On Wednesday 3 February 1960 the then British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, delivered his famous “Winds of Change” speech in the South African Parliament.  To put it mildly, that speech set a cat among the pigeons in the South African psyche of the time that continued to ruffle feathers for over 30 years.  Let it not be lost on us that President FW de Klerk made his equally famous speech in the same South African Parliament, where he unbanned the ANC and other organisations and announced the release of that colossus of our country’s history, Nelson Mandela, on 2 February 1990, 1 day short of the 30th anniversary of Macmillan’s address. 

It was a figurative wind that blew for three decades, not unlike the famous “Cape Doctor” south-easterly wind that often rages for days, if not weeks, across the Cape Peninsula.  So much for the winds of change then.  In those days the essence of change in South Africa, if it happened at all, was agonisingly slow, grudging and erratic, virtually the opposite of what it is today: rapid, decisive and continuous.

In the immediate past couple of months, I have begun to sense a very definite shift gaining momentum in our land: with apologies to Uncle Harold, I want to call it “the change of wind”.  The season is a-changing in this mother of a nation under the African sky!

We all know what it means when the wind changes: farmers, sailors, meteorologists, pilots, kite fliers - even guys making braaivleis fires. There is something almost mystical that accompanies the weather cock looking in a new direction: it represents something new, a warning, a prediction, a promise.  No matter whether the wind is a mere zephyr, a breeze, gale or hurricane, when its strength, direction and/or temperature alters, a chain reaction follows, resulting in new conditions calling for different responses.  It is arguably the ultimate cause – and as we all know, all causes result in effects.  It is normal, natural and cyclical.

I believe the South African “season” is experiencing a wind change, as sure as there is cloud over Table Mountain in springtime. When wind changes occur, they can happen slowly, almost imperceptibly, with little evidence that it has even happened; other times they come at us with a speed almost breathtaking – in fact, I have experienced a wind shift of 180º occurring in under an hour.  Radical stuff.

The adjustment currently underway in the hearts and minds of people I come across every day is one of the near-imperceptible kind.  It is a fundamentally new awareness of who we are and what is truly important to us as children of the South African soil.  Those of us who are maybe a little more attuned to these subtle changes in nuance, are beginning to discern the characteristics of a new heartbeat in the South African breast. In more than one sense, I am utterly convinced that our differences in this country are dissolving with the passing of every season. We are, in a very special sense, being reborn as a nation.  Look around you, note the signs, they are there.

Race, colour, culture, gender, background, age; use every differentiator you like to categorise people.  These things exist, they’re real and, in certain contexts, important.  Yet, by simply living and breathing in South Africa in the spring of 2007, I am finding these little boxes into which we are so inclined to put people, increasingly irrelevant.  We are growing together, like new hybrids in the garden following a successful grafting.  Our blood is being circulated through our national body by a new, stronger heart, and the life that it is sustaining is energised by the promise and excitement of togetherness, prosperity and a future filled with joy and achievement.

Our people are sounding, looking and behaving like a truly united family for the first time in my lifetime.  Even through the euphoria of 1994 and its immediate aftermath, the 1995 Rugby World Cup triumph and subsequent events of national pride, there was an undercurrent of something ever so slightly artificial, more like a hope than a reality, a fervent wish for something whose time was possibly not yet quite there.  No more. Today we have a South African identity and a national “look and feel” about ourselves that is less affected by our past than any time in the last quarter century.  There is now a greater sense of quiet pride, a confidence in nationhood and a more concerted belief in ourselves to transcend that which divided us in the past than ever before.

I don’t think the recent Rugby World Cup victory in France has caused this – it is too deep and too far advanced to have been brought about by something of 7 weeks’ duration. What I do believe, however, is that the Springboks’ triumph in Paris has been the single biggest mirror, amongst others, that has reflected in sharper focus than anything that came before it, something which has been underway for a much longer time in our beautiful country. Our anger, resentment, disappointment, fear, divisions and hopelessness of the past have steadily been spent and exhausted, dissolving into the promise and a deep-seated faith in the true meaning of togetherness, a contentment about who and how we are, whatever the path we’ve taken to get here.  Suddenly, we are on one path, going forward.

Open your eyes and look into those of your fellow South African brothers or sisters and see the newness there, listen for the sounds and hear how different people sound all of a sudden, feel the soft changing breeze brushing your cheek from an angle that you’ve probably never experienced before.  Very soon, the buds of this special springtime in South Africa will have burst into bloom, revealing its beauty for all to see.  There is no better place to be right now. A great new future is enveloping us as we breathe.  Join in and help shape that future.

What a deliriously wonderful prospect.  In every sense, we’ve achieved this together.

Note*:  Ponder these thoughts and rejoice in them to the magnificence of the Final Movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, the “Choral Symphony”.  This “Ode to Joy” will uplift you beyond your dreams and give you the perspective you need to see the greatness of what I’ve spoken about.  It is there – believe it and you’ll see it!!  We’ve ventured beyond the horizons of yesterday and discovered new ones – walk this way some more and be fulfilled.
 
Cheerio

Graham

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