Who can harness our strengths, in union? Yoke our collective energy, in alchemy? This is what we must ask, says Murray Williams.
Cape Town - It’s 8am on Saturday.
Five hundred people, maybe more, straining on the leash.
A gun fires. And hordes of delighted runners surge out into the Cape countryside, galloping into the vineyards.
It’s the weekly “Park Run”. An exceptionally happy place to be.
It’s just off the R44. One of the busiest roads in greater Cape Town. It’s been so for decades.
And the dirt farm roads on which the Park Run threads have been there for tens of years too. Hundreds of years.
But for generations, there’s been no link between the thousands of people who pass this place, and these dirt tracks through the vineyards.
What changed?
Not the R44.
Not the farm.
Everything changed, through a single idea.
“Hey. Let’s offer a park run.”
BOOM!
And why did the idea blossom? Because it harnessed latent resources.
People who’d love the thrill of being out in the countryside. The fresh air, between hills and valleys, against the backdrop of the majestic mountains.
Wine farmers who’d love more potential customers to their area.
Stall owners at the neighbouring market raring to cook up a storm for the hungry runners after their early-morning gallivanting. And entrepreneurs harnessing all these waiting, latent resources.
Win, win, win, win. The R44 park run is a mini-version of what Kevin Vermaak achieved with the Cape Epic. He had a simple idea - a mountain-bike stage race, through South Africa, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful countries on earth. The result is an astonishing success. Pumping literally hundreds of millions of rands into towns around the Cape. Towns which had always been there.
In the case of a smallish park run, and the most televised off-road cycling race in world history, the organisers harnessed vast energy resources - massively bigger than their own operating budgets.
What if we applied these principles to our greatest challenges?
Like poverty, personal safety, the education of our children? What if weincorporated it into our operating budgets, the energy of every one of our people? It’s said of the philosopher Karl Popper, that he had an extraordinary talent: In debate, he looked not for weaknesses in opponents’ arguments. Instead, he honed in on their strengths. And then harnessed those strengths, in union.
That skill made Popper arguably the greatest philosopher of science of the 20th century.
We ask those who stand before us, in these elections:
Who has the Midas touch, can harness our latent resources? Yoke our collective energy, in alchemy?
And for what purpose? Their selfish ambition? Or our well-being? Choose wisely, people.
* Williams’ “Shooting from the Lip” column appears in the Cape Argus every Monday.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Argus