One of the unexpected treats of the 2010 World Cup was having something other than political wrangling to read about on the front pages of our newspapers every day. For a whole month.
No disrespect intended, but sometimes we in South Africa get a little obsessed with what politicians are saying and doing. I think it’s due to the legacy of our political transition, which was negotiated and guided (pretty well, I might add) by political leaders. However, it means that we tend to be overly dependent on whether they are leading us (or not). We get disappointed when they are not as accountable as we would like them to be. We wait for them to change their behaviour and keep their promises.
In other words, we disempower ourselves as citizens. But maybe that is about to change.
Lead SA is a Primedia Broadcasting initiative, supported by Independent Newspapers, that was launched this morning. It aims to ‘celebrate the efforts of ordinary South Africans who continually seek to do the right thing for themselves, for their families and for their country’.
Lead SA ‘encourages individuals to stand up and accept responsibility for the challenges they face’. In other words, Lead SA says to all of us: ‘Stand up. We can all be leaders in one way or another’.
The campaign is well timed. After the joys and successes of the 2010 World Cup, many are saying: what now? How do we turn an extraordinary experience into the norm? How do we turn the glimpse of what we may be into reality? Lead SA is an opportunity to help sustain the momentum, by providing a platform for engagement.
Citizens against xenophobia on the Fan Walk on Mandela Day
Lead SA is not just about an opportunity for better communication. It is also urging us to ‘do the right thing’. It is saying: Stand up for what’s right. Stand up for the law. Stand up for decency, compassion and respect.
This is a very important message. It’s often tempting to reduce the issue of human development to the lack of material resources and short-comings in what is called service-delivery. It goes without saying that the resources of our country must be more evenly shared, much more. But even this is not enough. Development also has to also be about greater levels of accountability, good governance and the empowerment of citizens.
This is a cities blog, so what does all this have to do with cities? Quite a lot, actually. Cities, like countries, are about people, not just roads, buildings, infrastructure, investment and service delivery. The words ‘city’ and ‘citizen’ have the same origin. A city where citizens do not or are not able to take the lead is not a city in the true sense of the word. A city where citizens do not or cannot participate means a city based on coercion, manipulation, fear, acquiescence and dependency.
On the other hand, a city based on accountability, mutual respect, civic pride and collective responsibility, and where the majority of citizens stand up and choose to ‘do the right thing’ is a city of infinite promise.
That’s the sort of city I would like to live in. That’s the sort of city I would like Cape Town to be.
Celebrating Human Rights Day at the Cape Town Festival in the Company's Garden, 2010
Don’t wait for others. Be a leader!
Go to www.leadsa.co.za to find out more
Write to info@leadsa.co.za
Look up Lead SA on Facebook and @Lead_SA on Twitter
Best of all, phone in to 567 Cape Talk (+27 21 446 0 567) or 94.5 KFM (+27 86 153 6945) and have your say on the radio right now
Fan Walk 2010
Libraries for all campaign, Human Rights Day, Cape Town, 2010
