LITERALLY YOURS alex tabisher Even in a rainbow, there is a division in the colours

IREAD a clip on social media addressing the notion of “rainbowism”. Let’s start with our “rainbow nation”, an epithet contrived by the Arch in hope.

The rainbow was a reassurance from God that He would not destroy the world with water again.

I have my reservations about the rainbow symbolising harmony in diversity, especially as difference is still the most powerful currency that keeps us from melding into one nation.

Next, we look at the flag. We needed a symbol that would indicate the flowing together of differences.

The flag is said to have been designed by a South African herald.

The design is based on the works of the Dutch Modernist

Piet Mondrian.

It underscores division as much as it claims to attempt an image of convergence.

There is nothing South African in it.

The same social media revealed unchallenged that Ma Winnie, wife to Nelson for 38 years, could not be a part of the new dispensation. Black leaders who would negotiate a tougher deal were photobrushed out of the new image of South Africa. Steve Biko? Chris Hani?

Unfortunately for the Nationalist negotiators, they couldn’t do that to the mother of the nation. Nelson had to help them get rid of the threat she represented by divorcing her.

The mother of his children? Who had carried his dream while he languished on the island and latterly in reasonable comfort because the negotiations included “sunset clauses”?

The sorry tale of betrayal proceeds.

A national anthem that started as a Christian hymn?

Good. God is a good place for any nation to start. But hang on. We cannot abandon the Vierkleur, even in the guise of the “add-on” part of the anthem.

Small wonder that we inherited the #MustFall.

There is a sense of betrayal, of pussy-footing from a position of advantage that wasn’t utilised.

We need some truths here. We need some admissions that we started out badly. We have to resurrect part of what we killed off in our new-found national fervour.

We need a more stable curriculum. We need training colleges for teachers and nurses.

We need legislation to curb the mafia taxi industry. We need a less bloated ministry.

We need a fit, not a fat, police force.

Ashwin missed out on greatness the same sad way that Rev Allan Hendrickse did.

Both had a chance to stick it to white arrogance. But both bent before the unrelenting pressure of the coin of the realm.

We need to start afresh.

How, I don’t know.

At the moment, we are losing out by the day.

Child and woman abuse.

Low literacy. No railway. A bankrupt national airway. A collapsing health system.

Everybody staking claims for land.

Lowered standards for academic accreditation.

Quo Vadis?