Listening to the silent majority

[99]

The subject of training South African youth for a post-apartheid nation regularly surfaced in almost all the conversations I had with blacks. The general secretary of the Western Cape Council of Churches told me that they had set up a Youth Office because of the importance of youth to the Church of God. Bishop Siyolo: ‘Jesus himself said, “Let the children come to me and do not stop them, because the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these,” a text you will find in Matthew 19:14. We established several goals,’ he said. ‘We want to teach children the correct way of receiving God as Lord of their lives. Our office intends teaching children why it is important to obey their parents. We see the Lord's commandments in Exodus 20:12 as still valid for the youth of today: “Respect your father and your mother, so that you may live a long time in the land that I am giving to you.” The youth must know that they will be very important for the future of South Africa. They must be taught how to build, how to handle things and not take part in destroying their own and their parents' futures by taking part in senseless violence. Therefore, they must be taught how to live in the spirit of God and not allow the evil spirit of destruction and violence to control their lives. The council considers education as vitally important for children. The council is trying to establish a high school in Crossroads. We will encourage children not to leave school before they have completed their courses. A child that attends school up to matric will more easily find work and will also be able to teach fellow students in lower classes. The council also believes that well-educated young people will have better-developed minds and therefore will be better equipped to recognize bad influences and people with bad intentions. There are many evil people in South Africa today who try to influence the minds of youths towards violence, really only using young people for their own revolutionary purposes. The better our youths are educated, the less they will be influenced by those with bad and destructive purposes.’