Ekwealor Chinedu Thomas' speech on World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD) event.

An address by comrade EKWEALOR, Chinedu Thomas on the occasion of the Annual commemoration of the World Youth Democracy Day, University of KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg Campus, South Africa, 18 October 2011

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN),
The Institute for Democracy in Africa SA (IDASA),
The Africa Democracy Forum (ADF)
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
The Students Representative Councils (SRCs)
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlmen

It is in the names of all the martyrs, heroes and heroines of our never-ending struggle to create a better democracy for all countries that I welcome you to this annual event of the World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD). We are here to evaluate the progress we have made as youth and to develop necessary modalities on how successful inclusion of the youth in the national leadership and governance of all democratic countries in the world must be made. As you may have known, the theme of this event is: ignite change. It is designed primarily to highlight the irregularities and oddities that are fast becoming a tradition in the present day democracies all over the world. Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary defines democracy as the government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercise by them; a state of society characterised by nominal equality of rights and privileges.
Accordingly, it is our observation that the current definition of democracy is underprovided. Hence, it is our intent to redefine democracy in this gathering so that it relates to the government of the youth, and becomes a reality that obtains in the current international system. Democracy in our view is the government of an independent sovereign state, administered by the youth of that state through compartmentalisation of all interests and obliteration of political deprivations and economic marginalisation of the population. It is our conviction that no meaningful headway can be made with the proliferation of the present variegated forms of democracy in the world. Hence, we insist that the world leaders must make the genuine sacrifices and necessary concessions needed to ensure the survival and sustenance of a uniformed and real democracy for all people of the world.
Democracy is an inclusive model of regime. However, it is selective in its present configuration. It does not allow the youth to lead their countries; it precipitates conflicts and condones wars, tolerates corruption and promotes the old tired cliché that the youth are the leaders of tomorrow. The dignity of labour is recycled to the dustbin. Smuggling, drug trafficking and prostitution have become the common place of young people in the world. Little or no value is placed on the life of the youth under the present democracy. In our view, the present democracy has deprived the youth and is certainly not democratic. I am particularly amazed at the reasoning of democratic countries that legalized abortion and prostitution yet cosset in HIV/AIDS campaigns. Lending legitimacy to abortion by the state, does not only represent a sincere hypocrisy devoid of any moral glory and democratic accolade but also ineluctably contradicts the AIDS campaign.
This is how it is also true, that most democratic states have arrested from the streets, jobless youth and incarcerated us on the account of loitering. The same democracies have more young people in the jails than their universities can ever enroll. These social departures are norms in some countries that call themselves democracy today. We know democracy, and these vices have no place in democratic regime. No one of us is the president of all the democratic states that lack in transparency and prudence in public resource management yet the youth are the direct sufferer of these maladministrations which has confined us to the street corners of our relevant countries. It is our conviction that democracy do not kill, it governs and protects. However, democracy kills in the continents: of Asia, North and South America, Africa, and in Europe. WYMD is for democracy that is averse to cruelty against humanity.
Palestinians continued craving for independence and democracy since their asymmetrical encounter with Israel but have suffered combined support of neglect and exploitation by democratic states. France, Britain and United States symbolic Paris celebration of the emergence of a rebel leadership in Libya only reminds young Africans of the event of 1884 in Berlin, Germany, an occasion that ensured that entire Africa was parceled to Europe. The overnight recognition of the rebels as a legitimate Libyan government also makes us suspicious of crusaders of democracy. One of us, in his early thirties comrade Chukwunnwa underwent Jewish and Roman trials. He was sentenced to death for reasons that are nameless under democracy. The manner in which he was killed by the state produced deep stripe-like lacerations. This probably set the stage for hypovolemic shock. The major pathophysiologic effect of his assassination was an interference with normal respirations. Accordingly death resulted primarily from hypovolemic shock and exhaustion asphyxia. His death was ensured by the thrust of a soldier’s spear into his side. Yet he was a young man in a democratic state.

One of us used the spear against one of our own. Therefore, Let us resolve in this commemoration that we stand for one democracy that advocates for gun-free states. Many of our members have lost their lives to grenades and bullets on issues that mere diplomacy would have resolved. Let us insist on democracy that believes in diplomatic channels and stand averse to all countries that indulge in the manufacturing of deadly military hardware. Weaponry encourage the syndrome of might is right. Yet democracy abhors violence! The availability of weapon in any democratic state is a democracy aberration. It is only through harmonious democratic co-existence that our diversity can be harnessed to achieve global peace and security. We are aware that some countries have deliberately given themselves to anarchy and lawlessness in the morbid craze for the manufacturing of the latest life taking ammunitions. We therefore, reiterate that the ease of use of arms is eroding many of the gains we have made as youth, democrats and peace agents.
We viewed with pathetic sight, the gruesome development of cacophonies in the lives of the young people of Africa, and salute the courage of the youth who negotiated through demonstrations as a preferred method of expression especially in the north of Africa and let lose the leaders’ strangle-hold on the citizens. We call on youth across the globe to take over leadership of states that do not conform to the democratic norms and values, because those deficient democracies are not valid. It is against this backdrop that we recommend that the old should go back to the universities and supervise students’ research projects, because their roles as managers of people and resources through the state make them misplaced persons.

While we graciously commend the effort of the United Nations in Somalia, we are not proud of the United Nations Security Council’s resolution 1973 in Libya. The suffering and controversy associated with the resolution 1973 and the NATO bombing campaigns in Libya is polarizing the youth. Bombing campaign is a tragic option and can never be a preferred alternative to any peace process. In the light of these inauspicious developments the UN and all regional intergovernmental organisations especially the African Union (AU) must surely examine the essence of their authorities and the extent of their powers when confronted with state and human security paradigms as sadly witnessed in Darfur region of Sudan and in Libya. We are alarmed that since the birth of UN on October 24 1945 that continent of Africa is still without a permanent seat or veto power in the SC. The UNSC in its present constitution is far from being democratic and must reform to include the previously excluded or face resistance and collapse. He/she, who doubts the alternation of day and night, has the burden of prove to bear!
The resolution, especially the (NATO) intervention led by the economic troubled members of Eurozone, does not only undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Libya, but has created a human security paradigm on a very large scale. It involves decimation of human lives and systematic extermination of human values. Majority of our members, through the resolution lost their lives to bombs while the remnants become refugees in their respective places of refuge. We call on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to carefully study the conduct of NATO and make the organisation account for its demeanor in Libya. We disarmed the governments of Egypt and Tunisia without even a single catapult. We encourage the UN, NATO and other regional organisation to avoid any act that results in the deaths of our members and learn from the youth’s non-violent approach towards conflict resolution and transformation in our global society.
Conclusively, it is with a deep sense of sorrow that we extend our condolences to all the victims of Oslo Norway, Somalia, Yemen, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, UN secretariat Abuja, Nigeria and elsewhere where young people, women and children have fallen to the might of weapon. We also mourn the abuse of democracy in the present global system being perpetrated by the leading manufacturers of ammunitions. The movement’s fundamental objective to promote democracy, capacity-building, collaboration and international solidarity in the world super-cedes any other consideration and can never be sacrificed on the altars of superior military armaments or NATO bombing expertise. Thus, beautiful and well intentioned as our programme might be, our effort will amount to nothingness if we fail to live by the fervor that democracy begins and thrives only in a weapon-free state.

Aluta continua! Victoria Acerta!
Thank you all and God bless.