Leadership and Ethics in Higher Education 139continue to live for and realize the vision of the liberation struggle and
the benefits of the historic negotiated settlement. I believe that Thabo
Mbeki, likewise, captured the imagination of this nation with his
eloquent statement “I am an African...” African Renaissance thus
became a rallying cry for connecting South Africa with its inner being
and search for an African identity founded on the values of ubuntu, and
to be conscious of itself as an African country with a shared destiny with
the rest of the Continent.
For both former heads of state there was this sense of decent
government, kind and caring especially to the poor and needy - the soft
side of politics that is designed to enhance human value and to lift
people towards a higher value of themselves. In other words the focus
had to be on honest living, peaceful co-existence, and a pursuit for
peaceable relations with others. The picture that emerged was therefore
not one of power as brute force, but of power as an inner resolve to be
good and to do good, therefore power as a means of facilitating service
in the interests of others rather than as a means of self-enrichment. To
be a nation at peace with itself, and seeking to be an influence for peace
and goodness in world affairs was an ideal former President Nelson
Mandela often articulated during his term of office. This element of the
pursuit of the good is often lost sight of. But it was in my view that
understanding that as South Africans we were capable of being good for
the sake of the other that elevated the moral quality of the newly
emergent South Africa post-apartheid.
South Africa can do without the aggressive and angry conduct that
has become our national pastime, violence-ridden, selfish and self-
centred, living with distrust and mutual suspicion. We could live to
pursue genuine equality as a common project, and address the
pathologies of inequality. We could be a caring nation that is outraged
both by the debilitating poverty that surrounds us as well as by the
obscene wealth that gets flaunted by those of excessive means. We