The Rainbow Nation

The rainbow nation

The narrator is having a conversation with a friend, Mr Sheridan, and Thabo, a colleague from the Education Department.

« But things have changed a lot, haven’t they? »

« Not really, » Sheridan says. «The whites still have everything and the blacks still have nothing. »

« That isn’t true, » I say. « Look at you. You couldn’t even attend university when you were young, and here you’re a Director General with a master’s degree. »

« In spite of the changes, not because of them! »

« But what are you comparing things to? Ten years ago, your children would have had to go to school here in the township, you would have had to go all the way to Vista to study. No white principal would have given Thabo the time of day. Now he can put pressure on them. »

« None of the principals listen to me, anyway. But that is not the point. The changes you see are in places where they don’t make a difference. On television black men are suddenly drinking whisky, black women are doing their own laundry. In Kroonstad, a black man wears the mayor’s chain, there are black children in the white schools. But these things don’t matter. As soon as black people take control of something, that thing loses its power. Sjoep! Suddenly the power is gone, and you look around and see that the whites have twisted things here and there, and taken the power with them. It is somewhere else again. »

« Oh, please. Where does the power lie in Kroonstad? The state gives millions to municipality-which is run by blacks! - To look after the poor. But instead of doing that, they pay themselves big salaries and employ double the number of officials. Whose fault is that? Where have whites taken the power? As I see it, the whites are the only ones paying their rates and taxes. »(…)

He pours the tea that his wife has brought in. He is angry. I regret my words, but also realize that our good relationship is bound to have its tensions. Our lives have diverged over the years.

Thabo is shaking snuff from a small tin. Then he takes another container from his pocket, filled with sugar-free tablets, and puts three in his tea.

« Something else may be missing here, » says Thabo.

« Before 1990, we all had distorted images of each other.

Whites are like this and blacks are like that. From 1990 to 1994, we realized with growing astonishment how many things we actually do have in common. How much is shared between Afrikaner and African. How little Ubuntu Communism and Boere Socialism differ from one another, how much of an old-fashioned Christian ethic underscores all our comings and goings. This is why the elections were such a success. Because of what bound us together and what future we envisioned. »

« And what was that? »

« I would say: in spite of our different colours and languages and incomes, we accepted that we are actually of each other, we care for one another, we will stand in queues together and vote, because

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