I have some cause to be optimistic at the beginning of 2025 that South Africa is turning the corner on some basic things we need to get right.
I echo the sentiment expressed by Professor Adam Habib, Director of the School of Oriental, and African Studies at the University of London, about South African cities on X on January 4: “Spent summer break in SA – Durban, Cape Town and JHB. I am utterly astonished at the turnaround in Durban. From the hedges on the roads being cut, to security on its beaches, to the cleanliness of its city centre which I visited, what a turnaround. Shows you cities can be turned!” Habib’s sentiments were repeated by many who responded to his post.
I found the cleanliness of Johannesburg, Pretoria and, to a lesser extent, Empangeni an encouraging sign that those who run our cities are beginning to turn around some basic management of the cities that had gone horribly wrong.
Tshwane.
(Image: Sipho Ndebele (Unsplash))While we have reason to be optimistic, there is still a long way to go to reach the promise of what at the dawn of democracy many of us expected South Africa to become. Yes, we need to continue to hold accountable those who exercise public power to do better. But it is not all about those in power.
I observed with concern the casualness with which people litter in northern KwaZulu-Natal. This to me is a sign of something fundamental that has gone wrong in our society. Add to that the numbers of heavily drunk young people I observed at all hours of day staggering and many peeing along public roads. And the scene repeats itself across the country. We have a deepening social crisis unfolding before our eyes.
We need to urgently figure out how to turn a corner on this score – skills, jobs, dignity. We must intensify the work to achieve economic equity in the country to make it possible for young people especially to create meaningful livelihoods and lives for themselves and not just exist to numb the pain and humiliation caused by impoverishment.
Musawenkosi Buthelezi, the top matric learner in Gauteng in 2024, visited us at the Foundation on the 21st of January. His story of rising above the circumstances of poverty into which he was born through hard work to be the best in the province is inspiring. We wish Musawenkosi well in his studies in Medicine and Neuroscience at the University of Cape Town. The country for which Madiba and all those who struggled for our freedom is possible.
If South Africa is in many ways a mixed bag of hope and despair, recent developments beyond South Africa’s borders reflect this. As we celebrate the small win in the form of a temporary ceasefire in Palestine, the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan have escalated alarmingly. The war in Ukraine continues. This is a concerning turn of events when we thought that a peaceful world was achievable through dialogue facilitated by multilateral institutions that emerged after the devastation of World War II.
Further afield, the emergence of new, yet old, leadership in the United States threatens to destabilise the world order quite significantly. The withdrawal of funding to the World Health Organisation and President Trump’s moratorium on aid to countries the US supports around the world are simply disheartening news.
In a world where we see the worsening effects of climate change, the US’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord is a setback to progress made on mitigation and adaption through decades of tireless work.
We at the Foundation hope that the world will soon reach a place where good sense will prevail. Good diplomacy is urgently needed to bring an end to the conflicts in DRC, Sudan, Ukraine that are visiting unspeakable suffering on ordinary people in those regions.
Madiba gave the Foundation a mandate to be a voice for peace, justice and cultures of democracy and human rights in the world. We call on those in power to put people first, all people. We urge them to work to find sustainable solutions to the causes of people’s suffering.