Everytime I see South Africa embarass itself on the international stage, I notice something very clearly. There's no clear intent to do something in this land. It's always murky, hidden-in-the-shadows meanings that you're supposed to decipher but never really get the full logic of what's going on. It's like the people of South Africa want to do something but never fully do it, there always seems to be something missing. If you're such a character or your country has such a "personality", even your victories seem unconvincing but your losses are almost always expected. I see this in football where South African players are singing & dancing before the first minute of the game, at least, Ghanaians & Nigerians sing & dance when they've won the game. The South African firefighters sent to put out the Canadian wildfires were singing & dancing before the fires were put out. It's awkwardly entertaining but what true purpose does it serve when the job isn't done yet?
Don't get me wrong, I'm South African, I understand most of South African culture & "South Africanisms" but when does the penny whistle, Mango Groove, Boers trying to pantsula in the middle of nowhere, "Ma se kind" & "Make the circle bigger" get played out & jaded when the global reality kicks in? Have we not realised that we can't make a country with partying, braais & alcohol? And that it actually takes a single language & shared identity to make a nation. Walking the streets all day won't make you any more South African than Kobus Wiese, Robert Oppenheimer or Johan Rupert. South Africa was made by Kruger not Moshoeshoe, Sekhukhune or Sigcau. Any identity including the concept of South Africa - it's flag, anthem & especially it's borders - is simply not African.
CASE STUDY:
"Look at the owl" - Cambodian folk song versus "We're gonna be there" - Bravo
You may argue that these are two different songs that are meant for separate events & classes of their respective societies. The initial reaction I had for both songs is a mild, extended amusement. These two songs are both of a people who comment about what goes on in their lives, one literally & the other metaphorically. Bravo talks of waking up before everyone & walking the streets looking for a good time but in the Cambodian folk song, the singer says nothing about themselves & says "Look & learn from the owl". In "We're gonna be there" the artist is not intentionally being funny but is so absorbed in his pointless activity that it is comical but in "Look at the owl" the artist is looking at something outside himself so "insular" that it's comical. To me, "We're gonna be there" is South Africa boasting of itself & "Look at the owl" is the rest of the world looking at South Africa in amusement at this funny land.
Conclusion:
Maybe, I'm biased towards the global concept of nation states or ethnostates but it's only because the social democratic ethnostate is a tried & tested successful model on how to build a country. In fact, it's the original concept of a state. All people around the world likely descend from a land that was a theocratic monarchy & a nation state. Rejecting globalisation may seem like rejecting progress but it's a matter of perspective; would you rather have a nation of farmers or a nation of homosexual social media influencers? This is a concept I believe in above all politics, both leftist & rightist politics are meaningless to me if there is no unified identity in a land. This does mean favouring smaller ethnic regions as countries & rejecting expansive multicultural empires.
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