Often, we hear those wiser than many declare that you begin to
change, grow, and transform only after you've stepped outside your comfort zone.
We only understand what they mean until we encounter personalities that embody
this truism. In the life of an academically focused human being, the journey of
going through various exit points of the education system is always a
self-invitation to enter the next new occurrence and chase the next summit.
Grade seven exit is about entry into grade eight and exit at grade ten to enter
tertiary education and pursue various other portals.
To
such focused persons the pursuit of an end that relies on the capacity to
control all cadences to the end state constitutes the thrill that attracts
their adrenaline for various pursuits. I got invited to a graduation ceremony
of a distant friend and yet a claimable brother and relative. Attracted by the person’s
character as defined by what is on record in public spaces and is citable as
knowledge, the journey to the village and enjoying the graduation ceremony was
a no-brainer save that it also had clan significance and nostalgia.
The
idea of hearing, again, my surname being prefixed based on having met the
requirements of the ultimate of degrees in the world would not have been missed
for anything. It was the belief in the adage that if you have a strong purpose
as a people, you don't have to be pushed; your passion will drive you there”
that propelled the desire to know where such talent and personification of
intellectual resilience originated. What tree shades provided a resting place,
what rivers flow through, what air this person breathed, and most significantly,
what altars attracted his God to pay attention and declare 'this is my son in
whom I am pleased'.
When
the time to celebrate the prefixing of my surname again came, that wasn't to be,
as the village became the celebrant and the man the nodal person if not the
conduit. School children from the village were celebrated and given practical
hope and access to direct conversation with the chairperson of Africa's largest
tertiary education grant management institution, NASFAS, Advocate Ernest Khosa.
Several doctors va rikwerhu, were in attendance and honoring the village
through the nodal point person.
The
rest is for those that were there to fill gaps. What many of us that were there
did not know was that the celebration was again an entry to other summits. The
first was conquering the greatest human race, the comrade's marathon, the PhD
of all marathons. Again a xibelane was worn to define the runner as a nodal
point of the cause that won the race; this was to foreground the need for
sanitary pads for rural girls all over South Africa, but through the prism of
the village that was celebrated during the graduation ceremony I earlier
attended.
As
though that would have been a resting point, the village was extended to
include university students at the alma mater of the nodal conduit. It was
again pleasant to hear an additional prefix that amplified all of them being
added again to a surname. Again, the node was decreased as the purpose of being
a Professor increased.
Yes,
it is true that in you Khalanga, Mfundisi, Dokotela, Professor, Tatane, Bhuti
Hlengani MATHEBULA ... we can all agree that 'inspirational leadership requires
or is the ability to think in terms of the bigger picture, to imagine beyond
simple material profits to what serves the community at large. Over the recent
period, South Africa has become a slaughterhouse of Bantu-Black talent, either
by collusion of Bantu-Blacks or collusion of narrative engineering. Still, you
have run the 90km race on comradeship as a symbol of your commitment to run not
for yourself but for those that might not have the luxury, endurance, and
stamina to do so for themselves.
In you, we know that South Africa has become a brave new world you have thus far demonstrated that it now requires 'brave new leaders who are prepared to inhibit brave new roles'. In that way, a new brigade of leaders of society will be mobilised for new battles ahead. In leaders like you, who run races, literally and figuratively, we are already starting to feel secure. The more you exude your security in getting into spaces you occupy, the less driven by ego you look and appear, and the more we are ready to surrender the credit to those of your ilk to the universe, to destiny, and to whatever else makes sense to us as a human race.
That
you are a professor is not an accident of any history but an outcome of what
you did in that history. Ncila a wu ololi. Wa Twa!!!
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