Colour Coded

It's been an intense 2 weeks in South Africa. Nothing gets us riled up like race. Yup, Black vs White, White vs Black. But the past two weeks have been about a people South Africa calls 'Coloured'. And it all started with the forthcoming government elections.

Had it not been for the ANC, DA, IFP, COPE et cetera, electioneering, we would not be discussing this issue. Anyway, dear reader, the drama started with the president of the Black Management Forum and now goverment spokesperson, Jimmy Manyi, saying something about Coloured people being concentrated in the Western Cape, instead of being spread out to the rest of the country. Now, this was last year. At the time, no one said anything. No one saw this as racist. Politicians being politicians, had to wait almost one whole year to raise this issue. They had to wait until it was 2011, the year of the South African Local Govt Elections. Bastards!
Now, you have all of them screaming 'RACISM, RACISM' trying to appease the Coloured voters. Bull shit! If they (and I mean ALL of them), if they cared, they would have addressed the issue when it reared its ugly head back then.  Now you have the DA and all other Anti-ANC parties calling for the resignation of Jimmy Manyi. We even have a respected ANC goverment minister, Trevor Manuel, writing an open letter in some of the major newspapers, calling Jimmy Manyi a racist, to his face. Jimbo refuses to defend himself.


Now, my tiny brain tells me this is a ploy by the ANC to not only save face, but to get the very same Coloured voters that it believes its lost via this Jimmy Manyi debacle. It's really sad. Sad, sad, sad. That both the big parties; the DA and the ANC only care for the Coloured vote when election are around the corner. Any other time, they don't give a fiddler's fart.

 This is why I strongly believe the 'rainbow nation' of the happy clappy Bishop Tutu is such a facade. South Africans have never discussed the uncomfortable issues of race. We just want to pretend that we all love Bafana Bafana, the Proteas, braais, Freshlyground and all other 'pro-South Africa' 'things'.  Truth is, no one has ever cared about Coloured people. They are treated as second cousin to  'Black' and 'White' people. I don't remember seeing anyone discussing the issues of identity and what Coloured people even feel about the term 'Coloured'. We assume that it is embraced by all. We refuse to ask.

Now I'm not anti-forward movement. What I hate is when these issues are swept under the carpet. And they sit there, festering, ready for the right person/event to pull the trigger. And all that progressive South Africans have done to move us forward as a nation, will have been in vain.
So, right now, Coloured people have been reduced to nothing but numbers. Votes. Their contributions to the emancipation of this country, forgotten. Here's to celebrating our democracy! See  you at the polls.