Case more than just the flag
In his arguments to the Supreme Court of Appeal on Wednesday, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi quotes National Party apartheid minister DF Malan expressing the significance and symbolism of a national flag.
“A flag is not a mere cloth, it symbolises national existence. A flag is a living thing, it is a repository of national sentiment... for a flag a nation can live, for it can fight and it can die,” Malan said as he introduced its founding bill in 1927.
Ngcukaitobi’s citation of Malan was intentional to demonstrate what the founding fathers of apartheid and its flag had meant for it to represent when they proudly mounted it. It was not merely an expression of their identity, but a demonstration of their commitment to white supremacy and, equally important, the subjugation of black people.
Ngcukaitobi is representing the Nelson Mandela Foundation in their legal fight against AfriForum over the latter’s insistence that its constituency has the right to display the old flag, in the name of free speech.
It is, of course, not surprising that the organisation believes it should be allowed to wave around a symbol of hate and pain for black people. After all, it is a grouping that refuses to denounce apartheid as a crime against humanity.
But AfriForum’s insistence that it should be protected by our constitution demonstrates a desire to live in a country that embraces white supremacy and the oppression of black people.
As a nation we must be mindful of the consequences of holding such ideology. It is not a privately held and victimless mindset that has no consequence. In fact, such beliefs often actively express themselves in the most heinous ways against those the white supremacists seek to dominate.
It is not passive nostalgia for “good old days” but an indication that AfriForum still considers it normal to embrace the humiliation and degradation of black people.
The court is yet to deliver its judgment.
Important as that may be in our constitutional context, beyond the legal status of the flag also lies an equally significant moral one, which demands that we reject it and all it represents.