THE RAINBOW FICTION

SOUTH AFRICA, that land dubbed the "Rainbow Nation", is a land of contradictions. The rainbow itself, which is notable for its vaunted but never tangible beauty, mirrors the same.It has been a land of mixed fortunes for its people and over the past 300 years it has become Africa’s virtual paradise for some, while others have progressively become marginalised and impoverished yet somehow we are made to believe everyone is an owner of the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.This is the illusion that the likes of Tutu, that gay-loving man of the cloth — coiner of the Rainbow Nation phrase — would like us to believe.But everyone in their moments of honesty, if they are endowed with the gift, knows that there is everything wrong in this country, starting the very moment some European adventurer wandered onto the Cape some 300 years ago, through murder, rape, plunder and colonisation and the evil called apartheid.One and half decades into the supposed end of these evils by the coming of "independence" in 1994, South Africa, which holds the distinction of having more alien peoples than any in Africa wallows in inequality.The progeny, supporters and sympathisers of the ugly side of the rainbow still hold sway.But lo and behold!In comes young, fiery Julius Malema and the cowards, for such they are, are afraid.Ayesaba Amagwala!We have seen in the past weeks what has happened in that part of the world since the ANC youth leader sung the inspirational anti-exploitation song, Kill the Boer!We have also noted the cruise-controlled hate stories in the rabid white media there, and abroad, which peaked at the not so unfortunate death of the Neo-Nazi Eugene Terre’blanche last week at the hands of his irate farm workers, one of whom was a minor, aged only 15.