Introduction

At the centre of imaginations and constructions of a postapartheid democratic South Africa, are five important events and processes. The first is the long-standing and overarching national anticolonial and anti-apartheid struggle(s). Of particular concern was how to transcend the imperial/colonial paradigm of difference, so as to deliver an inclusive, democratic South Africa. The second is the convening of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (Codesa), which entailed enemies being turned into adversaries and eventually finding one another across the paradigm of difference. The third is the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which served as the bedrock of a postapartheid society free from the divisions between the perpetrators and victims of violence. The fourth is the crafting and adoption of the new democratic South African constitution in 1996 (Republic of South Africa [RSA], 1996), in which the erstwhile “settlers” and “natives” were brought together into singular citizenship and belonging. The fifth is the establishment of Freedom Park as the site where “reborn” South Africans would not only remember the conflicts they emerged from, but also celebrate the triumph of good over evil.

Taken together, these five events and processes were expected to deliver a new South Africa free from racism, sexism, violence and all other forms of discrimination and domination. These interconnected events and processes were part of what Alexander Johnston (2014) aptly renders as “inventing the nation”. At the centre of this invention were the active roles of Nelson Mandela's consistent and persistent pedagogical nationalism and Archbishop Desmond Tutu's ecclesiastical and moralistic imaginings of a “rainbow nation of God” (Lodge, 2006; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2016; Ngcaweni & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018). The notion of a “rainbow nation” was part of the earliest imaginings of the constructions of a “pluriverse” out of a kaleidoscope of racial, ethnic, gender, class and religious divisions and differences (see Mignolo [2018] and Ndlovu-Gatsheni [2016] on the concept of pluriversality).

What has been the main challenge and cause for national conflict/civil war/wars of liberation is best rendered as the imperial/colonial/apartheid institutionalised “paradigm of difference” which blocked and criminalised possibilities of “co-presence” amongst the diverse peoples of South Africa (Luthuli, 2006; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018; Santos, 2007).