The following speech was delivered by Dr Sizwe Mabizela, the Rhodes University Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs, to pupils of Victoria Girls High School at a prizegiving ceremony on Tuesday 8 October.
The following speech was delivered by Dr Sizwe Mabizela, the Rhodes University Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs, to pupils of Victoria Girls High School at a prizegiving ceremony on Tuesday 8 October.
You can make a difference!
Sizwe Mabizela
DVC: Academic and Student Affairs
Rhodes University
VG Prize-giving ceremony (08 October 2013)
Chairperson and other members of the School Governing Body;
Principal and Staff of Victoria Girls High School;
Students of VG;
Honoured guests;
Ladies and gentlemen
Many thanks for your kind and generous invitation for me to be with you this evening. It is indeed a singular honour and a special privilege for me to be invited share a few thoughts with you on this joyous occasion of celebrating outstanding achievements and success of the ‘girls’ of Victoria Girls High School.
The achievements we are celebrating this evening bear testimony to the incredible ability of the human spirit to persevere, to endure, and to exercise the self-discipline necessary to reach heights one never imagined possible. And so from the very outset, may I offer my hearty congratulations to all of you who will be receiving awards and recognition of one kind or another.
Well done!
I am certain that you will be the first to acknowledge that the achievements we celebrate this evening would have not be possible were it not for the unique, supportive and nurturing social, cultural and educational environment that your school governing body, your principal, your teachers, your support staff, your grounds staff and hostel staff work hard to create at VG.
May I request you to rise and give these people a rousing applause for everything they have done for you.
Your principal and your teachers are a fine example of what it means to be a dedicated and committed professional, ready and willing to serve humanity! I know you are deeply grateful to them for all that they have done to help you reach this stage of your personal development and growth.
Let us also acknowledge, with deep appreciation, the incredible role played by your parents, your guardians and other family members in helping you get to where you are now. They too have made huge sacrifices for you to reach this stage of your personal growth and development. Without their boundless love, constant encouragement, unwavering moral, spiritual and material support, your success and achievements we are celebrating this evening may have remained in the realm of hope and wishful imagination.
As I stand before you this evening, I find myself caught in two conflicting emotions. One is a feeling of deep sadness which derives from the painful reality of knowing that we have an education system that dismally fails to realise the full potential of the majority of young people of our country.
For these young people, tomorrow holds no promise except a life of hopelessness and despair. The other emotion is one of excitement that there are schools like VG that do so much to provide the best education that every young person in this country deserves; a school that has received so many accolades and awards for being a truly outstanding school, a model of academic excellence and transformation. How I wish, how I so much wish we had many more VGs around the country!
You are very fortunate to be part of this great school which has a rich history and tradition of excellence; a history and tradition of outstanding academic achievement. This history dates back to the school’s humble beginnings in 1892 in a cottage in Cross Street.
Since then, many generations of VG ‘girls’ have gone on to make an indelible mark and significant contributions in many and diverse fields of human endeavour here in our country and beyond.
Through their own stories of achievement and success, they have written a glowing testimonial for you. A mere mention of having studied at VG is enough to open opportunities for you. You owe it to future generations of VG ‘girls’ to continue this tradition excellence, passion and integrity so that you too can write a powerful testimonial for them. On your tender shoulders rest the history, tradition and the reputation of this fine school.
The education you have received from this school has laid a solid foundation on which you can build a bright, rewarding and fulfilling career and make a positive contribution to humanity. You now stand at a threshold of a truly exciting and promising future.
You can make a difference!
My brief message to you this evening is that you can make a difference.
On 27 April 1994, we embarked on an ambitious and yet eminently achievable course of building a new nation; a transformed, non-racial, non-sexist society, a society that is united in its diversity; a prosperous South Africa which upholds human dignity, social justice and human rights. It was on that memorable day when we patiently stood in long winding queues that the ‘winter of despair’ of apartheid gave way to the ‘spring of hope’ of a constitutional democracy.
The early years of our young democracy were characterised by unbounded enthusiasm for national reconciliation, nation-building and human solidarity. It was indeed that spirit of optimism abroad that made former President Mbeki proudly proclaim: “I believe I know this as a matter of fact, that the great masses of our country everyday pray that the new South Africa that is being born will be a good, a moral, a humane and a caring South Africa, which, as it matures, will progressively guarantee the happiness of all its citizens.”
Nations of the world looked at us with envy as our transition from the oppressive and discriminatory system of apartheid to a constitutional order was celebrated and hailed as a ‘miracle’.
Your generation is affectionately referred to as the ‘born-free’ generation – a generation of young people who were born after the demise of the pernicious and oppressive system of apartheid. You have been born into a society that is undergoing significant changes; a society that is struggling to find a common set of values; one that has as yet to forge a shared sense national identity.
Why, you might ask, am I taking you back to April 1994? I do so to make a simple point that, in my view, we have lost our direction, we have lost our way, and above all, we have lost our moral compass. We have elevated people of questionable moral character to positions of leadership and responsibility. People who have no sense of difference between right and wrong, just and unjust, fair and unfair, ethical and unethical occupy positions of power and influence.
Noble qualities and values of personal integrity, honesty, humility, compassion, respect, fairness, forgiveness, empathy, selfless dedication and willingness to put others first that were so beautifully exemplified by President Nelson Mandela have given way to venality, complete lack of integrity, moral decadence, rampant corruption, deceit, expediency, and duplicity.
We have become a society in which obscene and unbridled opulence exists alongside debilitating poverty and deprivation; a society that relentlessly promotes a culture of untrammeled greed and conspicuous consumption above public and common good; a culture that judges one’s worth by the amount of personal wealth amassed; a culture which, in the words of former president Thabo Mbeki, is possessed of demons which, “advise with rhythmic and hypnotic regularity – get rich! get rich! get rich!”
We have become a society in which many, far too many, of our fellow compatriots are mired in desperate daily routines of survival, while alongside, crass materialism and vulgar and ostentatious display of personal wealth have become fashion statements for the political elite.
Our country holds the dubious distinction of being the most unequal society on this planet. About 16 million South Africans receive state social grant. The official unemployment rate is around 24.2%. We know that real unemployment rate is much higher than that. Infant mortality rate stands at roughly 44.7 deaths per 1000 live births.
We have become a society in which access to quality education, decent healthcare, water, electricity and other social services is a preserve of a tiny minority that is rich while the poor majority is kept on the margins of human existence.
We have become a society which, in the words of Justice Malala, is “so obsessed with celebrating the average that those who seek above-average performances become the pariahs of the nation.”
The challenges that face our country are real and they are immense, but they are not insurmountable. The capacity to meet these challenges resides in each and every one of us.
You can make a difference! You can make a change! It is to you, the youth of our country, that we look for leadership to tackle these challenges.
Our country is crying out for leadership; our country is yearning for good leadership, values-based leadership, caring leadership, compassionate leadership, bold and courageous leadership, moral and ethical leadership, responsible and accountable leadership; a leadership which, in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, does not only inspire confidence in people but one that inspires people to have confidence in themselves.
The choices that you make will determine and shape who you will become and the legacy that you will bequeath our society and humanity. Whatever choices you make, never elevate personal ambition and single-minded pursuit of material wealth above everything else.
The most significant challenge for you as you develop further in your academic endeavours is to accept your responsibility to humanity and embrace your role of personal agency in the remaking of our society and the world. You can choose to be an agent for social justice and progressive social change!
There will be setbacks and hardships. It is in circumstances of challenge and adversity that your limits of endurance, perseverance and resolve will be tested. It is indeed in such circumstances that the true you will reveal itself.
We, individually and collectively, have it within ourselves to fashion a more just, a more caring, a more humane and a more equitable society.
My appeal to you is that you use your education, your skills and your knowledge to provide much-needed leadership in our country.
My appeal to you is that you use your education, your skills and your knowledge to help us remake and reshape our society.
My appeal to you is that you become an active, engaged and concerned citizen.
My appeal to you is that you use your democratic franchise of a vote to hold our leaders to account.
My hope is that, through our individual and collective actions of care and concern for others, we can witness the emergence of a new society; a society that is just, humane, and equitable; a society in which peace and justice prevail; a society free of hunger, want and ignorance; a society in which illiteracy, hopelessness and despair cease to define everyday existence of the majority of its people; a society in which exploitation of the vulnerable, abuse of women and children, corruption and greed are no more than a rare aberration; a society that upholds social justice, environmental justice, sustainable development, human dignity, and places human development and common social good above selfish and self-serving interests; a society in which every person is able to realise his or her full potential and is able to make a contribution to the betterment of humanity; a society in which we all appreciate that our own humanity can only reach its fullness when we affirm, advance and defend the humanity of others; a society that can heed Mahatma Ghandi’s injunction that we must “live simply so that others may simply live”.
This is a society that you and I can bring about if only we take time to reach out to those who are less fortunate than we are. We have a particular responsibility to those who are living in the social and economic margins of our society. We cannot fail them; we dare not fail them!
In a society characterised by incertitude, cynicism and despair, we look to you, the youth of our country, to fill us with hope and optimism that tomorrow is full of promise!
I wish you every success in your year-end examinations and may you have a bright, fulfilling and rewarding career ahead.
Choose to serve humanity with honour and integrity. Go out there and make a difference!
Thank you!
