My journey

For the longest time I have been answering your eager and many questions about my trip with the shortest overused descriptive sentences that really say nothing at all. . My brevity was less as a result of being so busy and more of a consequence of struggling to articulate into words what my experience with SAWIP has been like. It was so much easier to not confront your questions head on, to not really reflect on the things that I have done, seen or experienced, to not reflect on the discussions or the relationships I have forged. That’s not to say that I don't want to, it’s just difficult to. I realise it’s something I owe not only you but myself.

I was uprooted from what would have in all likelihood been a 6 week holiday of repeated experiences and found myself in the land of the free, the pursuit of happiness and where dreams come true, The United States of America. I have never been captured by the grandeur way in which America markets itself. In fact I, like many South Africans, share a strong degree of cynicism for anything American. This view has largely been shaped by the antics of the Bush administration; wars waged, civilians killed and prisoners tortured. With this continuing erosion of respect for human rights by The Country that purports to bring democracy and freedom to people, I arrived in America carrying my own assumptions and presumptions and with that a great deal of cynicism. I walked the mall where, to me, the monuments pay testimony not to an impressive nation but rather to a memory of slavery. Where the flags that surround the monument, clothe houses and streets, does not resonate the lure of a patriotism that I want for South Africa but rather a fear of nationalism and its exclusionary nature. And even to where the fireworks on July 4^th did not strike me as beautiful and striking but rather as painful to animal rights and the environment. I stopped to note that I hadn’t stopped looking for the good in things but that I reserved my idealist thinking only for South Africa.

I have realised that I have fallen victim to my own patriotism. My view of South Africa and my commitment to it and Africa has made me forget about the human being behind a flag or an anthem. I found myself in a bar with an Irish comrade ranking conflict, ranking human suffering, ranking inequality. I was arguing so hard for the uniqueness of the South African experience; of our poverty, our suffering and our inequality. Through dialogue and shared experience with the people in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine I became cognisant of my own failings. Human suffering is human suffering whether it is an African or a European who is suffering. A poor person is poor regardless of their religion or colour of their skin and that inequality is an unfortunate shared experience through-out the world. There is a generality to all our experiences, a common thread. Yes, there is a unique context but certainly a clear generality. The interaction between the three programmes (New Story Leadership, WIP and SAWIP) has taught me many lessons but this was the strongest one.

I am still in awe over the people that I have met while in DC. My internship was not quite what I expected. This budding lawyer hungry for comparative understanding of the law found herself in a finance monitoring institution that focussed on tax. Nothing that anyone could have told me would have mitigated against this initial disappointment. I could not at that early stage fully comprehend the opportunities that I would be afforded.

Jamie Baker my supervisor understood the DC experience. I was totally foreign to it. DC is filled with young interns from all over America and the world, interning at thousands of different kinds of organisations. The value of interning is not only in the skills you can learn by being in a particular work environment, it's also the events you can attend and the people you can meet. Every single day there are thousands of events at various times scattered across the city that are freely available to the public. One such event was with our Deputy Minister of foreign affairs Fransman talking on South African foreign policy. I had to fly all the way to DC to be able to drill my Minister about South African oscillation on issues such as Libya and the Ivory Coast. Indeed a poor reflection on the accountability of our democratically elected leaders but an accurate reflection of DC as essentially the global capital. I attended an event almost every day from an analysis of BRICS and the Malawian President talking on food security in Africa to debt management and meeting members of Congress and somewhere in the middle I also managed to broaden my horizons (a little) on the state of global financial institutions and developing country tax policy.

The SAWIP organised discussions happened almost every evening. We had themed weeks which brought the top minds to us on issues of democracy, social entrepreneurship and political, socio-economic and civil rights. These discussions entrenched my commitment to community service and human rights, it brought a new found understanding and respect for social entrepreneurship and an acknowledgement that good can be done through the ‘evil corporation’, and it garnered a greater understanding of the civil rights movement in America as well as the Anti-Apartheid movement in the States. More importantly however it brought us the faces of dedicated, committed and passionate human beings that care about making a difference and working for change. It was inspirational to be discussing so many issues amongst people of such calibre.

Then there was my speech. Each one of us was allocated a speech with the idea of practicing speech writing skills, providing each person with a platform to voice their opinions as well as to improve our public speaking abilities. As an aside what you realise through this leadership development course is how much attention is paid to every single detail of the curriculum, everything has been well thought out and has a purpose. I was allocated the speech at the White House with my dear friend Mangaka Meso. There was no pomp and ceremony and it was relatively informal. However I did have the ears of President Obama’s senior advisor, Mr David Lane, and for that I appreciate and acknowledge what an exceptional opportunity I was provided with.

I have had some valuable experiences in my life. I have been lucky enough to travel relatively extensively and to even live in other countries. However there is something uniquely special about these particular five weeks that has shaped the rest of my life. I realise now that I want to be where I am most useful. I have always thought that being on the activist side and accountability side of the fence was where that would be. Having been here though amidst the debt ceiling negotiations/ crisis I have come to realise and appreciate the hardships of implementation. If I am going to be most useful in politics or government then I have been convinced during my stay here that that is the route I must go. I have noted how many young Irish are involved in politics. It is admirable that the youth in Ireland care about going into politics. Too few good people in South Africa go into politics and that is to the detriment of our country. The youth who are young, hopeful, energetic and can very often do things better than the old stalwarts should be in government. They should be flooding into government, wanting to work hard for a more prosperous South Africa.

Finally I am terrified of losing my energy. It is by far my greatest fear that I could lose my drive and become complacent. However I look around my fellow SAWIPers and the passion I see in them, I see in me. I know that I have created such a special support structure and motivational network that the risk of losing my energy has been severely mitigated against. Not only have I created a support structure of the most amazing individuals but I have created the most enriching friendships. A depth of friendship that has been forged through laughter and arguments, through engagement and debate, through story sharing and openness and through building trust and respect. We have a shared vision to work towards, we all want what is most prosperous for the people who reside in South Africa and want to work hard to achieve that.

We are strong, we are capable, we are willing and we are able, we are passionate, committed and dedicated. Using the wise words of a wise man - South Africa – Yes we can!