‘THE TRUTH IS THAT WE DON’T JUST NEED NEW POLITICIANS IN THIS COUNTRY... WE NEED AN ENTIRELY NEW FORM OF POLITICS ALTOGETHER...’
After 13 years of optimism and hope, people are finding that no matter how you look at it, there is simply no bush big enough behind which you can hide what is becoming the South African wreck. There is a new sense that it has all frayed too far, that the green and gold banner is unraveling - not strand by strand - but in thick chunks of material that are ripped to the wind.
It is time for change in South Africa, but above all, it is time for students to define that change. For if we don’t act now, a ruling party that is dangerously out of date and an opposition that is hopelessly out of touch will continue to destroy any chance for a country that is almost out of time.
We know that change will take more than anger; it asks for something more relevant that abstract debate or screaming headlines. In fact, we need to return to a politics of common sense and reconciliation.
We need a politics that reconciles individualism with equality; growth with social progress; a politics that understands that there is nothing incompatible between our ancient cultures and international standards of excellence. It is time for us to discard the ridiculous idea that when faced with a tough decision, we can hold either principle or power, but never both.
We need a politics that understands that there is more to this country than just black and white – one that sees the red and the blue, the green and gold – and recognises that our hopes and dreams are shared between us all; that actually, we are not as divided as our headlines imply...
We need a politics with the maturity to balance hope with action, the common sense to distinguish between differences of degree and differences of kind and the integrity to acknowledge that we as a whole are at our strongest when we are most ready to compromise.
But above all, we need to develop a new form of politics that understands that we, as a nation, can have more than what we’ve got... if we as people become more than who we are.
For that is ultimately the central idea upon which the promise of this organisation rests: we will provide a new quality to our politics by involving the most inspiring leaders that this country has. We will work to attract the best and the brightest young minds – our future engineers, doctors, law students and teachers – people who are desperate for change but who have never had a reason to participate in politics until now.
This coalition will be black and white, brown and yellow; it will find supporters from all corners of faith and culture in this country. Because in the final analysis, there has always existed a broad and diverse centre to South African society - a group which cherishes the belief that our Rainbow nation is not imagined; the hope that one day people will look back and say that something magical happened in South Africa.
They are people who, deep down, know that there is nothing that is wrong in this country that cannot be fixed by what is right in it.
Above all, they are people who are guided by an abiding love for a nation that is yet to be born.
Are you one of us?