What Fight of the Century?

Devlin Brown

Digital editor

@ DevlinMarkBrown

There is no such thing as the Fight of the Century. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao boxed in front of millions: it was another day, another payday. Humanity infuses moments with value, but those moments are fleeting and cynicism follows disappointment when hype is not matched by reality.

Some of the disillusionment included digs at Mayweather, with critics declaring him favourite for the Comrades Marathon – as no one can run like him. His fans waxed lyrical about his finesse and skill and declared him the greatest of his generation. However, it was certainly not the fight of the century. The PR folk hyped it and the boxers smiled all the way to the bank.

The fight was a metaphor for life. There is no such thing as the fight of the century in real life. As South Africans we tend to get caught up in hype, declaring the end of the world too often. How many times have we read lately of moments being seminal in the unravelling of the country?

The history of this country is dotted with massive moments – Sharpeville, 1976 Soweto uprising, Chris Hani’s assassination, Nelson Mandela beneath a military flyover declaring “Never, never and never again”, patriotic sporting victories, Marikana, Eskom, parliamentary fisticuffs, Nkandla, xenophobia. Each deserves all the airtime it gets – but it is not an island, a single hinge from which the country will swing to either success or failure. Being so caught up in the motions of the moment we lose track of the bigger picture.

When someone embarks on a fitness or weightloss transformation they must focus on the bigger picture; getting derailed by day-to- day distractions and binges will result in failure. They must take note of individual setbacks, take steps to mitigate against these and draw up a plan to prevent them from happening again. They need focused attention on the goal.

South Africa is on a massive, massive transformation journey and each triumph and setback, both big and small, needs to be addressed. Feel the emotion, react, mitigate and plan to prevent the same failures happening again.

South Africa’s great transformation journey is the emancipation of all who live here. True leadership, honesty, accountability, education, health, housing, and economic opportunities for everyone are some of the tools that will assure success.

Violence; racism; corruption; lack of accountability; ambivalence; arrogance and bigotry: these are the sinkholes for people who run this country in both government and the private sector; these result in suffering, failure, death and the maintenance of the status quo.

There are many battles – some will be won and some lost. But every battle takes this complex and unique country closer to its goal of transformation, inclusiveness and prosperity.

We can, and should, feel the emotion of the moment, but being duped by hype and losing focus will only result in a payday for those trying to convince us all is well in the running of the country, that everything is under control – it is not.

Similarly, it is not the end of our constitutional democracy or the end of the Rainbow Nation: scare mongering is the effective jab that has kept South Africans against the ropes.

There is no fight of the century, just another 12 rounds. Let’s get ready to rumble.