Of The FNB Ads And The ANCYL Reaction

South African bank FNB released a couple of ads in the last few days which have upset the powers-that-be, well the political ones.

The ads, under a campaign called You can help depict young people speaking rather disparagingly about the state of South Africa and then offering the best solutions they can come up with. In one of them a participant says:

Stop voting for the same government in hopes for change – instead, change your hopes to a government that has the same hopes as us.

The ANC and its allies, the ANC Youth League and the SACP have had nothing kind to say about the adverts, calling them ‘treacherous’, ‘commeriual masquerading as youth views’, ‘undisguised political statement that makes random and untested accusations against our government in the name of discourse’ among other things.

Look, we expect that reaction from the ANC and the SACP but for the ANCYL to go against the right for youths to express themselves is disappointing. Perhaps the ANCYL believes it and only it can speak on behalf of the youth and anyone who feels disenfranchised must engage it and no-one else.

Now one is not necessarily saying that FNB ads are the right way to go. They are not necessarily the best people to be about these things. Having said that, these young children would have nowhere with that reach to express those views without that platform.

When you really look at it, are the ads attacking the ANC alone? Some of them are a call to society as a whole to take more responsibility for what is going on and become the solutions to the problems in that country.

The ANCYL which was firebrand for a while until last year is perhaps trying to cower the favour of the establishment by backing it.

Maybe it is just the Adam syndrome… It is always easier to blame anyone or anything except yourself when there is a problem. He blamed God right? If you believe in that sort of things.

Click here to check out one of the ads below and tell us what you think.