Over The Rainbow: 25 Years Of A Free South Africa

“We have unacceptably high levels of poverty, youth unemployment, child illiteracy and nutritional stunting. All of which are systematically undermining the next generation’s ability to enjoy freedom.”

- Dr Sebabatso Manoeli

SOUTH AFRICA survived colonialism followed by apartheid, and most recently, a new pandemic, HIV/AIDS. While we are living through the aftermath of the old order, the words often attributed to Italian philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, could not be truer: “The old is dying and the new struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

The dragons we need to slay are clear. We have unacceptably high levels of poverty, youth unemployment, child illiteracy and nutritional stunting. All of which are systematically undermining the next generation’s ability to enjoy freedom.

That said, these are but the more visible aspects of our life together. There are others – the more subtle, social dimensions.

In 2019, non-racialism – the bedrock of the new South Africa – struggles to find relevance in the public imagination in light of the disillusionment many experience in the new political dispensation. It remains devoid of substantial weight and consequence.

Its original purveyors did not theorize it or write about it extensively, making it all the more elusive. What we do know is that race is a social construct and that it has no biological grounding. While it does not exist in a scientific sense, race has profound political, social and economic implications. And it continues to be an undeniable fault-line within South Africa.