Keeping the lights of hope on — harnessing the real power of South Africa’s people

9 May 2023

Even in these most difficult and dangerous of times there are people who persevere to reach their dreams. We know that there are tens of thousands more like them. They are the little people who keep hope alive, who inspire those around them not to give up and to believe positive change is possible. The media should pay more attention to them.

Last week Maverick Citizen published two inspiring stories about people who have overcome adversity to triumph in personal quests for dignity and self-worth. Eunice Ntuli, who was unable to walk for much of her childhood and has now completed ten Two Oceans marathons. Gibson Nzimande, who spent four years on the streets working as a waste recycler after his mother passed away and his family decided to sell her house without his knowledge, couldn’t pay his fees and was left with nothing, has now been awarded an MA.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Running for Freedom: The incredible story of Eunice Ntuli

Read more in Daily Maverick: From waste picker to MA graduate — the journey of Gibson Nzimande

They are living proof that even in these most difficult and dangerous of times there are people who persevere to reach their dreams.

We know that there are tens of thousands more like them (Read: From busking to the big time – a local singer's journey to the international stage). They are the little people who keep hope alive, who inspire those around them not to give up. They are usually not the people who are recognised with National Orders, because they do not draw attention to themselves. These are the people we should be working to enable, because this is the energy that will set us free.

‘Primed to correct suffering’

It’s easy to forget that South Africans were forged in adversity.

It’s easy to forget that many of those who became leaders in the liberation struggle emerged from trying lives in remote villages, factories or mines. Despite what most of them have become in power, we should not forget those earlier idealistic selves … neither should they. This week, for example, saw the death of Klaas De Jonge, who had turned down the Presidential Order of the Companions of OR Tambo, when it was offered to him by then-president Jacob Zuma.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Remembering history — Klaas de Jonge and the great (non) escape

With the daily barrage of news about those who are corrupt and do bad to our society, it’s also easy to forget that actually honest public-spirited people far outnumber the bad.

These are the people who hold our country together, who keep schools running, hospitals working, some traffic lights on, even when the system around them is being made by others to fail.

People like Mam Refiloe Molefe, who since the City of Johannesburg demolished her inner-city farm in Bertrams has started again and built a new farm in the place she was forcibly relocated to. As she said last year: “I just want to keep planting and teaching and feeding my community. I will make a success again. I have no choice. People are going hungry out there.”

Read more in Daily Maverick: Friday activist: Mam Refiloe grows a new community after Bertrams Inner City Farm removal

People like Prof Rudo Mathivha, the first black woman to train in critical care medicine and head of ICU at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. In Mathivha’s words, “I’m primed to correct the suffering.” The words she uses to describe her mission as a doctor would make a good motto for politicians:

“So, over time, I have learnt to focus on correcting the pathophysiology that’s going on, rather than making it about me. It’s not about me; it’s about the patient I’m helping”.

Read more in Daily Maverick: It’s not about me, it’s about the patient – I’m primed to correct the suffering, says Bara’s head of trauma

But she is not alone.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Meet Gqeberha’s finest man in blue – Bongani Eric Siyon

As Archbishop Tutu never tired of pointing out: “We’ve always got to be recognising that despite the aberrations, the fundamental things about humanity, about humankind, about people, is that they are good, and they really want to be good. Yes, there are many many things that can depress us. But there are also very many things that are fantastic about our world. Unfortunately, the media do not report on these because they are not seen as news.”

Tutu, as so often, was right. Why does the media obsess over bad? Good actions too create ripples for change that have an impact on our society. Good people too are worthy of column inches. And what good people have that bad people don’t is the spirit, the energy, that can galvanise others into action with the belief that a better world is still possible.

That is why we should be doing as much to enable the good, as we do to critique and expose the corrupt. It’s time we started to crowd out the bad with good. It’s time we told the stories of the self-sacrificing rather than self-interested; those who make something from nothing, rather than nothing from everything. Rather than the fools, whose daily capacity to cavort and corrupt, continually bedazzles our media, these are the people the future of South Africa, your future, depends upon. DM/MC

If you know a story of an extraordinary ordinary person or initiative write to us at [email protected] or submit your story here and we will try and tell their story!

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‘Primed to correct suffering’