WHEN A PICTURE SAYS SO MUCH, AND SHOWS OUR TRUE COLOURS
“SEE the terrible stereotypes about us,” a colleague furiously cried out while discussing Heritage Day. He angrily pointed at a message on social media on the cultural diversity of South Africa.
In a series of pictures, the post portrays people dressed in traditional cultural attire. Most of the images show designs, bright colours and traditional insignia that as a rule are associated with the formally recognised diverse cultures of South Africa, such as those of the Xhosa, Sotho, Zulu communities.
The post claims to showcase South Africa as the “Rainbow nation” and shares only one trait, namely they all include black people.
However, two pictures stand in contrast to the rest of the series of pictures that were evidently held up as a representation of a nation’s diversity – a picture of white people wearing South African flags over Springbok jerseys, and of three coloured men in tracksuits in a dusty street between houses with paint peeling in a post that will be read by a cynical eye as reminiscent of gang imagery.
If not a portrayal of white culture in general, the first image can at best be read as an attempt to portray Afrikaner culture often so closely associated with rugby – a picture that deviates from the others in its lack of traditional images and symbols that as a rule are associated with diverse white communities.
If not a portrayal of coloured communities in general, the second image can at best be read as a crude attempt to portray the lived reality of young people in gang-ridden communities – a picture that deviates from the others also for its lack of cultural references, such as of traditional identities of the Khoisan, Nama, Griekwa and Bo-Kaap communities.
It is, however, the portrayal of the worst kind when an image projects the crime and violence of gangs and the troubled state of impoverished communities as defining features of a cultural identity and community.
Even if one would ignore the obvious racial undertones of the images in this post, what this one image represents makes for a case to be tabled to the Human Rights Commission for investigation – the fury of a colleague who holds his cultural heritage of Khoisan and Bo-Kaap origins close is not only justified, but vital, as must be a nation’s solidarity.
However, it is conceivable that the authors of this offensive post in their defence will claim these images truthfully represent the daily lives of people of different cultural backgrounds.
Their intent was not to say that black communities have richer cultural heritage and traditions than coloured or white communities, as it was not to say that only black heritage are truly African, they might claim. The pictures offer a true representation of the lives of the black, coloured and white communities of South Africa, which is not a value judgement, but simply a portrayal of reality, they may argue.
The argument will however not hold because it does not answer the underlying problem of painting a culture in terms of a single set of observable traits, and then making that reduced stereotype the authoritative definition of a community.
To do so makes culture a reality of exclusion wherein people are continuously measured as better or worse versions of a culture, and therefore accepted or not as co-authors of that community. This while the purpose of culture is not to exclude, but include, not to pull apart, but bring together.
Rudi Buys is executive dean at the non-profit higher education institution, Cornerstone Institute.