Johannesburg – Well-known televangelist J John tells the story of a workman who left his workplace pushing a wheelbarrow, every other day.
The security guard always stopped the workman to check what was inside the wheelbarrow.
Only to find each time a small packet full of worthless sawdust. No stolen goods.
One day the guard confronted the suspect: “I have a feeling you are stealing something, but I can’t put my finger on it. What are you stealing? “Wheelbarrows,” said the workman.
Talk about missing the wood for the trees!
Sometimes I wonder whether the politics of our country are not constantly missing the wheelbarrows for the sawdust.
For a few years now, we seem to have lost our bearings and our ambition to become a home for all South Africans.
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The concept of a “rainbow people” in the early 1990s was probably our best attempt to move beyond such well-intentioned, disparate, and essentially negative visions of a non-racial, non-sexist, non-white, non-this and non-that society.
Except for the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging of Eugene Terreblanche, all political parties of the early 1990s, their ideological differences notwithstanding, seemed to share a vision in terms of which South Africa would move from being a non-nation into a something-nation.
That “something” was encapsulated in the idea of a rainbow people.
It was also contained in the pledge that Madiba made on our behalf, when on his inauguration day, he said: “We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans … will be able to walk tall, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”
Fast-forward to our times and you will find that the rubbishing of the rainbow idea has become a national sport, second only to gender-based violence (GBV) in popularity.
Rainbowism has also given a lot of material for budding standup comedians and aspirant writers.
Some blame the rainbow idea – and all those who propagated it – for all our current problems.
And yet, just like the idea of America as “the land of the free”, “land of opportunity”, “leader of the free world”; the idea of South Africans as a “rainbow people” denotes neither a perfect set of circumstances nor a flawless destination.
These ideals are like invitations to a journey in imagination. They are aspirations to be striven for, not creeds merely to be recited.
The prerequisites for a rainbow nation include economic inclusionary policies, community development and an anti-racist educational system, among many others.
Current levels of unemployment, inequality, poverty and corruption militate against the very idea of a rainbow nation.
Rather than (re)connect the idea of a rainbow nation to economics, land, agriculture, heritage, innovation, skills training, and a moral vision, it seems the government has, over the past few years, allowed itself to be hounded off rainbowism.
So have opposition parties. For all the foaming in the mouth and all the shaking of fists against the idea of a rainbow nation, its detractors have spectacularly failed to come up with riveting and viable alternatives.
Instead, narrower, and more partisan visions are being peddled by a plethora of (would-be) leaders, almost frivolously. Each leader speaks to and appeals to “his people”.
Partisan slogans and visions that masquerade as national visions will never grab the imagination of the nation. Nowhere is this wild goose chase more obvious than in the political manifestos and electioneering adverts deployed for the 2021 local government elections.
We are at risk of becoming a rudderless nation, which hops, skips and jumps from one national vision to another, every few months and every few years. But wait a minute.
It is possible that the periodic churning out of egoistic initiatives, divisive slogans and jaundiced visions may be a deliberate ploy intended to keep the populace distracted while the big men and big women are “eating”.
Like our July 2021 looters who were brazen, our politicians are stealing tons of wheelbarrows while we are focused on the lies inside the wheelbarrows.
Maybe we know they are robbing us blind but stealing has become integral to the South African way of life.
- Professor Maluleke is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship. Follow him on Twitter @ProfTinyiko
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