Revisiting Sekhukhuneland: Trajectories of Former UDF Activists in Post- Apartheid South Africa

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Revisiting Sekhukhuneland: Trajectories of Former UDF Activists in Post- Apartheid South Africa

Ineke van Kessel, African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands Revisiting Sekhukhuneland: trajectories of former UDF activists in post- apartheid South Africa This paper traces the careers and changing world views of former activists of the Sekhukhuneland Youth Organisation (SEYO) over the period 1990-2010. SEYO, a rural youth organisation founded in the Lebowa Bantustan (in the then Northern Transvaal) during the 1980s, was one of several hundred youth congresses affiliated to the United Democratic Front. In 1990-91, I interviewed youth activists in Sekhukhuneland about their role in the liberation struggle and their interpretations of South African society.1 At that time, youth leadership interpreted society in Marxist-Leninist terms, mixed with elements of local belief systems. My present research explores how their lives have changed over the past 20 years, which career patterns have evolved, whether the comrades’ network is still functional and how former activists have interpreted changes in South African society. It is part of a wider follow-up project on the collective biography of UDF activists after the disbanding of the Front in 1991. The follow-up involves three case studies (Sekhukhuneland, Kagiso township and the Cape Flats) as well as the UDF’s national leadership. Most SEYO activists have followed a career in local, district or provincial government, while some have gone into teaching or –exceptionally- business. Some are still actively involved in the ANC, but quite a few have lost interest. How do former youth activists make sense of contemporary South Africa: mission accomplished or the revolution betrayed? 1 Ineke van Kessel, Beyond our Wildest Dreams: the United Democratic Front and the Transformation of South Africa. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2000. .

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