Chasing the Elusive Rainbow

South Africa has always been a contradiction—a land of both unimaginable beauty and unbearable pain, a place where hope and hardship walk side by side. The world’s eyes are on us again, drawn by shifting tides in American politics. But for all the scrutiny and symbolism we carry, our reckoning is deeply personal: written in the streets of Soweto, in the potholes of Potchefstroom, in the rural villages of the Eastern Cape, and in the townships where inequality still lingers. While the world watches, we are left to wrestle with an unfinished dream. Nelson Mandela dared to imagine a nation that could transcend its history, where reconciliation would not be a fleeting gesture but a way of life. Yet, decades later, we find ourselves still chasing that vision—a rainbow that shimmers just out of reach, always pursued, never quite grasped.

Reconciliation was never just about forgiveness; it was about survival—a fragile thread weaving through our history, trying to hold together a people who are often told to forget while still bearing the weight of remembrance. We were promised that time would heal us, that a new flag and a new anthem would be enough to stitch our fractured past into something whole. But instead, we inherited a generation of leaders who feast on what was bequeathed to them, mistaking plunder for progress. They line their pockets, replacing each other in the never-ending relay race of the gravy train while the nation teeters under the weight of deepening inequality.

Economic divides remain vast, unemployment looms like a gathering storm, and the kind of leadership that could truly embody the ideals of reconciliation is scarce. But our journey of reconciliation was never going to be easy. Restructuring our economy and ensuring equitable access to land and opportunity was never going to be without resistance. Redressing centuries of exclusion, dispossession, and systemic inequality was never meant to be painless.

True reconciliation is not na?ve optimism; it is defiant courage. It is the refusal to be prisoners of resentment, the audacity to reach across the divides—not because history has been kind to us, but because we deserve the weightlessness of something new. It is knowing that extremists among us will try to feed on our fears and vulnerabilities, weaponizing division to stall progress. But the many of us know better. We will look into the face of all that is broken and, instead of turning away, choose to build. Again. And again. Not because the world deserves it, but because we do.

We are not just born into this country; we are bound to it, stitched into the very fabric of its contradictions. We carry its history in our voices, its heartbreak in our songs. And maybe that’s why we keep trying. Because somewhere, beneath the anger and exhaustion, there is something stubbornly hopeful. A hunger to belong. A need to connect. A belief that our strength lies in our diversity, that we all belong.

So we walk forward, not blindly, not foolishly, but with the full knowledge that the rainbow was never a destination. It was a call. A summons to keep searching. To keep mending. To keep daring. To rise, even in the darkness of load shedding, because we have always known how to survive in the dark. To keep believing that, against all odds, this place—this complicated, beautiful, wounded place—is home to all of us.

Because here, under the Highveld sky and along the shores of Clifton Beach. In packed stadiums where we roar for the Springboks and sometimes stand together for Bafana Bafana. Around the braai where laughter rises with the scent of sizzling wors. In the shared taste of Klipdrift and Coke, umqombothi, and motoho. We are more than survivors of a fractured past. We are builders of something bold. Something only we can create.

And so, we keep reaching across divides, rewriting the story, stitching together this nation—not because it’s easy, but because it’s ours. Because reconciliation is not passive—it is a fight for dignity, for equity, for shared prosperity. Because, whether we like it or not, we are bound to each other. And because as South Africans, in all our mess and magic, we will never stop rebuilding.