South Africa – Back to where we never left

South Africa has successfully delivered the first Soccer World Cup on African soil, having received a 9 out of 10 from FIFA and a ‘thumbs-up’ from the rest of the world. Sadly, none of the African Countries expect Ghana, made any seriously challenging impact to the tournament that was dubbed the African tournament.

I started asking myself how soccer can be a success if the whole country is not? i.e. if the other spheres of the life of the nation are not in success mode. I asked myself whether we, as a country and a continent, are on a slow building process or are we actually slowly going nowhere?

It then occurred to me that both in South Africa and in the rest of the African continent something is missing. Something fundamental needs to happen and it must start to happen soon.

The change that needs to happen must affect all the spheres of life. I have tried to look at where SA and the rest of the Continent is in the other spheres of life e.g science, art, business (entrepreneurship), intellectual (public thinkers), education, innovation, etc, and sadly, I think we are nowhere near where we should be.

I know in SA we are busy with correcting the wrongs of the past, which has to be done, but that is not enough to make us a successful nation. Sadly I do not see a plan.

A part of me says the current leadership, in all the spheres mentioned above seem to have exhausted all their capabilities. I do not think they are capable of coming up with anything new. It’s time for substitution, to borrow a soccer term. Even a soccer player, considered good, when he seems to be running out of ideas, gets substituted in the interest of the success of the team.

We need fresh faces with new ideas, we need to experiment with new combinations. What we should set out to do, is to build a winning Nation and a wining Continent. It all boils down to leadership.
We need younger people, in fact we need to experiment with young people, with this generation before taking a back seat as mentors. We need a total reconstruction of the country and the Continent.

I would rather spend the next 20 years without success but on the road to a lasting legacy than be confronted by the reality 20 years from now that we still have not started the process.

Where do we start – I do not know. What I do know is that we need people:
1. With energy – it is going to take a lot of effort,
2. Who are ambitious,
3. Who are prepared to take risks and are not bound by the bondage of the past,
4. Who do not owe anybody anything,
5. Enthusiastic- hungry for success,
6. Patriotic – not noise makers who are only concerned about their enrichment,
7. Who really believe in the ability of all South Africans and Africans in general. The belief includes accepting the fact that we are at the bottom, is not God’s creation but our own doing and it can be resolved.

It is in taking into account of the above that I do not think the older generation can ever attempt to deal with the turnaround and the overhauling needed.

Soccer cannot succeed when the whole nation is failing. If we ever needed something done urgently, it is now.