With 2022 finally winding down, we are called to rally together behind a familiar banner, one requiring tolerance and acceptance. The banner of reconciliation. It was through reconciliation that our beautiful country, with all its shades of culture and rich heritage, came to be recognised and celebrated the world over.
Visionaries like the late father of our nation, President Nelson Mandela and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, the late Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu – whose unwavering advocacy for reconciliation and peace, ploughed the ground on which the new South Africa was to be built.
Socially, we are bound by our duty to each other and the country, which is above all else, to cultivate unity, peace, safety, and the space for self- expression. We are a masterpiece painting of 60 million shades of culture and candid charisma – blended to produce a cocktail of love, respect, and celebration of each other. We are a good story, one worth remembering, one worth reciting 60 million times over.
Let us take up the challenge and create the spaces, start the conversations, and stand as credible witnesses to a magnificent South Africa, build on principles shaped by the moral justifications of Ubuntu.
Much ground has been covered, although much more is required. This Nirvana- proverbial or not – is worth all our efforts. This year, we are called to take the baton and devote ourselves to a cause worthy of our stamina and intellect, to have all hands on deck in creating and sustaining the formula required to bring South Africans closer to appreciating and understanding each other better. For without understanding, our love for our country’s diversity will be relegated to a fear of its beautiful inhabitants.
God bless South Africa, and ALL who live in it.
