Share this
Mister Wong
Digg
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Facebook
Wikio
Hear this text
Print
E-mail
Tags
Again we are wondering which direction this country will takeSome 18 years ago, I remember walking through the corridor of my new primary school and overhearing my white classmates nervously whisper that “tickets to Perth” were on standby if “things went wrong”.
It was 1992 and, of course, my classmates were referring to the “yes” or “no” referendum put forth to the white electorate to decide whether apartheid should die or not; “yes” would advance the political reforms already initiated, and “no” would stall the process and send the country into political chaos.
A dense, murky and sweaty tautness hovered over us as two million white people went about deciding our future.
Of course, it was early March, and perhaps it was simply Durban’s humidity that made us all flustered.
Nevertheless, the referendum came and went, voices of unreasonable dissent were drowned out by one collective sigh of relief, and the new South Africa was on its way.
It was not long before an overwhelming language of reconciliation, forgiveness, peace and HIV spread hastily across the land, converting the impressionable among us, paving a belief in a de-racialised constitution and giving us the impetus to believe.
Even Woolies got into the act, urging the Rainbow Nation to endorse peace by wearing lame blue-and-white dove T-shirts. The nuclear Naidoos sported the gay stitch and won best dressed family at the school fair that year.
The nervousness soon passed. Contrary to dictum of the time, the blacks did not go running to the plush suburbs in their birthday best to molest the Madam’s poodle, raid the tools from the big Baas’ shed, or catch a random dump in their pool.
The world watched in horror as a negotiated revolution kick-started the country into re-imagining its future.
Of course, in reality, the new South Africa was still cannon fodder for a disturbingly dark comedy.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was inadequate, the chosen economic framework failed to tickle workers out of bed each morning, and violent crime became a vocation for all those who could not make the Premier Soccer League.
But the “Rainbow Nation” kept its shape despite the obvious contradictions.
This was, after all, the land where Gandhi had interned before taking on the British back in India; this was the cradle of mankind from where distinguished gentlemen such as Sisulu and Luthuli and the iconic Madiba had emerged.
Despite our geographical and historical disadvantages, this was South Africa, after all, and we were going to prove that our poop did
not pong.
In many ways, being awarded the hosting of the Fifa World Cup is testimony to this goodwill, and when the tournament starts in June 2010, it will complete our spirited return into the international fold, with pimped up public infrastructure including upgraded roads, transport, and tourist attractions.
We know that this fluffy Fifa farce, like its predecessor the Rainbow Nation, has manifested little tangible improvement for the common woman, and disenchantment, frustration and resentment long since have replaced the euphoria of the ‘90s.
What began as populist expletives a couple of years back, in a bid to capture the neglected sensibilities of the mass electorate during the Zuma campaign, now evidently has spiralled out of control.
Whereas the ‘90s had pushed for magnanimous and often naive concord, in which decorum was as relevant as essence, we are a nation now debating where to draw the line between hate speech and historical construct: between freedom of expression and struggle songs.
But has anyone asked the question: When did it suddenly become ‘acceptable’ to straddle the freedom of expression/hate speech contour?
Ten years ago, would “Kill for Zuma”, “counter-revolutionary”, “Kill the Boer”, or “get your hands off my studio” have been touted in public forums with the nonchalance of today? Would an ANCYL president back then have had the gall to expel a BBC journalist from a press conference, and refer to him as a “bloody agent” or a “bastard”?
In other words, have we removed the fluff and are we moving into a new, more vulnerable, perhaps even – I dare say – more dangerously candid stage of our post-apartheid history?
It does not matter that economists will reiterate that “South Africa will never become a Zimbabwe” because of our country’s pivotal economic standing on the continent.
It does not matter that sociologists and politicians dumb down the shifting linguistics as trivial political rhetoric, designed simply to win votes and power.
And it does not matter that liberal columnists steer away from alarmist talk in a bid to remain “patriotic”, “politically correct” and strictly HIV negative.
What does matter is that South Africans have their ears to the ground more than ever, and a new, hackneyed sensitivity of racial violence has crept up our spines for the first time since 1994.
What matters is that ordinary South Africans are nervous, even convinced, that the shift in linguistics masks our social ills, while shifting the political agenda on the ground.
History tells us that there is always talk before violence; jingoistic, ardent nationalism is a prerequisite to any act of mass violence.
Only the delusional will deny that a country of our economic stature can remain perilously unequal for so long without giving way to some sort of extreme socio-political intervention.
And it is not like it did not happen already.
The xenophobic violence of 2008 did not ‘just emerge’ as some sort of whimsical fart on the prairie. Of course, a ‘third force’ was blamed and we can all go on pretending that xenophobic lingo and sentiment had nothing to do with it.
Eighteen years later, we again are wondering which direction this country will take.
Only this time, there is no “yes” or “no” vote.
Azad Essa, the “Accidental Academic”, is a freelance journalist and lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In his spare time, he scolds politicians.
