A few weeks ago we celebrated Freedom Day here in South Africa. It's always a significant day. But this last one felt, I don't know, even more so. On April 27 2021, we marked 27 years since 1994. 27 years since all South Africans could vote together for the first time. 27 years since our unprecedented and quite miraculous transition to a democracy. 27 years 27 years the amount of time we kept former President Nelson Mandela in prison. 27 years since Archbishop Tutu coined the phrase, the rainbow nation. 27, which also happens to be our international dialling code. It should have been a significant marker for progress. But there's a sense that we're all feeling a bit well, over it - over the rainbow. It feels like we've done a pretty poor job of delivering on that vision. Instead of flourishing, we're floundering. The worst off most oppressed, marginalized, South Africans, our compatriots, remain so. How did we go so wrong? And can we get it back? And if so, how? It's these questions that inspired the over the rainbow project. You see, I believe a large part of our problem is a failure in leadership. And not just government, not just political leadership, business leadership, leadership in the media, leadership in civil society. We need a new brand of leadership, we need new principles - for leadership. It's time, I believe, that we committed to leading in the interests of creating a country for our children, not in lining our own pockets. I don't want to stand by and watch another 27 years pass and not have made at least a small attempt to ensure they don't look like the last 27 years or god forbid that 27 years before that. I hope through this process to learn to unlearn and to relearn what it really means to be South African and what treasures might yet lie - over the rainbow.
