Myth? The argument against the rainbow nation is that it is done in order to escape South Africa's history. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
There are myths societies tell themselves over and over again. These myths — some corrosive — are told because they hold societies together, without which they would cease to exist.
South Africa is not an exception. For decades this country has survived by telling itself myths. A popular one is the fetishisation of the rainbow nation and its mythic potencies, with the intention of escaping history and magically erasing the true ugliness of this nation — without having addressed the unresolved legacy of violence and grief.
Even when we are in the dungeon of darkness there are stories of triumph we tell and retell ourselves, again and again. The point is not whether they are true which matters but rather how they make us feel when we believe and recite them, which in turn nourishes our conviction in these myths.
Even when a white student urinates on a black student’s books and laptop or when Belinda Magor calls for the killing of black people, which are an indication that the bond of integration is breaking down, we turn to each other and convince ourselves that “this is not us, this is not who we are”.
Such deluded thinking will be the end of us because this is us, it is who we are, it is what this country is and has been. South Africa is based on white privilege and black marginalisation. The entire society is designed that way. We don’t see this because we choose to look away; we choose to believe a mythic and cunning construct about what this nation is.
Rather than facing ourselves with every incident of racism, we choose to recite necromantic spells of rainbowism which invoke a sentimental yearning for the illusory fantasy of inclusion and faux benevolence. South Africa is called the rainbow nation while the legacy of apartheid is still visible and intact. This country is not free from pretending to be what it is not — and it is a shame.
When the entire existence of a nation depends on a mythical narrative that it has little to show for it, the day this narrative is exposed for the farce that it is is the day that society falls apart. It is the day this society would be forced to lift up the veil and face itself — to see its ugliness.
But what is to become of our nation when the fathers of its myths, such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, are no longer around? It surely hangs by a thread. This is discernible in the desperate measures to resuscitate its momentum with empty slogans. This is absurd. Furthermore, the soul of a progressive and free country depends on the illumination and nourishment that is provided by the spirit of collective humanity. We are lacking that and, because of this, the fire is upon us.
Without the myths there is no rainbow nation and, without the rainbow nation, there is no South Africa. These myths have proved to be a cure worse than the disease, since they lack compendious description and are sustained by a basic premise whose approach is argued with absolute imagination and extracted from tenacious, pseudo-theorems of racial colour-blindness which failed to change people and the way they treat each other. This colour-blindness is to be in denial of something — it is to be in denial of reality. To deny something also means giving way to something else; something which one identifies with — something accepted, noble, pure, righteous and white people have always been keen on the idea of giving precedence to white supremacy, no matter the cost.
But the naturalness of the magical powers of white supremacy does not come from white people’s miming of execration or imprecation for dominion, neither from the performance of thaumaturgy, but stems from the wisdom of the physical world, from this world’s ingenuousness, recklessness and simpleness; from its correspondence to acts of truculence, pugnacity and belligerency.
South Africans need to look each other in the eye and say: “We are beautiful. And ugly too.” Such words must transform not only how we look at ourselves but also how others look at us; how they perceive us through the biases of their intolerance and prejudices.
For us to succeed in building a new society we need to undergo an inevitable, deep, transformative salvation leading to the rearrangement of our values. This would come from emptying ourselves and refusing despondency. This is crucial for laying the foundation for shared optimism; it is a prerequisite for a true rainbow nation.
Bukelani Mboniswa is the author of Paint Me White: The Black Man’s Tragedy and Rainbow Nation: The Propaganda of Democracy.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.