Our national discourse is tainted by apartheid's enduring stench

Our past continues to cast a dark shadow over the country, making it difficult to craft a compact or consensus for a stable and prosperous future.

Apartheid may have been consigned to the dustbin of history, but its stench remains, hovering over almost everything we do or say. It continues to soil and contaminate the national discourse, thus informing - even deforming - critical decisions. Apartheid or its aftermath is still a giant monkey on our back.

It's a conundrum of our age: how do we cleanse ourselves of apartheid without sinking deeper into its dirty waters?

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That's been the challenge since its destruction. But we're not making a good job of it. Unhappily, it also seems to be our common reference point. In trying to untangle ourselves from its grip we seem to wrap ourselves even tighter in its garb. We buried it for sure, but it rules from the grave.

How do you, for instance, undo apartheid's wretched ravages without following its script or curriculum? How do you make up to its victims without saying who the victims are? And so we're back to race classification, apartheid's basic tenet.

That grouping of people offers the only accurate guideline as to who does or does not qualify for statutory measures designed to affirm its victims, or - to use that awful phrase - to right the wrongs of the past.

Merit is a wonderful ideal. It says to each according to their talents. That was and remains the objective in getting rid of apartheid. But the fact that the Holy Grail of meritocracy has not been adequately applied has often left some - especially those of a liberal bent, those who worship at the altar of individual rights - with their knickers in a knot.

The concept of group rights is anathema. It harks back to apartheid. That stench again.

Merit is only possible if the playing field is level. That is what the 1994 settlement was supposed to have achieved. But social inequalities, apartheid's bitter fruits, have been compounded over time. They have a huge bearing on the race and its outcome.

We're all dotted along the track, depending on the fate dealt each one of us by history. While some are about to start the race, others are somewhere in the middle or already about to cross the finishing line.

block_quotes_start Politicians should be careful that their utterances don't add fuel to a raging fire. Then again, we elect them. It's up to us to choose wisely block_quotes_end

Therefore, merely wiping the slate clean of all discriminatory laws does not even begin to address the problem. That's the conundrum confronting policymakers.

But the solution to apartheid's harvests has become hostage to political fortunes. Displaying the wound, laying it bare for all to see and occasionally roiling it a little, has powerful emotional resonance.

 It tugs at the heartstrings, a lethal political weapon. And politicians are not in the business of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Not so long ago Jacob Zuma blamed Eskom's load-shedding on Hendrik Verwoerd.

While regurgitating past sins excites and energises the base, at the same time it gets other people's backs up. It antagonises them. They tense up, become angry and defensive, thus making national consensus on critical issues even more difficult to achieve.

Despite our different experiences, though, apartheid remains the knot that ties us together, or the ghost that shadows or darkens our every move. Our view of it or relation to it is therefore divisive.

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 Crudely put, those who benefited from it mainly want us to move on with Godspeed; while the victims prefer to linger on just a tad, to allow time for the wounds to heal and to extract an acknowledgement of their hurt.

How we bridge this gulf determines the society we become or the future we inherit. That won't happen as long as we shout at each other from our respective trenches. And politicians should not regard our differences as the metaphorical low-hanging fruit to be harvested easily by them.

In the absence of an uber-mediator who can bang heads and knock sense into all of us, it therefore behoves politicians not to fall into the temptation of exploiting our differences, but to use language that binds us.

Of course, politics can be like a dogfight. But even dogs, I'm sure, have rules of engagement. Politicians should be careful that their utterances don't add fuel to a raging fire. Then again, we elect them. It's up to us to choose wisely.

What is also missing in our discourse is respect. We need to respect other voices. Dissenting views, especially, can help to tweak or refine your own. It also means avoiding the tendency to overstate one's own concerns or views while ignoring or denying others the right or space to state theirs.

All views matter. They should all go into the pot. The more the merrier. Tolerance should be the watchword.

This country needs to harness all its resources for the betterment of its people.

But that's going to be difficult to achieve as long as its past, with all its awful baggage, is allowed to intrude on its future.