Mandla Seleoane's No Holy Cows

We’re not a rainbow as a nation

WORDS are curious little things.

Lewis Carroll, of Alice in Wonderland fame, has singularly brilliant ways of bringing their interesting nature to the fore. The conversation between Alice and the March Hare at the mad tea party is one example.

March Hare: “You should say what you mean.”

Alice: “I do. At least I mean what I say – that’s the same thing you know.”

March Hare: “Not the same thing a bit.”

It may be interesting to explore the difference between saying what I mean and meaning what I say, but we shall leave that to the linguists and the esoteric researchers.

What fascinates me is the role played by words in society.

Words are also a kind of window to the thoughts of people. We kind of know what people think, and how they think, through the words they use.

And I think that Carroll probably had that in mind in arguing that you should say what you mean, for unless we are sure that your words convey what you want them to, they cannot serve as a dependable window to your thoughts.

One of the things that have been engaging my mind lately is this whole notion of us being a rainbow nation. Where does it come from? Some people attribute the origins of the term to Jesse Jackson in the USA.

However I also recall a song by Timmy Thomas about America needing rainbow power. Both Jackson and Thomas would have used the term in order to argue against racism.

The interesting problem is that if you examine the term, it appears to be something of an unfortunate choice.

Black is not one of the colours of the rainbow.

In fact, as I recall my very elementary readings on science, black is a negation of the colours on the rainbow.

Well, now, enthusiasts of the rainbow nation will argue, neither is white part of the colours of the rainbow. Quite so, but white is the combination of all the colours on the rainbow.

So, now, I begin to wonder, what images are we invoking in referring to South Africa as a rainbow nation? I think, quite frankly, that the rainbow nation idea is the lousiest attempt we have made in recent history to try and promote unity among black, white, and whatever other colour or combination of colours people in South Africa might have.

Unity between the “races” cannot be built on an idea that negates the existence of some, especially not if that some constitutes an overwhelming majority. Nor can unity be built on the basis of ideas that subsume all the other groups under one, especially if that one constitutes the minority.

Can it be any wonder, therefore, that notwithstanding the best intentions of our political leaders, unity between the “races” just keeps on escaping us? We can expect that someone out there might argue that my reasoning on this is somewhat flawed in that it assumes the knowledge of the man and woman in the street of the colours of the rainbow, and their ability to draw inferences from absence of black on the spectrum and the cumulative presence of white.

For all its arrogance regarding the capacities of the man and woman in the street, the critique might well be valid. However what it would miss is that my critique is directed at the intelligent people who formulated the notion. It is an indictment on them that the only way they could think of to encourage unity comes down to the negation of everything that is black and the affirmation of everything that is white.

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