From Personal Wounds to Public Solutions — Why South Africa Must Protect Young Minds

From Personal Wounds to Public Solutions By Mr Lisulenkosi Khuzwayo

When I share my ideas for South Africa, people sometimes misread them as forceful or controlling. The truth is, my political insights are forged in lived experience, empathy, and a refusal to let others endure the harms I witnessed firsthand. Where others see policy debates, I see real wounds that demand practical safeguards.

Take my advocacy for restricting alcohol advertising in high-impact public spaces — for example, around OR Tambo International Airport and near student institutions. I’m not calling for prohibition; I’m calling for targeted limits on the normalisation of substances in places that shape young minds and national identity. That approach is consistent with past South African regulatory efforts: the Draft Liquor Amendment Bill (2016) proposed new restrictions on advertising and availability to curb alcohol harm, though it has not yet become law. Government of South Africa+1

Globally, public-health authorities support upstream measures to reduce exposure to alcohol marketing. The World Health Organisation recommends restricting alcohol availability and advertising as cost-effective actions to protect young people and public health; comprehensive advertising restrictions are recognised as an effective component of prevention. World Health Organization+1 Recent policy momentum and renewed proposals in 2025 show there is a growing public and political appetite to revisit these measures. BusinessTech

Why this matters to me in particular: I saw what alcohol did to my family. It fuelled abuse, catalysed my parents’ divorce, and thickened long-running conflicts. Alcohol in my life story is not a neutral pastime; it is a force that damaged the foundations of home and dignity. When I press for stricter limits on promotion in sensitive zones, it is because preventing normalisation can reduce exposure and risk for the next generation — a preventive stance informed by evidence and lived experience.

My commitment to constitutionalism and due process springs from another wound: the injustice I lived through at school. At Kearsney College, I was abruptly removed from boarding, labelled “high-risk”, and described in terms that did not reflect any formal offence. I was forced to see a therapist to be declared “fit” for boarding, and that two-week process coincided with my preliminary exams — a timing that damaged my academic record and invited assumptions of incompetence from others. Returning to a home that accepted the school’s misrepresentation compounded the harm. These were not merely personal indignities; they revealed how institutional power can silence and reframe a young person’s life.

Our courts have also recognised the need for procedural fairness in educational exclusions. The Constitutional Court has held that private schools must afford parents and learners a meaningful opportunity to be heard before exclusionary decisions that could impair access to education, and earlier jurisprudence has emphasised that arbitrary exclusions can violate dignity and equality rights. These rulings show that enforceable mechanisms — mandatory hearings, evidence-based decision-making, and appeals processes — are not just good practice; they are constitutional guardrails that could have changed my trajectory. SAFLII+1

So yes, my proposals may sound sharp; my words may feel heavy. But they are born of empathy, not arrogance. They come from the refusal to let others suffer the same wounds I have carried. By anchoring my advocacy in both personal testimony and legal and public-health precedent, I aim to move from grievance to workable reform: targeted advertising limits in sensitive spaces, robust procedural protections in schools, and policy design that privileges prevention and dignity over spectacle and profit.

At the heart of it all is this truth: I am not advocating control. I am advocating protection, fairness, and dignity. These principles are not only political—they are personal. Grounded in precedent and evidence, they are also achievable. Let us, together, translate lived truth into civic action and build a South Africa that shields the vulnerable while extending opportunity to all.