Whuuuuu!!! One Day Leader!The SABC call it:
"
a show that is set to engage and educate young people on social, economic, political....blahblah issues blah blah blah.... and educate South Africans on the importance of voicing their opinions and making am informed vote"
Last night the social issue was about the lack of green grass in Dieploot. (
well...it might as well had been) It was about how our non-urban black communities lack the very basic infrastructure needed for community development when the White developed communities seem to have it all together. I want to say so much about this issue... I'll come back later to write properly.
For now..
Do you watch this show?Do you think the youngsters discuss relevant issues?If you watched last night's show, do you think it was necessary for one of the judges to say to the white boy..."Who the hell do you think you are?" If you do watch and you don't just think you are not the target market, who is your favourite candidate? Mine is LesleyAnd Im back.... This week the youngsters had to debate about Sports and Recreation in our communities. They visited two different areas –
1. A white and very well-to-do neighbourhood.
The boys there were playing some basketball (i think) and they have a huge area that has all sorts of space for all sports activities you can think of – they can play rugby when they feel like rugby or switch to cricket when the pushing gets too much. All the while the girls can be entertaining themselves with netball in their own demarcated area or go for some indoor squash if the sun is a bit too hot.
2. The other area was our own Diepsloot – not to-do at all.
I’m not very familiar with Gauteng townships but I know my Cape Town ones very well. So, if you’re from Cape Town, Diepsloot is not an equivalent of Khayelitsha at all - think Nyanga or Jo Slovo. High population, no resources. Very limited public space as any free space black people make sure they fill with some informal settling. There are two guys there who run the area’s sports activities – some soccer team – i think that’s all they have. And they have over 300 children coming to play soccer each day. The girls are just left off to breeding, apparently – no fancy netball court.
The two areas were so at contrast the whole thing reminded me of the current thing ya DA in Cape Town that the municipality is good in Durbanville but Michelle’sPlein is in tatters.
So, boys and girls were at necks last night talking about how things could change in our black townships and how the township people need to take ownership of their own communities. I say, our communities must be tired of fighting the system. It is now each person for themselves. Even if you do score a tender to develop a mini multi-purpose hall in the middle of Diepsloot, you go for cheaper cement so that you’ll make a proper looking profit for you to drive a better car.
One argument was that the parents in Diepsloot do not even go watch their children play soccer in the filthy playground. I say, should they attend just because the parents in white neighbourhoods are attending, or should we start to encourage them to support their children’s activities despite all the other negative energy befalling our black communities.
Again, I am not familiar with Diepsloot but if it was Nyanga in Cape Town, I’d tell you that the reason the parents are not attending is probably because the children play in the afternoons and at that time, the parents are still making their way home from work, in a metrorail train, which is probably even delayed coz workers are on strike and they have to travel by train afterall because their communities were placed as far away from the City Centre as possible.
Anyway, I’m also getting just as emotional as everyone in the show last night. Truth is that honestly speaking black people are wounded, so deeply wounded that a small thing as little as a comment on green grass sends us beserk because it just resurrects the wounded spirit.
When the white boy, Johan Du Pisane (one of the candidates) said in Afrikaans..
“If the community of Diepsloot want the green grass bad enough, they should get up, stand up, and demand the grass.”
Johan, my boy, the communities can demand grass nhe, and the community’s way of doing that involves burning tyres in the middle of highways, And Johan my boy, sometimes people get hurt when these things are done – Sometimes others die. So we would rather die demanding houses than fighting for some green grass.
And Vusi Thembekwayo (one of the judges) emotionally responded to Johan’s statement and said: “
with all due respect, Johan, who the hell do you think you are... Who the hell do you think you are coming on national tv and saying people should demand grass” Basically Vusi’s point was that johan needs to recognise the two guys in Diepsloot who are doing their best against all odd, and acknowledge their efforts.
The way last night’s episode was emotional, most of the very relevant points that were made were clouded by the emotions. Those were points like
communities need to take responsibility of their own development and people need to take ownership of their lives. For me the episode felt like “
umfanekiso ogciniweyo” from the TRC, struu...
One day leader plays on SABC 1 on Tuesday evenings, 18:30 - 19:30. To vote for your favourite candidates, you just go to www.onedayleader.mobi on your cellphone, scroll down to their faces, click on it, and you will get into their page and al you do is click on
click here to vote for Lesley. That's it! Its that simple.