Rainbows, people, land

I read a book* recently on the cultural myths that inspire and shape American policy. The book was written in the late 80s and is a cultural relic in itself--the Soviets were still Enemy Number One--but it got me thinking: what are the cultural myths, well no, not myths, more like the stories or ideas even, that mould South Africa's political and economic decisions, and that mould our collective behaviour to one another? I gave it a muse, and came up with a couple. I'm not sure how well they work, but let's try it...

1. The Rainbow Nation
Ever since Tutu first flowered our collective imagination with the phrase, there's been an onslaught of ways in which the 'unity in diversity' trope has been circulated around and between both our personal and political lives. It's about being different and still being able to work together. We celebrated it in 95 with Mandela in the number six green and gold, forgot about it for a while after that, remembered it again in 2010 as we waved our flags and sang in our many languages and can lose sight of it now. Some of our rainbow is forced and some of it comes into being organically. Our political parties remind us constantly that our race defines us, while reminding us constantly that we are all one. Perhaps The Inconsistent Nation would be a better fit? Or, perhaps it's one of those things you need to believe in, for it to be true? Which brings us to...

2. The South African Dream
Ours is a country of aspiration. From our constitutional foundations--which we pray are built on stone, not sand--to the old 'alive with possibility' campaign, South Africa is about potential for change and progress and opportunity. Our present is a dream---from centuries of aggressive oppression to a comparatively peaceful transition and those gently powerful snakes of people queueing to vote in April and May every five years--so it's no surprise that we stake our future on the expectation that the dream will continue and grow. Life will be better. More houses, less violence. More justice, less rain. We sprinkle around 'transformation' like fairy dust, and we live in hope that the dust settles, that it doesn't bounce back up and into the air, gradually losing its purpose until it fades into a dimmer reality. We hope.

3. The Beacon in Africa
We were all so insulted when Guy Scott admonished our thinking that we are the "bees' knees", and when he explained that that isn't necessarily an accurate representation of reality. Regardless of his thoughts on us, our own thoughts are probably closer to the bee's knees than we admit. And much of the rest of Africa agrees. Citizens of states on the otherside of the continent do what they can to get here, and we do what we can to keep them--our inferior compatriots--out. While we boast about our membership in BRICS, we set fire to foreigners and loot Somali-owned stores. We wave our human rights at African despots (in quietly diplomatic terms, ofcourse) while we shovel millions into our back pockets. This sounds more pessimistic than I intended. We are a Beacon. It's just that sometimes the light of our beacon shines a little too narrowly, on too few people, for far too short a time.

4. The Promised Land
The last time I was in the Karoo, I got it. I looked around at the openness and I thought: I can imagine why people feel they belong here, and why they feel here belongs to them. The pull of the land as both soil and meaning pulls deep. We commemorate 100 years of the Native Land Act this year, as well as the laws put in place to destroy it and fix what it broke. But legislation cannot come close to account for our relationship with our land. There are bones that are buried in our land, there are farms and identities that have been built on and around the land. There are stories and narratives and memories and promises of land. I watched Mies Julie a few months ago (you should see it if you haven't) and the play showed so well the wrenching, seemingly irrevocable tie between us and our land, our shared land, our layered land. And between us and the others who live on our land.

5. The Persistent Venus
From tales about how it was the women on the wagons who got the Afrikaners over the mountains as they trekked north, to images of young girls with solid buckets of water on their prepubescent heads: the women in South Africa are strong. She is the woman who works while her husband drinks. She is the woman who raises children while their father never returns. She is the persistent beating of life against the world because the world is hard and she must stamp upon it with all the weight she can muster. White, black, it doesn't matter: the woman in South Africa is the core of the family and of civil society. However, she is also ignored. She is marginalized, undervalued, and because she fulfills the many roles that she does, it is assumed that this is just what the woman does. She works, and she is beaten, either by a hand or a system. She works.

It's reductionist I know, to simplify the complexities of our country to a few simple themes, and I'm not arguing that we should. I'm just musing. Musing, musing, musing.

* Rob Reich, 1987. "Tales of a New America: The Anxious Liberal's Guide to the Future"