Time to let go of the toxic past

It seems like more than a few lifetimes ago that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu uttered his famous words about South Africa being the “Rainbow Nation of the Children of God”. But it is not just the passage of time which has withered that saying, it is the current toxic state of race and ethnic relations which make it seem unbelievably twee and naive.

The stink of racism and xenophobia hangs in the air and the laagers of people based on skin colour, language, or tribe seem to be drawing in closer on themselves these days.

So, Heritage Day yesterday probably didn’t do a lot to make things better.

Originally, the public holiday was intended to bring South Africans together by celebrating the differences in each other’s culture, and how those differences helped make the nation much bigger and stronger than the sum of its individual parts.

Now, it is just another excuse for many people to overeat and get drunk. The nods there are to heritage are often accompanied either by racist barbs, or accusations of cultural appropriation.

What Heritage Day should show all people – no matter where they stand politically – is that forging a united South African state was never going to be an easy task.

But it should also remind us that, important as it is to celebrate where people come from, it is equally important to accept that that construct belongs in the past, not the present or future.

What belongs in the here and now – and the years ahead, for our children and grandchildren – is that we should become South Africans, a nation the world respects.

That means leaving behind a little of the past and creating a new national identity.

Disunity and division have been tried, unsuccessfully, before. They were called apartheid…