South Africa
Artifact One
South Africa’s farm attacks are one example of how the postcolonial national identity crisis inflames an already bad situation. That farmers are murdered at a rate of 97 people per 100,000 while the average South African murder rate is 34 people per 100,000 is shocking and insupportable. But when racial tensions get layered on top of this statistic, things get muddy real fast, to the point where one human rights body can claim that the very phrase “farm killings” is “stereotypical and divisive.” This is because the issue is not just race — it’s history, as Andile Mngxitama claims in the article. Sounding very much like David Lurie, Mngxitama argues that the brutal violence often accompanying farm attacks is a form of historical revenge; even if Mngxitama’s conclusion is completely inaccurate, the national and political response to farm attacks is, I think, a question of historical symbolism. If, thanks to their skin color, Afrikaners symbolize apartheid itself, how can the government support them without seeming to whitewash historical oppression? Of course, in 2003 nearly 40% of attacked farmers were black, so it’s not inherently a race issue. But I think South Africa’s postcolonial tensions force the public to read phenomena like the farm attacks through a historical and, consequently, racial lens that radically complicate what should otherwise be a straightforward question of security.
Artifact Two
The history of the South African national anthem is fascinating.
Quantifying what an anthem means is just as difficult as quantifying what South Africa itself means. As this video points out, “Die Stem,” South Africa’s anthem under apartheid, has a symbolic history of association with oppression (despite Steve Hofmeyr’s insistence that the song contains no hate speech); one could perhaps compare it to the Nazi swastika, which outside of its WWII context is a benign fertility symbol. Clearly, however, the welding of “Die Stem” and “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” (an anti-apartheid protest song) into South Africa’s current anthem is an attempt to indicate that South Africa’s future is for both blacks and Afrikaners — a vision that the emotionally-moved rugby players shown above seem to have latched onto. Yet does “Die Stem”’s symbolic baggage outweigh its conciliatory function? And now that it has been part of the anthem for a decade, would removing it from the anthem, as the EFF proposes, indicate an desire to actively disenfranchise the white Afrikaner population?
The national anthem attempts to foster reconciliation by jamming musical snippets from both sides of the apartheid conflict together. It is perhaps as effective at the goal as was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at its goal: that is, uncertainly.
Artifact Three
The idea behind Sue Williamson’s “A Tale of Two Cradocks,” pictured above, is fascinating: you see a different story depending on where you stand. This impacts the discussion of both farm attacks and the national anthem, since the historical and political significance of these things varies from the perspectives of different groups of people. How do you get so many people all standing in different places to see the same thing, to see the same country? Williamson’s artwork implies that to see the other side of the story, you simply walk to the other side of the room. To do this, however, you must first be willing to move. Perhaps this is ultimately the greatest challenge facing a post-apartheid South Africa. How do you convince people to move? How do you convince people that it is worth it to see through others’ eyes?
