Media Flaws

I park on Long street and saunter down Wale Street to the Slave Lodge Museum. I cram myself into a seat towards the front row whilst Dr Mamphela Ramphele, dressed in umbhaco omhlophe, and her sister-in-law take temporary seats in front of me. Soon the room is packed to capacity as we wait for John Maytham who’ll be chairing the debate on ‘Rainbow Nation: Myth or Reality?’ - for the currently-homeless Desmond Tutu Peace Centre. He arrives at 18h15 and gets it going.

Ramphele starts by acknowledging the crowd composition, “Just look around the room – is this the rainbow nation? Where are the people with my hair?” whilst convincingly adding that “Apartheid’s geography is alive and well” hence more white people in the room. With only seven minutes to unpack the concept of a Rainbow Nation, Ramphele proceeds by stating how deeply wounded our nation is, “Our wounds stem from a past we have yet to confront” she sternly says. Now in addressing this woundedness the speaker drew on the realities of post-apartheid South Africa and offered a plea for us to reflect on the past and its impact. As I sit there listening my mind drifts towards the realities black South Africans continually live in – whereby minorities are adamant that reconciliation has been achieved and that we need to move on. I imagine the impossibility of such misguided statements and the convenient refuge denialism can achieve.

We truly have a long way to go.

As much as I have never, in my years of growing, agreed with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC's) major objectives, I tended to agree with Ramphele’s interpretation that “The TRC provided a bridge between a dangerous past and uncertain future” but sadly was misguided by its hope that the post-apartheid government would clean out its opened rusty cans of worms.

My major question at all junctures of reflecting upon our society has always been underwritten by the notion of Difference. We are different. I have often heard white people, when speaking out against reformative measures of this government, saying they’re struggling and also deserve equal opportunities. I’m constantly amazed at the severity of ignorance towards black people’s wounds – be they noveau riche or poor. Loss. Trauma. Warped senses of identity and entitlement prevail in such instances. Healing rituals / circles are indeed needed for our people, as Ramphele suggests. We are a hurting nation, coupled by a lack of understanding and anger from emerging black generations. A type of How-can-we-be-so-disadvantaged-16-years-later? and We-deserve-better complexes.

So then I wonder how we can learn anew how to walk together as a nation? as per Ramphele. How can we walk the same path when clearly the majority of this country is still in cul de sacs?

Perhaps as a country we need to change our strategy. In my mind redress can only happen once the previously advantaged have come to terms with the reality and continuously lived experience of the wounded black – be they noveau rich or poor. It is not enough for Ramphele and the likes of Adv Dumisa Ntsebeza to alone cry “We are wounded!” What we need here is an approach to make white people understand the severity of apartheid and its existent legacy. It will then be up to white people to take heed. And start acknowledging that they are indeed still very very advantaged in the bigger scheme of things. Another speaker, Prof. Antjie Krog, at the debate suggested, “Just after 1994 white people were more than willing to share land, engage with the post-apartheid government" but they later backed off – why did they back off? Krog took her talk further by explaining the metaphor of a rainbow nation whilst juxtaposing its [rainbow’s] literal scientific composition to our racial attempt at homogeneity. My interpretation of where she was going with this was that we may see one colour in front of us [hers], but should not forget that that colour forms and is part of a rainbow. Now this then reiterates the blindness of white people to the plight of a rainbow nation. Yes, you can be part of a rainbow, but trust me I have yet to see black in any rainbow. Which begs the questions on why we use rainbow to even describe this myth of equal existence in South Africa? Perhaps we need to move away from these obfuscatory convenient metaphors.

Another speaker who was present, at short notice, replacing Tony Ehrenreich – who had to be in Johannesburg – was Adv Dumisa Ntsebeza. Ntsebeza reflected on how the TRC’s scope was narrow and that it served to reconcile the victims-perpetrators angle and only dealt with the exposition of gross violations of human rights. Whilst at the TRC Ntsebeza recalls them [TRC committee] raising/discussing redress for forced removals victims. “The haves have been mostly white, and the havenots have been mostly black. Reconciliation will be an empty phrase until we sort out the gap [divides] between the haves & havenots” he started, whilst further alluding to the ideals of, perhaps, an Economic’s TRC, as well as holistic land redress measures as “we still give land in the prisms of group areas act” – by this he meant how when developing houses [RDP or otherwise] they are still built on the peripherals of cities, in townships or outskirts. Yet, when developmental housing ‘encroaches’ on suburbia (eg Hout Bay scenario) it is quickly dismissed on various convenient grounds; such as areas not conducive for human habitation – which baffles me considering how some of the previously dubbed ideal-for-blacks areas such as Langa were founded on daily sewerage stench drenched locales.

Anyway, the discussion moved towards an audience participatory form in which socio-economic vs psycho-social redress was meted out. To this Ramphele emphasised that psycho-social took preference and expanded by adding that “of all the sources of pain, humiliation is the worst.” Ntsebeza seemed more aligned to socio-economic redress and justified this by saying “Apartheid was about entrenching economic wealth in the hands of whites.”

So inevitably this leaves us where we began. It seems Ntsebeza’s economics-first approach was the preferred route by our government. Yet, with hindsight, I’m convinced he too, can see the psycho-social omissions ramifications at play. How then do we move forward if we have a largely white sector refusing to see black wounds that are gushingly oozing puss. How then do we move on when the wounded are convinced a financial plaster is all that is required to heal – without taking into account the festering nature of their wounds deep down? Could healing circles be indeed the anti-bacterial solution to our qualms?

With that, I’ll head off to enjoy the rest of my lunch by concluding that: There is no such thing as a rainbow nation. The stripes are clear – and they resemble zebras in their composition. They cannot be merged into one, but can co-exist without hindering the zebra’s actual being.