Jonathan Jansen: Walk on through the wind

Jonathan Jansen: Good morning, boys! What a privilege to be with you today. Since you find yourself at one of our best schools, you are all likely to be leaders in society.

You will have a great influence on many people. Some of you will create great companies while others will teach generations of new citizens; within this group there are future leaders who will become world-famous scholars, poets and engineers; there might be a Nobel laureate in this group, or the person who will discover an Aids vaccine; and there may be among you those who will change whole countries. Since you are likely to be a leader, aided by what the school does, let me challenge you with three critical lessons that every successful leader must learn.

First, learn to cry.

In South Africa, we raise our boys to be aggressive. We take them through rugby drills and tell you to go to battle against the opposition. And so when a rugby player is confronted by a metro policeman, it is not enough to beat him, you must kill him; maybe the problem is that we call our sons Bees.

We tell you, from a young age, not to cry. We mislead you by encouraging a "stiff upper lip", something that belongs in another culture. This is wrong. Strong men cry. They share emotions.

Do not let anyone tell you that emotion is a woman's thing. I measure the strength of a boy by the extent to which he is connected to his inner self and not only to his base needs; by consciousness of his brokenness, not only the faults of others; by awareness that his strength lies in softness, not aggression.

Second, learn to love.

Look around you, and you see angry people everywhere. Men and women who hate. Many of us, black and white, speak only through our wounds. Past hurts imprison us, doing more harm to our own spirits and bodies than it does to the target of our hatreds. Strikers deliberately desert premature babies in paediatric emergency awards so that they die, in order to make a point about their salaries.

It is your generation that must take us beyond hate and indifference, to the love and embrace of others, especially of those whom we think are different from us.

Loving people who look like you is easy; expanding that embrace to those who appear different - the disabled, foreign nationals from Africa, Muslims, black or white citizens - is the real measure of a man. In repairing what is wrong, we must reconcile what belongs together; do both at the same time.

Third, learn to stand alone.

South Africa consists of tribes. We do things in tribes. We hail the masses. What we feel, hear, fear or hope for is shaped by group thinking. David Harrison wrote a book called White Tribe of Africa to make this point. We hate people who stand out.

Our culture reprimands children and adults alike who take a stand on principle.

When you do this, you will lose some friends, but you will gain more respect. Peer pressure will force you to remain with the group, to side with the majority.

They might call you names, like "racist" from one side, or "kaffir-boetie" from the other side. But when something is wrong, and when your conscience tells you there is a more noble way, take a stand and, if necessary, stand alone.

This is the story of Beyers Naude who lost his pulpit, his people and his public life not too far from where your school is located.

On a dramatic Sunday he preached his last sermon, in which he said that the authority of God was higher than the authority of man. He told his wife, "whatever happens, we will be together." He received a long banning order that restricted him to his home. He suffered death threats and was ostracised by his community.

But because he stood alone, for what he believed was right, he helped bring us freedom and now history and a whole nation judge him a hero.

This is how standing alone brings you back into community; maybe this is what the songwriters of the famous musical [Carousel] meant when they urged,

Walk on through the wind,

walk on through the rain

Though your dreams be

tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on,

with hope in your heart

And you'll never walk alone

You'll never walk alone.

God bless you.

• This is the original text of a less structured speech delivered to the Boys of St Stithians High School in Randburg, Johannesburg, on Thursday September 9 2010