Anyone watching us, South Africans, from outside would be forgiven for thinking that we’re a strange lot. It doesn’t seem to take much for us to move from seriously bickering amongst ourselves – even uttering words across our respective historic divides that are impossible to take back – to uniting in order to celebrate a victorious sports team or artist returning home with a trophy.
Some even believe our country would be best led by one of our most popular sports personalities purely because they, apparently, do not see colour.
But we all know that our daily lived reality is far complex. The lingering wounds of our even more complex history of racial division, oppression, humiliation, and deliberate deprivation do not make anything easy for us. One day we believe national reconciliation is a done deal, the next day something happens, often provoked by a careless, divisive, utterance or action by an individual or group of people that pours salt on our collective festering wound all over again, then all South African hell breaks loose. We all know what can look like. It is as ugly as, well, hell. It is as if we enjoy taking three steps forward, then one or two backward. It is a macabre South African dance that leaves many observers confused.
In truth, because we all share our history, despite having been positioned on various sides of it, with some more privileged and better served than others, it is still our history with all its complexities. Each one of us has the choice to keep pouring salt over the wounds we carry or to do everything to avoid doing so and contribute to the long process of healing, despite its known ‘stop and go’ propensities. We also have the freedom to choose how we respond to any provocations that get thrown our way to make us doubt the possibility of long-term unity and healing.
None of us is entirely innocent or without a role to play. Sometimes we are the ones who provoke others, other times we’re the ones who get provoked. At some point, we must all accept that we cannot keep going this way into perpetuity.
Not too long ago, many of us united around a “Zuma Must Go” call because we saw the damage – some even, understandably, describing it as treasonous – that the Zuma-led ANC had been inflicting on us, especially at the height of state capture when the Guptas were still roaming our streets and their toxic tentacles were deeply imbedded in our vital institutions.
The Guptas were widely reported to have deployed their malleable people in various ministries, government departments, and state-owned enterprises to advance their criminal interests. Zuma was eventually removed from office and the Guptas are gone from South Africa, reportedly on the run from the long arm of the law, but no one has been tried and convicted for enabling, abetting, and benefitting from their alleged treasonous crimes.
As I write this, we’re called upon to unite again, this time at the provocation of reports that the anti-South Africa Executive Orders recently signed by US President, Donald Trump, came about in response to calls by fellow South Africans in AfriForum, alongside the Tesla boss, Elon Musk – also born and raised in South Africa.
This is, ostensibly, to prevent the state from going ahead with reported plans to expropriate privately owned land in the hands of Whites South Africans without compensation. All of this comes on the heels of the recent signing by President Ramaphosa of the much feared and, some claim, widely misinterpreted Expropriation Bill.
All these developments are as complex and as simple as they seem, depending on the angle from which one looks at them. Some have been quick to look at them from the perspective of 1) The ANC, which suffered massive losses in the 2024 elections and might be trying to appeal to emotions for support and possible electoral recovery ahead of the next elections, all with the belief that our land question is yet to be fully resolved.
Others have placed their focus on the 2) The AfriForum angle, whose actions are described as treasonous and needing to be criminally investigated as such. A third group of South Africans has chosen the 3) ‘Besieged Country’ angle, rallying support by all South Africans to defend the country against an unwarranted Trump onslaught and to defend it blindly.
What has become clear to me is that we, South Africans, shouldn’t need the kind of provocation and threats that have led us to where we currently find ourselves to see the importance of uniting against a shared basket of nation building ideals.
Naturally, there will be areas of agreement and disagreement, but the ideals we should unite around must be informed by the spirit of our Constitution, which rallies us to work together to tackle the festering wounds of colonialism and apartheid while we hold hands from across all historic divides to build a better future for all.
Granted, we shall argue, point fingers, and seem impossible to unite, from time to time, but we really do not have a choice but to keep working hard to build a society in which no one must be discriminated against, or refused opportunities, on the basis only of their racial, religious, ethnic, or gender identity background.
We must be as sincere in dealing with the stubborn ghosts of our dark legacy and as determined in ensuring that no South African child, man, or woman, ever gets to feel unwanted in the country of their birth because they do not have the right skin colour, religion, or gender. We cannot heal from the madness of the past by repeating the very same things that were used in the past to cause pain, humiliation, and to pit us against one another.
Ultimately, we must learn from the past but not repeat its errors. No matter how angry and disappointed we are at recent and ongoing developments, let us not lose tomorrow because of yesterday. We have it in ourselves, working together as South Africans, to work together to lesson our reliance on aid from outsiders, aid that can also be weaponised by malicious people to divide us.
But we cannot build for tomorrow if we cannot freely call out the horrors of our past for what they were. And no one must stop us from acknowledging our past for what it was, no matter how much doing so makes them uncomfortable. It is only when we’re left to ventilate that we can eventually move on.
In the end, our collective potential can only be realised on honest foundations, not a rewrite or effacing of our past.
It Often Seems Hard, Even Impossible, but National Unity is Our Only Strength
Anyone watching us, South Africans, from outside would be forgiven for thinking that we’re a strange lot. It doesn’t seem to take much for us to move from seriously bickering amongst ourselves – even uttering words across our respective historic divides that are impossible to take back – to uniting in order to celebrate a victorious sports team or artist returning home with a trophy.
Some even believe our country would be best led by one of our most popular sports personalities purely because they, apparently, do not see colour.
But we all know that our daily lived reality is far complex. The lingering wounds of our even more complex history of racial division, oppression, humiliation, and deliberate deprivation do not make anything easy for us. One day we believe national reconciliation is a done deal, the next day something happens, often provoked by a careless, divisive, utterance or action by an individual or group of people that pours salt on our collective festering wound all over again, then all South African hell breaks loose. We all know what can look like. It is as ugly as, well, hell. It is as if we enjoy taking three steps forward, then one or two backward. It is a macabre South African dance that leaves many observers confused.
In truth, because we all share our history, despite having been positioned on various sides of it, with some more privileged and better served than others, it is still our history with all its complexities. Each one of us has the choice to keep pouring salt over the wounds we carry or to do everything to avoid doing so and contribute to the long process of healing, despite its known ‘stop and go’ propensities. We also have the freedom to choose how we respond to any provocations that get thrown our way to make us doubt the possibility of long-term unity and healing.
None of us is entirely innocent or without a role to play. Sometimes we are the ones who provoke others, other times we’re the ones who get provoked. At some point, we must all accept that we cannot keep going this way into perpetuity.
Not too long ago, many of us united around a “Zuma Must Go” call because we saw the damage – some even, understandably, describing it as treasonous – that the Zuma-led ANC had been inflicting on us, especially at the height of state capture when the Guptas were still roaming our streets and their toxic tentacles were deeply imbedded in our vital institutions.
The Guptas were widely reported to have deployed their malleable people in various ministries, government departments, and state-owned enterprises to advance their criminal interests. Zuma was eventually removed from office and the Guptas are gone from South Africa, reportedly on the run from the long arm of the law, but no one has been tried and convicted for enabling, abetting, and benefitting from their alleged treasonous crimes.
As I write this, we’re called upon to unite again, this time at the provocation of reports that the anti-South Africa Executive Orders recently signed by US President, Donald Trump, came about in response to calls by fellow South Africans in AfriForum, alongside the Tesla boss, Elon Musk – also born and raised in South Africa.
This is, ostensibly, to prevent the state from going ahead with reported plans to expropriate privately owned land in the hands of Whites South Africans without compensation. All of this comes on the heels of the recent signing by President Ramaphosa of the much feared and, some claim, widely misinterpreted Expropriation Bill.
All these developments are as complex and as simple as they seem, depending on the angle from which one looks at them. Some have been quick to look at them from the perspective of 1) The ANC, which suffered massive losses in the 2024 elections and might be trying to appeal to emotions for support and possible electoral recovery ahead of the next elections, all with the belief that our land question is yet to be fully resolved.
Others have placed their focus on the 2) The AfriForum angle, whose actions are described as treasonous and needing to be criminally investigated as such. A third group of South Africans has chosen the 3) ‘Besieged Country’ angle, rallying support by all South Africans to defend the country against an unwarranted Trump onslaught and to defend it blindly.
What has become clear to me is that we, South Africans, shouldn’t need the kind of provocation and threats that have led us to where we currently find ourselves to see the importance of uniting against a shared basket of nation building ideals.
Naturally, there will be areas of agreement and disagreement, but the ideals we should unite around must be informed by the spirit of our Constitution, which rallies us to work together to tackle the festering wounds of colonialism and apartheid while we hold hands from across all historic divides to build a better future for all.
Granted, we shall argue, point fingers, and seem impossible to unite, from time to time, but we really do not have a choice but to keep working hard to build a society in which no one must be discriminated against, or refused opportunities, on the basis only of their racial, religious, ethnic, or gender identity background.
We must be as sincere in dealing with the stubborn ghosts of our dark legacy and as determined in ensuring that no South African child, man, or woman, ever gets to feel unwanted in the country of their birth because they do not have the right skin colour, religion, or gender. We cannot heal from the madness of the past by repeating the very same things that were used in the past to cause pain, humiliation, and to pit us against one another.
Ultimately, we must learn from the past but not repeat its errors. No matter how angry and disappointed we are at recent and ongoing developments, let us not lose tomorrow because of yesterday. We have it in ourselves, working together as South Africans, to work together to lesson our reliance on aid from outsiders, aid that can also be weaponised by malicious people to divide us.
But we cannot build for tomorrow if we cannot freely call out the horrors of our past for what they were. And no one must stop us from acknowledging our past for what it was, no matter how much doing so makes them uncomfortable. It is only when we’re left to ventilate that we can eventually move on.
In the end, our collective potential can only be realised on honest foundations, not a rewrite or effacing of our past.