There are myths that people tell us over and over again. These myths – some of them corrosive – are told because they hold society together, without which it would cease to exist.
South Africa is no exception. For decades this country has kept itself alive by telling myths. What is popular is the fetishization of the rainbow nation and its mythical power, with the aim of escaping from history and magically erasing the true evil of this nation – without dealing with the unresolved legacy of violence and sorrow.
Even when we are in the dungeon of darkness there are stories of victory that we tell and retell, over and over again. The point is that it is not what is true that matters, but how it makes us feel when we believe it and read it, which in turn leads to our belief in the myth.
Even when white students urinate on black students’ books and laptops or when Belinda Magor asks to kill black people, which shows that the bonds of integration have been broken, we return to each other and are convinced that “this is not us, this is not us”.
Such thinking will be the end of us because this is who we are, this is what this country is and what it is. South Africa is based on white privilege and black marginalization. All societies are designed that way. We do not see this because we choose to look away; we choose to believe in the construction of myths and cunning about what this nation is.
Instead of confronting ourselves with every instance of racism, we choose to recite the necromantic spell of rainbowism that evokes a sentimental desire for an illusory fantasy of inclusion and false benevolence. South Africa was called the rainbow nation when the legacy of apartheid was still visible and intact. This country is not free from pretending to be something it is not – and shame on it.
When the entire existence of a nation depends on a mythic narrative that cannot be seen, the day this narrative is revealed to be a joke is the day society collapses. Today society will be forced to lift the veil and face itself – to see evil.
But what will become of our nation when the fathers of myth, such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, are no more? It’s definitely hanging by a thread. This is understandable in the desperate measures to revive the momentum with empty slogans. This is absurd. Furthermore, the soul of a developed and independent country depends on the light and nourishment provided by the spirit of collective humanity. We are lacking and, because of this, the fire is already in us.
Without the myth there is no rainbow nation and, without the rainbow nation, there is no South Africa. These myths have proven to be a medicine worse than the disease, because they do not have a suitable explanation and are supported by a basic premise whose approach is refuted by absolute imagination and extracted from racial color-blind pseudo-theorems that fail to change people. and their ways. This color blindness is to deny something – it is to deny reality. To reject something also means to give way to something else; something that one identifies with – something accepted, noble, pure, righteous and white people have always been persistent in the idea of giving precedence to white supremacy, no matter the cost.
But the naturalness of the divine power of white supremacy does not come from white people miming execration or imprecation for dominion, even from the performance of thaumaturgy, but Origins from the wisdom of the physical world, from the ingenuousness of this world, recklessness and simplicity; from correspondence to acts of truculence, pugnacity and belligerency.
South Africans should look at each other and say: “We are beautiful. And we are also ugly.” These words should change not only the way we see ourselves but also the way others see us; how they see us through the bias of intolerance and prejudices.
In order for us to succeed in building a new society, we must experience an inevitable, profound and transformative salvation that leads to a restructuring of our values. This will come from emptying yourself and resisting despair. This is important to create a foundation for shared optimism; it is a prerequisite for a true rainbow nation.
Bukelani Mboniswa is the author Paint Me White: A Black Man’s Tragedy and Rainbow Nation: Democratic Propaganda.