Does anyone remember the Song of the Flag? We used to sing it at school some times. I much preferred it to the old national anthem, it was alot more jivey. I googled for it and found it, but that is another blog post for another day. Today I want to write about the flag that song was about, the old South African flag.
I could tell you a bit about the history of the flag, but if you're reading this you all have google and wikipedia available to you, so I won't bother. What I think is most interesting for us now is what the old South African flag represents.
You still see the old flag flown every now and then. Sometimes at rugby matches, you might see a couple dotted around the crowd. In an article in the Daily Dispatch on December 27, Akona Ndungane, a springbok rugby player, called for them to be banned at matches. "We need to look at the future." he said "I definately think those flags should be banned. It would be a step forward."
I think many people would agree with that. Because that old flag is an offensive symbol really. Unless you are waving it in complete ignorance, which I doubt many are, it's making quite a blatant statement. A statement that you reject the new South Africa and that you are holding on to the old. That you look back to the days where (white) South African's could proudly wave that old flag, that things were better then.
Which is offensive. The vast vast majority of our country's citizens weren't even considered citizens under the regime represented by that flag. And that's what people are approving of, when they fly the old flag. That's very offensive.
But I was considering the flag a while back and it occurred to me that maybe our reaction to it needent be outrage or offense. It was an offense because it represented oppression, violence, taking away people's humanity. But when we look at it today, we see it representing a regime that lost. We see it powerless. For people who yearn for the old South Africa, they can fly flags and sing songs to their hearts content, but it will never return.
Ironically, a symbol that represented so much evil and so much destruction now represents a pitiful longing of a very tiny fraction of South African's to return to a past which perhaps they saw as glorious, although it wasn't. A pitiful useless longing for a past that never even existed. A symbol of power and brutality that is now a pitiful symbol of defeat.
Not to say the new South Africa is perfect, but its definitely not going back to the old. And to people who still wish for for the old, my heart if filled with sadness for them, and pity. Maybe some anger, from time to time, but mostly just pity. And the hope that their eyes will be opened to see the emptiness of the old, and the beauty of the new.
1 comment:
I think our anthem was beautiful, not to be compared with the joke that "nkosi sikelelelelelelel" is. Ditto for our flag. I would wave it proudly, and don't see anything offensive about it.
There is nothing wrong with rejecting the 'new' South Africa. Any sane person would and should.
"A statement that you reject the new South Africa and that you are holding on to the old. That you look back to the days where (white) South African's could proudly wave that old flag, that things were better then."
Well, weren't things better then? For all, white AND black? Of course they were. Even blacks admit this. Weren't things better for blacks in Rhodesia under White rule? Black Africans have to decide what they value more: on the one hand, freedom, education, civilised behaviour, and on the other, murder, death, starvation, and epidemics. It seems they've opted for the second one, so as far as I'm concerned, we don't owe them a thing. Sure, the old South Africa will never return. But that's what's so tragic about it. You shouldn't be celebrating, you should be mourning.
The "beauty of the new" you say? Like seeing one's loved ones chopped to pieces? Ever imagine what it'd feel like to come across such a scene?
Black South Africans are murderers. Period. We had hoped that the end of apartheid would usher in a new era; that we could live side by side in a first-world democracy; we never imagined that the day would come when we'd see our loved ones chopped to pieces for being White (by the way, did you know that body parts of White victims are considered to be more powerful muti than ones coming from blacks?). I grew up in a "colourblind" home. My family was fiercely opposed to apartheid. Did that spare us? No. Will it save you from the barbarism of black South Africans? No. I feel sad for all White South Africans who are blind to the facts, and all those who aren't but can't leave the country. They're just awaiting their turn. Their turn WILL come. As will yours.
Edward Carson
A South African Expat from Port Elizabeth (now in the Middle East)
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