In 1848, Marx spoke of a spectre haunting Europe. In South Africa, we too have a spectre haunting us—Rainbow Nationalism. The only problem is that there is no holy alliance to exorcize it.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, and a general malaise afflicting society, South Africa’s national rugby team is once again touted as the answer to uniting a “divided nation.” I put divided nation in scare quotes in the hope of drawing attention to the way in which South Africa and its complexities are often spoken and written about. Affectionately known as the Springboks, the South African men’s national rugby team has established itself as a key institution in imagining a united, non-racial South Africa.
The 1995 Rugby World Cup victory signaled one of the high points in showing the proverbial power of sport to unite a nation (or so we thought). President Nelson Mandela’s embrace of the Springbok jersey set the stage for what would become an international brand, with a clear message: “Stronger Together.” During Apartheid, the Springboks represented white supremacy and its legitimation by Mandela is a testament to its staying power. No other sporting team in South Africa has occupied a more dominant position in the national discourse than the Springboks.
Twenty six years after the 1995 Rugby World Cup victory, the Springboks are still seen as an integral component in South Africa’s nation-building efforts. We can cast the cultural and political role of the Springboks as signifiers of unity, nation-building, non-racialism, and social cohesion—terms synonymous with South Africa’s post-1994 lexicon. It is important, however, that we approach the issue of nationalism through politics and vice versa. Renowned intellectual, Professor Partha Chatterjee, in his book, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (1993), reminds us that the content of nationalist ideology and its claims about what is possible (and legitimate) gives politics its specific shape.
In as much as the discourse surrounding the Springboks seeks to foster social cohesion, it preserves the way things are—not materially but rather in the popular consciousness of South Africans. Idealized notions of unity, strength, and cohesion are premised on fragile claims, riddled with contradictions irreconcilable with the real, traumatic kernel that haunts our society. At a more pedestrian level, the display of banal and discursive nationalism serves two general functions: to remember and to forget. The first function—to remember—the glorious past of yesteryear, to remember a time of hope, when things “weren’t like this.” “To remember” also acts as a precursor for what is to come—to remember the vision and of Mandela’s dream and the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow. Instead of a pot of gold, we are left with a steaming pile of shit.
To quote Slavoj Žižek, the second most popular Slovenian (after Melania Trump): “Here, we are already eating from the trashcan of ideology!” The second function—to forget—invites us to forget the traumatic kernel that haunts us, that incapacitates our ability to meaningfully participate in an imagined political community. The idea of forgetting invites us to revisit and forget our past as if the past ended in 1994, without acknowledging that the past is with us and continues to haunt us at every corner.
As the South African government continues to preside over austerity pushing citizens further into poverty and precarity, combined with the failure to fulfill its duties, it is difficult to be optimistic. Opinion-makers in business columns who write about the great potential of South Africa have not yet come to terms with reality of the situation. I would ask, great potential for whom? Certainly not for the large majority of people who have been reduced to what Giorgio Agamben calls “bare life.” In a similar vein, the idea of deferring to the Springboks whenever things get tough, shows the sheer poverty of the nation building project and its ability to critically reflect on the material conditions of society.
What use is an arbitrary discourse of nationalism in a country where the conditions are diametrically opposed to the very aims of such a discourse? It only serves to promote a fantasy-world that appeals to the sensibilities of those who have been enticed by its promises. This fantasy world is precisely in the realm of the imaginary—the realm wherein ideology resides. What ideology is extremely good at, is giving a false or altered representation of society and articulating it as “the way things are.” And so, the ideology of South African nationalism through the vector of its pride and joy, the Springboks, seeks to do just that—to present a singular version of South Africa, far-removed from its collective trauma.
