At the turn of the century, and the beginning of
South Africa’s second democratically elected president’s term of office, the
then President Thabo Mbeki, declared in his speech to the nation, “…we will do what we have to do to achieve
our renaissance. We trust that what we will do will not only better our own
condition as a people, but will also make a contribution, however small, to the
success of Africa's Renaissance, towards the identification of the century
ahead as the African Century. “
The concept of an African
Renaissance is a philosophical and political ideal that is seen to have the
power to end the “violence, elitism, corruption, tribalism and poverty which seem
to plague the African continent.” However, a renaissance cannot take place
until there is a reformation of the very principles that make up society in
every nation. For any society to be able change its principles, it’s people
must have reflected on the benefits that they have been deriving from the core
values by which they live. Only if we deem our lives to have detrimental
outcomes from our current value system, will we permit consideration of
alternate value systems. Only if we see preferable outcomes experienced by
people with different fundamental value systems to our own, and want these
outcomes for ourselves, only then will we begin the journey down the road of
change.
Change is however a process, it
takes time and is costly. The main cost to us is the opinions of those we love
who do not see as we do. For anyone of us to effectively change our own inner
value system, we have to have successfully faced and ignored the cry of
‘traitor’, from those who have installed those values in us. If we perceive the
benefits of the new value system outweigh the negative outcomes from the old,
then we are willing to pay the price, and renew our minds, and change our ways,
knowing that, “as a man thinks, so he is.”
A transformed person who lives by principles that value
life, uphold transparency, make room for all tribes and languages and thinks
generationally, contributes positively to the reformation of their society and
participates in bringing about dynamic economic and social development in their
sphere of influence.
Renaissance is only the outward expression of the inward
reformation of a person, and a family, that finally expresses itself in a
society or nation and as Thabo Mbeki and others have hoped for, eventually the
continent of
