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SA needs not just an office holder, but an ambitious visionary with big dreams like Irvin Khoza, says the writer. Picture: Boxer Ngwenya
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SA needs not just an office holder, but an ambitious visionary with big dreams like Irvin Khoza, says Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya.
Pretoria - For a proposition whose falsehood seems to be proven at will, it is amazing that there are still some who insist that leadership is not important as long as there are systems in place.
This argument is often offered by those who have no defence for some of the remarks, decisions and indecisions made by President Jacob Zuma both as head of state and leader of the governing party.
Another favourite swearword among those who tell us they understand the ANC is “ambition”.
Party culture is such that being described as “ambitious” is akin to the Ayatollah declaring a Fatwa on an infidel – it is a certain kiss of death.
One most recent example of why leadership and ambition matter has been the run of Orlando Pirates in the African Champions League.
Park aside for a moment that I do support the club and always will.
The run is yet another clear example of how a leader can inspire the led towards a goal and how the followers can buy into their leader’s dream, making it their own.
It is known that Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza has been passionate about his club adding a new star (the mark of continental champions) to the one that already adorns the club’s emblem.
As with everything regarding sports, it will be debatable that Khoza provided all the resources necessary for the attainment of his dream, but few can argue that he did nothing at all.
The club last week had nine of their players called up to the national team and seven for the match against world champions Spain.
This is by all accounts an objective measure of whether the club is made up of journeymen or some of the best in their country.
If you were to ask an average South African what is our equivalent of Pirates’ second star, put differently, what is South Africa’s ambition, you would be met by blank stares or as many answers as the people you ask.
That is because if truth be told, South Africa is run like just another Premier Soccer League club whose intention is to be one of the PSL clubs, rather than one that is willing to achieve greatness and if necessary face the ridicule of rival fans who will celebrate what they will see as a failure should they fall short of their ambitions.
That is what great leaders do.
It was at the beginning of the 1960s that John F Kennedy ambitiously proclaimed that the US would have had a man on the moon by the end of that decade.
Conspiracy theories aside, Neil Armstrong nailed the American flag on the moon in 1969 and humanity set itself new frontiers to be conquered.
Imagine if Kennedy had opted to be a shrinking violet that feared the ridicule by the Soviet Union Communists and toned down his ambitions?
Another example of the difference that leadership and ambition can make is the development of China from a relatively feudal society to the second biggest (soon to be the biggest) economy in the world.
A Chinese leader, who incidentally did not hold any official position in the state or even the governing party, Deng Xiaoping, decided what he imagined for his country and was willing to face off with ideological purists and the “it cannot be done” brigade to create the China we know today.
We could say the same about apartheid.
It had a champion in Hendrik Verwoed and for five decades it was law, it achieved the goals it had set so well that this month Statistics SA reports that black and coloured children “remain perpetually disadvantaged”, almost 20 years since Verwoed’s stated aim of making them drawers of water and hewers of wood was rejected at the polls.
Apartheid would not have been the resounding success that it is (not was) had it not had a passionate leader who could articulate his vision and rally his troops to achieving it.
Detractors will always wait for an opportunity for dreamers to fail while they ignore the fact that sometimes the failure sows seeds of future success.
The thing about Pirates’ run was that it became more than just another football club trying to win a trophy.
It aroused patriotism and rallied those who had never even heard of Pirates and those who generally despised the club because for a change there was a chance of a South African football outfit achieving something.
That is because countries need heroes. They need achievers because we all live vicariously through the achievements and failures of those we share a common passport with.
If 1994 was for our country what the first star in 1995 was for Pirates, we have to start asking when we are going for the second star, define what it will be and how we will achieve it.
For that we need a leader and a visionary not just an office holder.
* Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya is executive editor of Pretoria News.
Pretoria News