas). Mao himself gave validation to the destruction stating that mass purges and all such related social and political phenomena were justified and right.

“Freed from parental and societal constraints, youths, both girls and boys, had been unleashed to perpetrate assault, battery, and murder upon their fellow citizens to the extent their barely formed consciences permitted” (Mao’s Last Revolution, Macfarquhar &Schoenhals, 2006).

Once Mao had consolidated his political power the Red Guards were viewed as a liability. They were disempowered, actively suppressed and ultimately exiled through the “Down to the Countryside” movement, in which millions of young urban Chinese were resettled in rural areas. Much of the youthful idealism turned to disillusionment, but not before it had caused massive death and untold political, economic and cultural damage.

Case 2: Julius Malema, President of the ANC Youth League

The South African revolution, in the ending of the apartheid state, is striking in what it lacked of China’s cultural revolution. There was no massive bloodletting, demagoguery or savage persecution. Instead it featured electoral participation, economic empowerment, and “truth and reconciliation”. It is hard to overstate Mandela’s role in forging this climate and the national unity necessary to complete the most painful labour of the new South African state. Forty years before Mandela became President of the ANC (African National Congress) and then of South Africa, he was founder and then President of their Youth League (ANCYL), a platform he used to revitalize and redirect the ANC itself.

Sixty years later, the current President of the ANCYL is one Julius Malema. He has been described by the current South African President Jacob Zuma as “the future leader of South Africa”, and by others as a demagogue, a reckless populist, a puppet, and puppet master. In any interpretation he is a major figure in the political landscape, and for me he embodies a great many lessons on the shadow side of youth leadership.

Even almost twenty years after Mandela’s release South Africa is a fragile society, whose tender wounds are guarded by layers of social and political of taboo around violence, race, economic disparity and class. Malema’s rhetoric has confronted them all. He has been outspoken on the nationalisation of the mining sector, declaring in Harare that “In SA we are just starting. Here in Zimbabwe you are already very far.” He complained that “minorities” (whites, Coloureds and Indians) ran what he defined as the “economic cluster” in the South African cabinet. He has suggested violent means implicitly and even explicitly as when he stated, “Let us make it clear now: we are prepared to die for (President) Zuma. Not only that, we are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma.”

Malema is not a man to be cowed easily. Censured by the ANC and directly critiqued by Zuma himself multiple times, he has continued unperturbed. His biographer states, “[Malema] believes that if you criticise him you are either a reactionary or a racist”, and in South Africa this is more than a politically correct riposte (The World according to Julius Malema, Max du Preez, 2010). It is difficult to convey his manner in text, but a short viewing of his April 2010 encounter with a BBC journalist provides an immediate and frightening revelation of character and judgment.

A charismatic, street-wise, young politician, Malema understands his constituency and embodies the confidence and power that a people, who have worryingly little of either, are understandably attracted to. What will result of this leadership, we shall all soon discover.

Observations and lessons drawn

The individual and collective cases, drawn from such different contexts, provide rich examples from the shadow side of youth leadership. I will focus on four key observations that I believe have clear and important application for contemporary youth leaders from all sectors of society.

Lack of critical thinking. As Voltaire put it so powerfully, “those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”, and indeed it was a lack of critical thinking that allowed the Red Guards actions to transcend their own basic humanity and may allow Malema to transgress on his. In both examples this poverty of reason was created by three forces. First, an attachment to an overly ideological lens in which their political philosophy trumps evidence from reality. Second, a lack of appreciation of their own history, the complexity and depth of the hard fought lessons that challenge such simplistic visions. Third, poor quality education that did not give them the necessary rational skills to see through propaganda and engage in productive political dialogue.

However, this shadow side of leadership should also remind us that there is a positive that casts this shadow. Lack of critical thinking, falls as a shadow from the affinity for new modes of thought that prevails in youth. These new modes recognise that many traditional barriers and conventions are illusionary constrictions that we can overthrow at will. They can recognise valuable innovations and ideals free from the blinding curse of prejudice.

Desire for power and for impact. Malema’s behaviour and rhetoric strongly suggests one most dangerous leadership characteristic—the untempered desire for power and impact. When the true motivation is the reinforcement of one’s ego, a leader will lose sight of the original inequality that inspired their efforts and no consequence of their actions will be enough to break this well fed addiction. Hunger for power results in the belief in the leader’s absolute necessity, and with this belief leader stops serving their people and becomes their master. Furthermore, when change itself becomes the goal, either to validate one’s existence or solely to bring down some established structure, swift destruction can be done to the slow aggregate of the ages.

Desire for power and impact can conceal the positive desire to create a better world—the thirst for greater fulfilment, equity, justice, and beauty that drives much of youthful action. It is a powerful ideal that suggests that the human condition can be better, that the sufferings of the present can be alleviated in the future. Activated by the sense of individual responsibility and empowerment to make this change, young people can be undeniable force for organisational and social transformation.

Manipulation by establishment leaders. The idealism of the Red Guards was clearly manipulated for inter-factional infighting and then they were tossed aside. Similarly, Malema was encouraged to be highly outspoken, and thus influential, in the Zuma’s election and is now starting to become a liability for the establishment. Thus we see that through both empowerment and disempowerment establishment leaders often manipulate the ambitions, philosophy and constituency of youth leaders.

Nonetheless, the positive reciprocation of this deficit is equally true, youth can transform establishment institutions. Just as Mandela utilised the ANCYL as a lever to change the political establishment, youth leaders can bring their undeniable wellspring of energy, ideals and innovation to revitalise and redirect conventional organisations in remarkable ways.

Lack of empathy for those different from oneself. In both cases we see a demonization of “the other”, a view that makes our opponents fundamentally different from ourselves, and thus undeserving of human empathy. This division is nurtured by a number of traits unfortunately common in the thinking of the young; the hasty clarity of a “black and white” perspective, the “other existence” denying view of solipsism or egoism, and the inability to imagine that there are many ways to see, be, and think in this life.

This characteristic is a shadow of the youthful tendency to identify strongly with one’s community. Young people build a large part of their self-image through identifying with peer networks, social communities, and their role models. As these circles of identity expand beyond family, community, religion, and nation state, the welfare of ever expanding segments of humanity becomes important to the individual, and an expanded social consciousness results.

Conclusion

From these very different cases I’ve drawn a picture of youth leadership, which I hope is provocative, relevant to the individual readers own journey, and deeply tied to challenges in the real world. However, I’ve only drawn a few short strands from the rich web of history tied into each of these stories. I encourage the reader to look deeply into these and myriad other examples, to wrestle with the dilemmas confronted in history, and to identify these dilemmas within themselves. For it is inside each of us that the challenge of leadership must first find resolution.

In many ways the individual struggle of young people is reflected in the collective struggle of our young civilisation. Just as they need to cultivate their strengths and wrestle with their shadow sides so too does broader humanity, if it is to avoid the self-inflicted decline of all civilisations past. The only tool we have in this journey is our ability to learn, although it is frighteningly little used. We must find ways to learn the lessons of generations past and present: the history of scholars and the history continually unfolding around us. Similarly we must seek out the lessons of our own leadership as we progress, so that as our youth fades, the light that guides our way only brightens, the call of a world to be changed rings only clearer, and our work in the world falls into only greater harmony with our sense of purpose.

Youth leaders face difficult individual challenges with real world ramifications. These challenges are no lighter for youth than those faced by mature leaders. However, if one masters them in their early years then they may well number among the few who escape the pitfalls of the latter. The global problematic of our time demands no less.

- Originally submitted to “Initiate the Future“, July 10th 2010.

I am the last to speak against engaging leadership and a platform of progress, yet charisma means nothing if it does not lead to action that repairs the damage to rule of law, individual liberty and global peace that has been so ruthlessly violated over this past administration. The danger is that we become so engaged in the catharsis of change, that we accept a superficial difference without the fundamental substance that yields true progress. The damage done is huge and the time to repair critically short, as power, once decried from afar, fits the new king as snugly as the old.

Yet, I am optimistic for a number of reasons. First, I believe the American system is developed enough that the vital institutions will largely self-correct, at least back to pre-Sept 11 standards. Increased economic and military competition from regional powers and new pressures to transform environmentally, socially and technologically, will force the U.S. to innovate to survive. Historically America has been well geared for such change, and I feel that institutions will strengthen through their pragmatic use. Simply put, they can no longer afford to divorce their ideology from reality, and reality has come crashing back in.

Second, there’s Dr B.B. Obama’s Lucky-Time Changey McHope Juice. Ok, I have to admit I’ve also been drinking the cool aid on this one. Although it’s true that the measure of success needs to be made from a critical review of actions once in the Presidency, it is at least a very good sign that Obama looks like the critical-thinking, humanistic, reflective and persuasive leader that the U.S. needs, and that the rest of us need the U.S. to have. Politically, he will have a massive grass roots support base and a majority in Washington- a combination that promises hefty potential for reform. Policy analysis is a topic beyond the scope of this piece, but apart from following the traditional line of uncritical support for Israel, and the radioactive complexity of Iraq policy, his policy positions seem to resonate with progressive experts in the field.

Third, I think Australia is an interesting case study, prepared one year earlier. On 3 December 2007, Kevin Rudd was sworn in as the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, ending the 11 year rule of John Howard’s conservative government. Rudd’s first official act, was to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In February Rudd fulfilled an election promise to apologise to Indigenous Australians for the stolen generation as the parliament’s first order of business. In April he held the Australia 2020 Summit, bringing together 1000 leading Australians to discuss ten areas the government saw as critical for Australia’s future development. And some days ago his government announced an overhaul of the horrific Australian asylum policy which prevented asylum seekers from landing on Australian soil and sent them instead to detention centres on small Pacific islands. These would-be immigrants were kept indefinitely, in legal limbo, and at their own expense. Changes to this policy means that the burden of proving a specific asylum seeker is a risk to Australian society now falls on the government, that the policy will not apply to children, and that cases of around 380 people currently in detention will be reviewed. Rapid and continuing changes of this type should form a litmus test for evaluating Rudd and indeed Obama and his promising administration.

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“This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable – though much less certain – that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.”

The letter speaks of two rising worlds- the new field of subatomic physics that had been revealed in the last 40 years and a new enemy in Nazi Germany who had already seized power in Austria and part of the Czech Republic. The two worlds would be inseparably flung together, in a reaction that would change the world.

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This touches a lot of nerves in Australia- where much of society has the sneaking suspicion that conservative Islam is fundamentally misogynistic and merely hides this aspect from broader Australian society- which considers itself quite egalitarian.

The Sermon

The following are extracts from Sheik Taj Din al-Hilaly‘s controversial sermon given last month, as independently translated by an SBS Arabic expert.

“When it comes to adultery, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”

“But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it.”

“If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn’t roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it.”

“Satan sees women as half his soldiers. You’re my messenger in necessity, Satan tells women you’re my weapon to bring down any stubborn man. There are men that I fail with. But you’re the best of my weapons.”

“The woman was behind Satan playing a role when she disobeyed God and went out all dolled up and unveiled and made of herself palatable food that rakes and perverts would race for. She was the reason behind this sin taking place.”

The Context

His comments have caused outrage in media and society such that a group of senior Muslim leaders from the Lakemba Mosque met to review a transcript of the sermon and if action should be taken against Hilaly. They accepted his claim that his comments were taken out of context.

The context they refer to was the Sydney gang rapes in 2000- in which a group of up to fourteen Lebanese Australian men kidnapped and repeatedly raped “white Australian” women on at least five occasions. The crimes, led by the then 19 year old Bilal Skaf, were described as “racially motivated hate crimes” saw blanket media coverage, the passing of new laws, and over 240 years in jail time handed out to nine men.

In Hilaly’s speech he referred to woman dressing temptingly, “Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.” The implication to the Skaf case is clear and precipitated massive outburst from the broader community.

Hilaly and other senior Muslims were quick to reposition his speech, stating that he was referring to adultery, not rape. I believe even in context of adultery the broader Australian community rejects Hilaly’s notions, feeling they are fundamentally mysoginistic and against the liberal individualistic society we have built.

The Egyptian-born Hilaly has a history of controvery, as a holocaust denier, supporter of suicide bombers and has decried Muslim leaders who criticised Muslims who blindly follow the faith and failed to question the veracity of the Koran. It seems he is a religious psychotic- evidencing a dangerous detachment from the external reality and sense of self-importance.

“After midday prayers today, the sheik was besieged by a group of reporters who asked him whether he would bow to demands and quit. The Islamic clergyman smiled and shook his head, saying in English: “After we clean the world of the White House first.”

There are fundamentalists in more local churches and mosques in Australia- however the problem in this case is much amplified given that Sheikh Hilaly is self styled as Grand Mufti of Australia and New Zealand. (Supported by the largely Arab Muslim community in New South Wales- but not recognised by the Turkish and Albanian Imams of Victoria). A Grand Mufti is a social/political postion- as is the Archbishop of Sydney- and his words and viewpoints have broader ramifications for both Australian Muslims and the the image of Islam in broader Australian society.

Our Prime Minister, John Howard, addressed this point with less than subtle direction-

“What I am saying to the Islamic community is this: If they do not resolve this matter, it could do lasting damage to the perceptions of that community within the broader Australian community. “If it is not resolved, then unfortunately people will run around saying, ‘Well, the reason they didn’t get rid of him is because secretly some of them support his views’.” Sydney Morning Herald

His statements are predictive- or perhaps even self-fulfilling- and evidence a conflict that is deeply embedded in Australian society. How does a liberal society deal liberally with minority communities who reject liberalism?

400 years ago, in the response to the ideological challenge of the Protestant Reformation, Pope Gregory XV created the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) a Papal arm responsible for fostering the spread of religious ideology in Europe and the new colonies. It is from this body that we draw the term propaganda- “that which ought to be spread”. What exactly ought to be spread has differed across history as those welding power have changed- from our theocratic beginnings, rising nationalist sentiment, the political ideologies of the Cold War, and into the post 9-11 world of Terrorism, Sovereignty and the Clash of Civilizations. All are ideological battles perpetuated by various elites- seeking to shape the hearts, minds and actions of the public through any combination of emotion and intellect- fear and solidarity- salvation and security.

Yet, they consciously perpetuate a culture of fear around this unknown, unpredictable evil. Furthermore, this culture actually supports terrorist methods. It amplifies the terror of past acts by maintaining focus and the emotional hype around them and builds frightful anticipation for the future, heightening the terror of any myriad of possible acts.

Living with Murder?

Terrorism is inevitable- it will always exist (or at least until our Eden/Nirvana/Jetsons style world is eventually actualised). It was present in 1st century Roman Empire when Zealots struck down rich collaborators and others who were friendly to the Romans in a fierce and unrelenting terror campaign in the eastern Mediterranean. It was present in early 20th Century United States as the Ku Klux Klan tried to establish a culture of fear to promote their white supremist ideology. It has been a recurring theme in the latter 20th Century, and will continue well beyond our lives. Terrorism has always happened, and in a free society, will always happen. As demonstrated in the above graphic it has a very limited “real” impact and one that should not challenge the values and institutions of western civilisation. Yet our values and institutions are being changed- not because of terrorism but because of the culture of fear that has been perpetuated in it’s name.

Terrorism exists – just as homicide exists. We need to understand it and address it rationally, without fear that we are going to be taken hostage or blown up in the sky. There seems to be two ways this can happen. Either through apathy- or through exploration. Apathy tries to cut off terrorism at its emotional root- we stop caring about the actions; turn inwards, become more parochial. I find this approach quite dehumanising and potentially dangerous, not only that it might result in terrorists seeking more and more shocking actions but that it would remove an important fail safe for an open society. If people are willing to kill themselves to bring attention to a cause- then history suggests that cause, and the conditions and motivation that lead to the actions, deserves enquiry at the very least.

Through exploration we would seek to understand the motives and rationale for terrorist actions and address the conditions that forge them. I do not believe these core conditions are ideological; I believe this “Clash of Civilisations” is itself part of the propaganda. This ideological conflict merely distracts us from the real conditions in which we live and attempts to convince us that our brothers are not our brothers. I believe that through education, economic development, responsible leadership and empowered individuals and institutions we will find real solutions to our social problems. Real solutions that do not hang only the air of ideology- but cut to very heart of our reality. This is no time for the Noble Lie, now we must call upon the simple truth.

On the Island of Jura, Scotland for most of year Nineteen Forty-Eight, one of the geniuses of the 20th century, George Orwell, wrote his masterwork. The novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” describes a “totalitatian dystopia”- or a scenario where the government has absolute control of a system in which people are living nightmarish existences. Part of its genius is the envisioning of the totalitarian communist state that would shape much of the later half of the century. Another equal accomplishment is in it’s description of how peoples thinking, their culture and even their experience of consiousness could be controlled through changing language. In this grey landscape Orwell demonstrates Newspeak- an adapted language to remove the the ability to conceptualize revolution, and lead people to what is called doublethink- described as

“the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary.” 1984

Changes in the US cultural landscape in the last five or so years has shown a marked change of language. One of the saddest casualities is the bastardisation of “freedom”. The encroachment of imperialism upon this high held value is sickening and the world will long pay the nausea. It is now unacceptable to the liberal mind that “freedom” is worth fighting for, that it is an inalienable right to rally around. Another is the “culture of life”- which is a rebranding of anti-abortionism, rather than say, finding out how we can limit the destruction of the species that form life. Hell, I would have settled for an old timey harvest-moon festival.

Scientists, like most of those guided by the light of reason, have not featured much on centre stage and mostly left this politico-cultural transformation. Until recently that is. Fundamentalists in the US have been trying to get some doublethink happening around “Evolution”. This pisses of scientists big time, as evolution is basically the underlying mechanism of genetics and broader biology. The attempt at doublethink gets them going even more now they find they’re being labelled, not as scientist but “evolutionary theorists”. So whats the wrap? The argument runs a bit like this-

• Evolution. It’s just a theory, right? The “Theory of Evolution”?
• This theory has some randomness in it right? (ie random selection, mutation etc etc)
• I have another theory. It is that stuff is hella complex, no ways a random theory could make such complex stuff.
• Thus my theory says there must be an intelligent designer of this complexity thats guiding the creation, not this random natural selection.

OK- old timey creationism vs evolution. By the by it’s called “the teleological argument“, an argument for the existence of God based on supposed evidence of design in nature”. Scientists all say “no ways” don’t try and misuse science to justify your own assumptions about God, and so it has been argued out for well over two centuries. And also reasonably well buried as an “issue of faith”. But what is interesting is in the current rehash of the argument, is it follows with

• Hey, these are both theories, right?
• As you scientists must agree, “Objectivity results from the use of the scientific method without philosophic or religious assumptions in seeking answers to the question?” (intelligentdesignnetwork)
• Then let’s teach both these theories in school, nay, in Biology class. For the good of objectivity and… of the children who really are, the future of science.
  

At this time something special happens. Scientists Power Up. If they were transformers they would have formed a giant robot by now.
“Enough! You may question and misrepresent our most proven concepts, ignoring the fossil record and reams of genetic data, you may abuse the common understanding of the word “theory”, you may snidely claim the objectivity to which we have devoted our discoveries … but not in Biology class”.
They are pissed. It’s their Israel-Palestine and they’re not letting go. This is not doublethink at the edge, in some relative environment of opinion and gossip. This is doublethink in the pure light of reason and experiment. This is the “denial of the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies” (1984).

Well that give us the last of the three principles of the totallitarian government described in Nineteen Eighty-Four. “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”. And I think we are already familiar with the first, “WAR IS PEACE”. Which leaves only “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY”. And with so purchasing and electoral options, flavours and forms of entertainment, how could this be slavery?

“In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science.’ The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc (the guiding philosophy).” 1984

For the lowdown on evolution from a real scientist try Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford.