In 2023, unleash your inner Imtiaz Sooliman

‘Nobody can help everybody, but everybody can help somebody.”

Cast your minds back to March 2020 and the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa. Try, if you can, to recall the way in which South Africans rallied, trusted each other and accepted that we were facing a crisis that would necessitate sacrifices in the public interest. That there was such a thing as a common good.

Tragically, that spirit didn’t last long. The trust people offered was quickly broken by venal politicians and “public” servants who saw Covid-19 differently: primarily as a chance for corrupt accumulation. But there’s no doubt that, momentarily, a high degree of social cohesion and solidarity did come into being.

In those early months, one of the most significant developments was the appearance of localised Community Action Networks (popularly known as CANs), which often stretched across the divides between affluent and poor areas, providing food, money and other forms of support. Cape Town Together was a good example.

Food kitchens sprang up. For a year it was not unusual to see people collecting donations of food stuff outside supermarkets. Many people discovered joy and purpose in solidarity and community.

The CANs embodied an important principle: activism and transformation are most impactful and enduring when they are addressing tangible issues and start in your own backyard and then ripple outwards, changing the political culture.

The challenge for next year

2023 demands that we try to find that “yes we CAN” trust and common purpose again.

This time there may not be an unknown and deadly virus whipping us into line, but the social and political challenges people in South Africa face are just as great.

They, too, call for a response based on our common humanity if we are to get through the year stronger.

As we go into 2023, because of inequality, corruption and maladministration, we carry over a crisis of increasing hunger, mass unemployment, and health and educational challenges. Children eat cow dung or sand and are dying of malnutrition in parts of the country. Youth unemployment is at over 70%, meaning most of 2022’s successful matriculants will go quickly from celebration to exasperation then despair at not finding jobs.

Our healthcare workers are exhausted and overstretched, battling a rise in mental illness and the resurgence of diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV infection.

Our choice is stark: implode or cohere.

In 2023, South Africans must step up campaigns to make our political system accountable and responsive to people’s needs. To abide by the Constitution.

But, simultaneously, we can build community power on the ground by collaborating on fixing our society and supporting and empowering each other.

True, there is so much pain and anxiety out there and it’s debilitating and overwhelming. Where do we start? But there is also so much that could be done to help each other.

Take heart from the fact that there is still much generosity and compassion out there. Maverick Citizen experienced this in the offers of money and other forms of support after our news reports about starving mothers and children in the Eastern Cape.

The fact that so many people admire Gift of the Givers’ Imtiaz Sooliman is evidence that our greatest admiration is for those who help others. Unleash your inner Imtiaz!

On 26 December, it will be one year since the death of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Arch believed that compassion is hard-wired into the human psyche (rather than selfishness and greed).

In The Book of Joy, which captures conversations between Tutu and the Dalai Lama, writer Douglas Abrams tells us that neuroimaging research has shown “four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting wellbeing”. The fourth circuit, he asserts, is “our ability to be generous”.

Thus, says Abrams, there is “strong and compelling scientific research that shows that we come factory equipped for cooperation, compassion and generosity”.

So what can we do?

My research and reporting have shown me that in every community there are already activists at work. They may be invisible to the mainstream media, which is fixated on froth rather than substance, but I assure you they are there. Find them. Join them.

In 2023, some examples of social issues people can work together on include:

Help people to get IDs. There are 15 million people without IDs and without one you cannot vote or get a grant, a job, a birth certificate;

Identify the hungry and vulnerable in your area and follow the example of people like Refiloe Molefe, affectionately known as Mam Refiloe, by strengthening local food systems;

Provide support, skills and work experience to young people in and out of school and work; and

Make our streets clean and safe and bring dignity and hygiene back to our communities.

Look around you and make your own list. Talk to friends and family.

It may feel dark, but remember, there are many sources of light in our society.

The Parkrun, started by Bruce Fordyce, has enlisted 47,000 volunteers in South Africa. They may not be what we think of as political activists, but they are all people motivated by community service.

Musa Mbele-Radebe transformed his old primary school in Soweto. Recently, Rise Mzansi, a new social movement that is being formed by the Rivonia Circle, has made it clear that, in its 2024 election campaign to put ethical leaders in our Parliament, it will connect its political ambitions with local activism that “lifts up our communities”.

If you just take that first step, you will find there is joy to be had in community activism and giving. Indeed, it’s quite possible that we can find social cohesion, rather than further fracture, by getting our hands dirty and responding together to the crises we face.

Make that your New Year’s revolution.  DM168

Mark Heywood is the Editor of Maverick Citizen.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.