South Africa must grow up, recognise its potential and then take its rightful place in the World.

To do so, South Africans would need to realise that, the most important people in our country are not those standing at Podiums making the most noise. The most important people in our country are those who work in shacks, in garages and mud houses trying to come up with innovations, inventions and organizations that will transform the entire society.

The important people must recognise their importance and not be overwhelmed by the blunders of those who occupy News Paper headlines, those who make it to Prime TV news and those who manage to make it to some of the top radio shows.

To build a winning nation, we will have to first accept what we can’t change and face what we can change and change it.

It was a weakness of Humans to obsess about what they can’t change and ignore entirely what they can change for the better and in essence what they need to change.

The greatest place to start in effecting change is to change self, change self in thinking and action.

All South Africans who thus far claimed to care about the country, must be hard on themselves and expect the best contribution from themselves for the country.

Would it not be so interesting to see some of the critics in politics and government critic themselves and reviewing their impact in making South Africa work.

There are a few things that we would need to accept about South Africa. The first is that, politics are undesirable, but unavoidable, the second thing is that, South Africa’s political leadership as is now, it’s off the mark and out of tune with the aspirations of the people of South Africa and lastly that, South Africans need to device a new and better way to make South Africa a winning country.

The reality is that, South Africa faces a crisis of off the mark succession plans. That means that, if we have to be honest, it is mainly the Yes Man of former leaders who are now in leadership. It is therefore not fair to over criticise the incumbent leadership, they are merely beneficiaries of flawed succession plans.

We must accept all that and quietly begin to work.
South Africa is likely to face turmoil as it searches for leaders and shaking off the managers that we currently have in leadership.

Are we as the citizens ready to scrutinise ourselves, our own contribution and our present and future roles in South Africa.
It was time that, South African organisations in business, civil society, academia and politics, reconsiders their relevance in taking South Africa forward. The role of all this sections of Society Must be re-assessed.

South Africa must be able to hunt for leaders in all corners of our society and not only in politics. Therefore it was crucial that, all sections of our society become socially active to build a winning nation.

Our electoral system and how politics play themselves in South Africa must begin to be debated. Political parties must begin to re-assess their own processes of electing leaders and deploying people to government.

It was undesirable for example for a political party to be fixated only at its members when it chooses people to lead government. It was possible that, there might not be a credible candidate in a political party to be President of the Country; such party must free itself to be able to fish in the entire country for a credible leader of the country.

Every South African count, especially if we are to make South Africa a winning nation.

It was time that, South Africans in various professions aim to lead the world in their various professions. It was no longer good enough to work to accumulate wealth, but it was time that, South Africans begin a process that will make the World take them seriously.

The world will take us serious based on how well is the off the podium section of our society doing. How good are our engineers, how great are our doctors, how effective is our teachers etc.

The South African Small business community must be innovative and dazzle the world. Since Africa has more problems, it time that, Africans become innovative and in solving this problems.

Our habit of exporting problems for them to be solved somewhere else must stop. Our habit of accepting problems as who we are, must come to an end, there must be innovation in solving the problems our society face and the problems we ourselves face.

We must hold government accountable, but we must not be crippled by our criticism of government.

We must also not allow our culture blind us from seeing problems, some of the ancient cultural practices could be holding us back. We must begin to re-assess that.

The point in case for a problematic cultural practice is polygamy.

A good example of that is the President of the Republic Mr JG Zuma. It is a well-known fact that, he slept with an HIV/AIDS infected young lady without a condom and yet, he is in a polygamous marriage. All of his wife’s were then exposed to a risk of being infected.

The President himself faces multiple dangers as his various Wife’s could commit the same offence, one of his did do that with body guard.

This is the hardest hitting example of outdate cultural practices, that are a danger to a modern society.

So we must continuously reassess ourselves.

Our individual contribution to our society is as important, our contribution does not have to be televised to make a difference.

Let us give ourselves selflessly to our country and build a country that future generations would be proud of. We as well are proud of the generations that past; it was time that we do our bit in those shacks, garages and mud-houses, let the best ideas emanate from that RDP house. Let the world be transformed from a Shack.

If we want to be hard, let us be hard on ourselves and expect the very best out of ourselves and I believe, the prosperity of our country will be guaranteed.

Written by Sefu Sekgala
President of Association of Self Sustainable communities (ASC)
Cell: 072 090 4906
Tel: 012 320 4550
Fax: 086 613 4840
Email: sefu@asconline.co.za
Web: www.asconline.co.za