Does it simply denote the fact that we inhabit the same geographic area, or does each one of us carry a certain trademark or DNA that identifies us as uniquely of this place?
Pre-1994, SA was the skunk of the international community. Apartheid was our brand. Whatever relations we had, even with "friendly" countries, were furtive at best.
Nelson Mandela sought to put the shards back together. To survive and thrive, apartheid exploited our differences. Mandela simply did the opposite. He reconciled them. He implored us to bury the hatchet, if not all our differences. Mandela's policy of national reconciliation is probably best summed up by Desmond Tutu's description of SA as a rainbow nation: people of all colours living harmoniously together to create a splendid tapestry. There was something a bit touchy-feely about it, and it was scorned by radicals, a fact gleefully exploited by his successor, Thabo Mbeki, who proceeded to trample on Mandela's legacy with contempt.
SA could be seen as being made up of tributaries which came to a confluence to form a mighty, if muddy, river in 1994. The water was dirty and in different states of angst, anguish or even anger. Mandela saw his role as primarily to soothe these emotions. He spoke a language we could all understand.
Now, at the end of the Mbeki era, it seems the flow of the river has not only been stopped; it has been reversed, back to its tributaries, back to unkind but familiar territory, from where we're hollering insults at each other, just as we used to in the old days.
So this is where Zuma finds us. This is more or less what he inherits. He takes over a country unsure of its place in the world. It has lost its innocence. We used to see ourselves as the poster child of the international community, having miraculously avoided a civil war by seeking to craft a society that alerted the world to the attractive possibilities of human co-existence. All that looks like a mirage now. We have regressed.
In the past few years, government has alienated itself from its people; it has expended precious time in bruising internal battles from which Zuma has emerged victorious. The main victim is neither Mbeki nor his supporters. His wounds will heal with time. The real casualty is our institutions, especially the judiciary, vigorously lampooned by Zuma's baying mobs in their determination to get him off the hook. The national prosecuting authority has become a laughing stock, shorn of all credibility. We even seem unwilling to entrust the constitution to government, hence our fear of a two-thirds majority for the ANC.
Our society is in need of an organising principle, a set of core values or beliefs that unite us, and around which everything else will revolve. Because of this vacuum, every issue, event or utterance, no matter how mundane, becomes a source of fervent disagreement or contestation. Is it not surprising that Mandela and Mbeki - two leaders from the same party - could seek to craft such different types of society?
Zuma has started well. His comment that he will be president of all South Africans set the right tone. He has the ideal demeanour, too. What he needs is a backbone. We still don't know what thoughts or burdens our new president carries in his head. He's so far been unable to share them with us, if he has any, that is.
What does it mean to be South African? It's a question for all of us to agonise over. For now, though, we're simply putty in Zuma's hands. He'll make of us what he will - just as those before him have done.
