Time to rise and build
THAT a national leader and a Member of Parliament has the wisdom to see what is needed in the present moment and to call leaders across the spectrum and say “let us come and build South Africa”, is evidence of strength and good leadership.
Bantu Holomisa, the leader of the UDM, was absolutely correct to call for a convention of leaders (“It is now or never – leaders in SA can no longer wait to act”, DD April 19). It is never a weakness to acknowledge a problem. It is the start of looking for a way to address it.
It would indeed be a good thing for a collective leadership to look back on the good things that have been delivered over the years, the lessons learnt in achieving those good things and to consider how best we, as a nation, can emulate those best practices for building and moving South Africa forward.
In the same space, it will also be important to look squarely into the eye of the failures and learn from those too.
If responded to correctly, a failure can provide a good lesson. It can give the country an opportunity to do things differently.
The space in which we now find ourselves as South Africans, provides an opportunity for leaders to rise up across all spectrums and, as a collective, call the nation to the great mission of building our country and move it forward in strength and in unity.
Without even going into the logistics of the process, I give Mr Holomisa my full support for having made this call.
The convention should not be used as point scoring or cheap political finger pointing, but be an honest assessment by various leaders of our journey as a nation, premised on patriotism and love for God’s people.
Surely, credit must go to the ANC which, with the mandate of the majority of South African voters, has steered the country in the face of daunting challenges since the dawn of democracy.
The ANC has bestowed great leaders upon this nation and demonstrated fine stewardship. South Africa is a complex society and surely anyone at the helm of such a country, would be bound to face many challenges. If not handled with care these would tarnish the image of any organisation, as is now the case with the ANC.
The ANC surely never set out to fail the nation, but due to some weaknesses expressed through leadership, it now faces a barrage of criticism from all angles and has lost its once shining image.
This is the reason for looking afresh at the affairs and challenges facing our land, as has been suggested by Mr Holomisa.
How I hope the call for a national con vention receives favourable support from progressive voices and bodies in our country and also from the structures of the governing party, as well as the veterans of the ANC who are able to offer wise guidance.
The suggestion by Mr Holomisa should not be seen as act of opposition to the ruling party, but rather as an act of patriotism by a national leader in the interests, not only of the constituency which he represents in parliament, but of all South Africans.
As the former ANC leader and president Thabo Mbeki recently pointed out on these pages, MPs are not there to serve the interests of their parties, but are deployed by their parties to represent the people.
Mr Holomisa’s noble initiative may not see the light of the day if the governing party does not buy into it. Resources are obviously needed. Perhaps through our International Relations Department, South Africa could seek sponsorship for facilitating the convention from the SADC secretariat.
We could ask our Chief Justice to chair the proceedings in collaboration with SADC’s secretariat.
Such a group could, through parliament, the house of elected representatives of the people, craft terms of reference for the convention, including a mandate for going around the country to consult people through formal structures, in business, labour, at centres of higher learning, youth, church, legal fraternals, civic bodies and more to ensure everyone is somehow covered.
In South Africa we hold fast to the precedent we have of solving our challenges through dialogue and negotiations, as was the case in the birth of the democracy we enjoy today. South Africans, the time to build our country is now.
Kenneth Macibela lives in East London