It is five days into the new year already, and this being the first edition of Sunday World in 2025, the editor and staff of your favourite read would like to welcome you back, dear valued readers, and wish you a happy and prosperous year ahead.
The year 2024 proved challenging to South Africans on so many fronts. We can’t help but hope that 2025 has better prospects in store for all of us.
The crossover from one calendar year into another is a global phenomenon used by people to pause a little, despite the frenzied celebrations of the festivities around them to mark the hour and reflect on the trajectories of their lives.
Many often single out areas in which they reckon they need to do better and often resolve, with the promise of new beginnings that come with the new year, to do better – holding on to hope of better things to come.
It might well not be the reality but people do have a sense of starting all over again on some – if not all aspects of their lives – and on a clean, if not a totally all-new slate.
Coming with the end of the year-end breaks and holidays from people’s work and daily routines, the general belief is that people are rested and, therefore, all ready to take on the challenges that the new year ahead might have in store for them.
It is not a phenomenon we should scoff at, as indeed a better future can only be built on the dreams of the present. The only reminder people will always need is that the belief will amount to nothing and a bleak future, if the dreams are not accompanied by meaningful action.
And with that action often comes sacri-fice whose worth can only be fully appreciated when we taste the sweet nectar of success. It is a promise we all hold out for and should pursue.
Pretty much the same is asked of nations as well.
South Africa witnessed what will no doubt prove to be historic turning points in our history for future generations to reflect and build on. Chief among those was the May 29 national and provincial elections, which for the first time in our 30 years of democratic order witnessed the liberation movement, in the form of the ANC, lose its firm and once absolute grip on power.
Today we are saddled or blessed – depending on what side of the divide one views it – with a government of national unity that is now mandated to navigate South Africa through the challenges it faces.
But the prospects as we take the initial tentative steps into 2025 look promi-sing. First, SA enters the year holding the presidency of the G20, a league of leading global nations purportedly seeking a better world for all. That alone should give us hope to see in ourselves – irrespective of whether or not the honour was bestowed on us simply because it was our turn – as having a significant role to play on the global stage and the world has recog-nised that.
It is a chance to start afresh and try to relive the glorious Madiba/Mbeki years when we punched well above our weight.
Carpe diem, let’s seize the moment, South Africa.
