There is a lot to be concerned about in South Africa. Many things are falling apart at the same time—the Departments of Social Development, Education, Health, etc, all on the verge of ruin. Politicians, public officials, and ‘the market’ govern us, but they are far removed from the reality of the majority of South Africans. They speak about the statistics of unemployment, gender-based violence, child malnutrition, drop-out rates, etc, as if they are just numbers on a piece of paper. As if these numbers do not represent the great suffering and daily indignity experienced by our people.

Perhaps they cannot truly see how broken things are because they don’t bear the consequences of their actions. They don’t go to public hospitals or use public transport. How could they even begin to understand how bad the Basic Education system is if they don’t have to send their children to schools that are falling apart, where there are over 50 children in a class, or where learners are exposed to drugs and gun violence on their way to school. These children have become numbers on a piece of paper, too. They do not live in the same country as the majority of South Africans who they govern. None of that stops us from placing our hope in them. And through just the ballot box, hoping that change would come from their hands.

South Africans are hopeful. We cling to hope. Lay our fears, hopes, and desires at their feet, the hope for a better tomorrow. It has been with us through many dark times and lit fires in our chests during the cold brutality of our history. It was also the glue that held our country together in the depths of the uncertainties of the 1990’s. Now, after thirty years of hope coming to life through the dream of a democracy, our hope has turned into a chain. It has led to inaction and complacency. Because ‘hope is not a strategy’ and is not an action.

Desmond Tutu once described himself as a ‘prisoner of hope’, and one could argue that he imprisoned us alongside him through the hope of a rainbow nation—a hope for a cohesive society that has been manipulated and made into propaganda. In the years since then, the hope for absolute freedom and real unity has led us to seek out these moments in various places. Rugby World Cups, New Dawns, and the like make us feel as if the prospect of a better tomorrow is viable and that we truly could be #StrongerTogether.

Hope is a powerful thing, it can move mountains. But it is the match, not the flame. It can ignite wild blazes of change, but the fire it starts will soon die out if it isn’t tended to. Hope must light the way,but it cannot alone bring about the society we wish to live in. It is not a strategy, and it is not an action.