# We’ve failed this city
MICHAEL MONTY
history. Yet no one seemed to be doing anything to bring those girls back.
What did these two supposed “activism” campaigns give us? Nothing but a couple of million videos of people getting wet… and a hashtag that doesn’t mean much anymore.
Some people say that simply raising awareness is all they can do. And with the world becoming more and more fastpaced, it’s hard not to accept this. And I have witnessed it, as well.
I can no longer spend as much time with my dad as I used to because he’s constantly working late. My mother is constantly putting in extra hours to help the children at her school. But then you get some people who believe that other people’s problems are exactly that. Other. People’s. Problems. What we don’t realise is that the wheel is round. That we will reap what we sow unto others.
Pastor Martin Niemoller, an anti-Nazi activist during World War II showed us the true horror of being selfish.
“Because when they came for the Socialists, I did not help out because… I was not a Socialist.
“Then they came for the Communists, and I did not help out because… I was not a Communist.
“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not help out because… I was not a Jew.
“Then they came for me… and there was no one left to help me.”
What we don’t realise is that when we have the power to stop bad things from happening, but let them happen anyway… those bad things happen because of you.
And this world, our fragile little blue one, needs something more. It needs something more than likes, hashtags and tweets. It needs something Pastor Martin Niemoller summed up what happened when people failed to act in Nazi Germany. more than lip service. It needs something more than one more generation watching the world go by.
And our destiny as “born frees” is to become one more generation watching the world idly go by – and its killing us.
Yet here I stand before you, a hypocrite, for I have done the same. I have fallen victim to the latest trends, jumped on the bandwagon and lost my humanity along the way. This can only mean one thing… That I have failed this city. And there’s no easy solution to this problem, but I’m going to ask you to start, simply.
I ask you to help that guy at the back of your class with his homework, or get involved through outreach programmes through the Durban Youth Council, or anyone else.
But, most important, I ask you to put your money where your mouth is. To start actually helping out a cause rather than idly supporting it. I ask you to start helping people, not because you’re getting something out of it, but because they are your fellow human.
Do it for humanity. I NEED a Hero. In 1980 Bonnie Tyler released a song titled I Need a Hero. Thirty-six years later the lyrics seem more appropriate than ever. Where have all the good men gone? And where are all the Gods? Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
June 16, 1976: schoolchildren in Soweto stood up against the ruling for them to learn in Afrikaans, gaining international media attention and bringing the country to its knees.
I’m sure most people can agree this was the turning point of apartheid. Although we have many adults to thank who gave up their best years to fight for freedom, it was those schoolchildren’s courage and willingness to die for what they believed in that turned the heads of the media all over the world, contributing to changing the course that the country was on.
It was that drive, determination and unity that helped them succeed and it was then that the children of South Africa understood the power that they possessed to influence the country.
Thirty-nine years later, last year, an announcement that tertiary fees would increase by over 10 percent sparked outrage, igniting many student protests across the country and shutting down universities for days. Shortly after, a zero percent increase was announced and the country celebrated, but it only escalated from there.
Soon students started demanding all their debt be cleared and that they study for free, then the protests were no longer peaceful and became 36 years ago Bonnie Tyler said I need a hero. It still rings true today. violent. We saw the lines of a racial divide. Where did we go wrong? Fees Must Fall lost the plot, we lost the message… we lost direction.
And that is the first problem. The power that the youth possess today seems to have no direction.
We have a history of coming together in desperate times, but now we have become fragmented.
Some of us are caught up in our personal struggles, keeping our heads down and our voices low, just trying to make it through school.
Others have their heads up, their fists up, fighting for anything and everything. Maybe this is because times have changed and problems have multiplied and evolved and we all deal with things differently, which leads to the second issue.
It appears as if we don’t know what we are fighting for.
As Bonnie Tyler sang: Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds? When we protest, we begin with a goal, but somewhere in the struggle we lose sight of what brought us there in the first place.
To make an example of the university protests, they have good intentions to make access to tertiary education available for all, but at some point people started damaging university property.
By not keeping sight of the end goal we end up hindering the cause. It’s important that we keep questioning what we are fighting for, and there is one component that is needed to make sure that happens, which leads me to the third problem: leadership.
The lack of direction has to do with a lack of good leadership. Where have all the good men gone?
Starting at the top, our president stumbles from one crisis to another, leaving our youth leaders without a good role model – for example the very opinionated and controversial Julius Malema.
Malema makes a lot of valid points, but that is often overshadowed by his constant disruptiveness in Parliament and displays of hate speech. His message gets lost in the execution.
We need to ask ourselves whether young people fail the system or whether they are failed by the system. We need to create good leadership through platforms and forums where we are exposed to what is going on and learn how to take in all the information and make calculated, educated decisions.
The Youth Voices Conference, which was created by the youth for the youth, is one such platform for us to engage outside of the academic environment and listen to other points of view on key issues that affect us.
We need young people with an understanding of what is happening, who are brave, focused and who have vision, people who are going to unite us.
Going back to I Need a Hero, Tyler says “she’s holding out for a hero”. Thirty-six years after this song’s release, we, South Africa, lost a hero in Nelson Mandela and are now searching for a new kind of hero. But maybe we need to stop searching for one and become the hero ourselves.
I don’t believe that we currently have that leader, that hero. But one thing we all have is potential. And once we develop and unlock that potential, we can develop solid leadership and ultimately direction and unity.
With direction and unity we can focus our power and achieve the goals we set out to achieve.
We can have access to education for all, a decent and humane standard of living for all, we can empower each other. We are the masses, we have the influence, we are the future and we can be the heroes.