If there is one thing South Africans are supremely gifted with, it has to be the gift of marching. If a group of people are unhappy about something, the best way to express their unhappiness is to organize a march.
Considering our quite recent history, some people have paid dearly for taking part in a march. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must have felt to greet a loved one on their way to a march early in the morning, knowing that there is a possibility she/he might not return.
Of course, there have been many historic marches that we should commemorate. There have been, and will always be times when we should raise our critical (call it prophetic, if you will) voices.
Having said that, I am not a fan of most of the marches that have been taking place recently. I could not put my finger on why I felt like I did. I decided to start asking people that I respect, on their opinion. A good friend said that he would not take part in most marches, because he didn’t feel that the main agenda was reconciliation. That pretty much hit the nail on the head for me.
From my perspective, if marches aren’t held with genuine reconciliation as the main driving force, we are wasting our time. The problem with organizing a march, in many cases, is the fact that the blame is shifted. If crime is the issue, government is the problem. Therefore, we hand over a memorandum to the president. After all, he made the mess, so he has to fix it.
Even marches organized under the veil of being non-political, very seldom are what they seem. I will reconsider the credibility of a march when people of different political views and agendas choose to take hands on a specific pressing issue.
In my mind, as followers of Christ, one of our main responsibilities are to be agents of reconciliation in all spheres of our lives.
Paul put it simply in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19:
“18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
We have miraculously been reconciled with the Creator of this beautiful place we call earth. And his dream for us, is to be agents of reconciliation. Our whole lives should be a testimony of reconciliation.
It is pretty easy to take part in a march for a few hours. It’s a different story when we choose to be people whose lives ooze reconciliation. Reconciliation cannot take place where there is no relationship, and we suck at relationships.
I would rather start a mentoring relationship with a young, promising boy who doesn’t have the means to make a success of his life without some much needed guidance and assistance. If this boy doesn’t receive proper guidance and help, who knows, he might resort to crime; which might end up in him becoming a murderer. And then we will have to start marching all over again, reminding the president of the serious problems he has to face.
May our lives ooze reconciliation. If the masses start becoming agents of reconciliation, maybe it wouldn’t be necessary to organize marches anymore.
Anru Liebenberg 
So true. Which is possibly why SA struggles so much with conflict. We rather wave recriminations in other people’s faces than actually engage with them.