Entering our Promised Land

Recently a word popped into my mind that seems to describe the current state of our nation - stuck. It came to me when I was in the gym, furiously peddling away on my static bike. We are living in a time of great ‘stuck-ness’ – moving neither back nor forward.

The upcoming ANC elective conference in Mangaung is a contributing factor to this sense of stuck-ness. We can’t honestly see a change in leadership happening and even if we do, we aren’t sure whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing. The impasse in strikes all over the country is also contributing to our feelings of stuck-ness, as are the seemingly limitless revelations of corruption. We just seem to be going nowhere fast.

The more pessimistic amongst us might even argue that ‘stuck’ is too positive a word for where we currently find ourselves. They might say we are in reverse. I disagree with this. There are many areas in which we are moving forward and many areas in which we are moving backwards and this is creating a feeling of being stuck.

We can and should take heart from the fact that a state of stuck-ness is quite common in history. Accelerated change of the type we experienced in the early 90’s is often followed by a period of aimlessness.

Historically, this is graphically illustrated by the experience of the ancient Jewish people. They spent 40 long years wandering around the Sinai Desert having been led out of slavery in Egypt with the promise of a "better life for all" in a land flowing with milk and honey. To what extent are we just 18 years into our ‘desert wanderings’ having been assured of the same; freedom for all in our very own promised land?

But freedom comes with the responsibility to learn what it means to be free; to learn how to be responsible with that freedom; in our case, to learn what democracy means. We – from you and I to our State President - haven’t begun to do that yet, which is why we are thoroughly stuck.

So what changed for the Jews? What broke their stuck-ness so that they could end their 40 years of wandering and finally cross over into modern day Israel?

It was a couple of courageous Jews named Caleb and Joshua who decided that they were going to start a new conversation about how to create the necessary change for them and their people. This conversation might have gone along the lines of; "Enough aimless wandering; enough grumbling; enough moaning about what we don’t have. Let us be brave, take the initiative and inhabit our new land and our new found freedom."

They weren’t going to allow fear to stop them. They weren’t going to let the naysayers dissuade them. They weren’t going to sit around waiting for others to act. They were going to move forward and actively fight for the promise of a better life for all.

All it took was for somebody to have the courage to say; "enough is enough". They boldly took the initiative and led their nation into a land flowing with milk and honey. They got their people unstuck.

Three key observations relevant to modern day South Africa emerge from this ancient journey:

The first is that it wasn’t the same people who brought the Jews out of slavery in Egypt who would lead them into the land of milk and honey. That needed to be a new crop of individuals who thought like leaders, not liberators. (Incidentally, according to a recent interview with Dr Mamphela Ramphele, at no time in history have the liberators successfully become the leaders.)

The second observation is that here in South Africa we aren’t yet half way into the time period of 40 years that the Jews spent ‘desert wandering’. I am not saying there is anything particularly mystical about 40 years. What I am saying is that we clearly still have some ‘desert time’ to do in order to learn how to be a free people.

And finally, the leaders who took the Jewish people into the Promised Land were said to have been strong and courageous. These are two key ingredients for leadership that brings about effective change. We will only break free of our stuck-ness when we appoint leaders (across all spheres) who have the strength and courage - moral, mental, spiritual and emotional - to effect change.

We will undoubtedly enter our promised land but only once we have learnt the lessons of this time in the desert. Once we have learnt what it means to be free and once we are operating with strength and courage, we will take our land of milk and honey and inhabit it together.

Justin Foxton is founder of national awareness campaign "Stop Crime Say Hello", "The Baby House" in Umhlanga, Durban and the Kwa-Zulu Natal Adoption Coalition.

This article first appeared in The Mercury on Monday 15th October 2012.

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