The trouble with us By Jaye Gaskiya

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Our ruling class maybe failing and may have failed to provide leadership to us as a people, for our country, and for our continent; The quality of leadership provided by this ruling class may have been declining precipitously since independence, it is true; And as a consequence of this failure of leadership, we may have continued to be plagued by a perennial crisis of the failure and even near collapse of governance; as well as a being confronted with the phenomenon of State Failure.
Nevertheless, our crisis is also infinitely compounded by our own lack of confidence in ourselves, by our own lack of trust in our capacity and ability, not only to throw off the yoke of this failed class, but to also provide the sorely needed alternative – ourselves!
Added to this is our impatience to deal with knowledge, to interrogate and stay with an issue to its logical conclusion; our short attention span. We want answers, but we are not willing and able to undertake the rigour that comes with solution finding.
In reality, with our attitude, what we want is magic, not even miracles, and certainly not solutions to our pressing problems. It is why the ruling elites continue to take us for a ride.
So take for instance, We say things are not working well, and that we need fresh ideas as well as new personalities to lead us into the next phase of our development. And this is good, it is the direction to go.
But what do we do? When we are presented with ideas, we say they are too long; and we instantly demand for SoundBites and Bullet Points! When those ideas are reduced into soundbites, we again ask for a full program? And thus we keep going on endless meaningless circles.

We are looking to be Mesmerised not to be informed; to be trend followers, not to be organisers; for sensationalism, not for mobilisation.

Yet, if the truth must be told, if we must stop agonising and start organising; then, we must realise that a Slogan is not a program; a Soundbite is not a vision; and sensationalism is not a measure of capacity; nor are bullet points substitute for deeper reflection.

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