One

I find it interesting at times how our decisions in life, especially in the areas of language and identity, can have very different effects within our social groups. The language I use puts one group at ease and divides me against another. I suppose there will never be a time when a person can be at perfect peace and harmony with all they come in contact with. I think it is for this reason I rather despise political correctness. Honestly, is there really any sense in attempting to avoid conflict and offense? At some point, everyone makes decisions that define their own identity and that, in turn, creates acceptance within some social groups and conflict within others.

A perfect example of this dynamic tension can be found in the film version of Bryce Courtenay’s The Power of One. Peekay’s ability to speak all the major languages of South Africa creates a greater respect and acceptance among the Africans while simultaneously creating mistrust and dividing him against the Afrikaners. Despite his attempts to walk the tightrope of social acceptance between both cultures, neither the Afrikaners nor the Africans allow him neutrality. In the end, he is forced to make difficult decisions and choose which culture he will stand with and be counted among.

At the beginning of the film, Peekay is taught that he is English by his mother. This identity, not one of his own making but one given him by blood, quickly creates problems for Peekay as he enters an Afrikaner school. Tormented by his peers because of his ethnicity, Peekay does not succumb to self hatred and guilt but rises above to create for himself a new identity. With the help of Dabula Manzi, a Zulu medicine man, Peekay begins to identify himself as a part of nature, outside the confines of blood and ethnicity. This perspective of seeing himself as more than merely English but recognizing himself as a force of the planet helps him transcend the racial and ethnic boundaries so many of the other characters find themselves entrapped within. This identity that transcends blood and race creates a man who finds common ground amongst many. It allows Peekay to move easily between all races and ethnicities.

This self perception finds reinforcement when Peekay leaves the Afrikaner school and begins living with Doc. Doc teaches Peekay to look to nature and the Earth for all his answers, aiding this growing universalist realization of man as a part of nature, entirely outside of tribe, color, and language. While in prison, this universalist identity begins to take true form. With the help of Geel Piet, Peekay helps the African pisoners transcend their own tribes and work together. He ends the tensions between the tribes and they work in harmony and peace for a common purpose. In the process, Peekay becomes the Rainmaker to the tribes, a mythical envoy sent by the gods to provide rain and life for all the people. It is a title that transcends tribe. Peekay’s identity as a force of nature confirmed. Never again does he allow race or tribe to dictate his actions, limit his choices. But these decisions always have consequences.

Peekay’s freedom from the confines of ethnic identity acts as a catalyst for other characters in the film. This catalyst nearly always creates conflict, however, as the people around him are awakened to the possibility of identity outside of ethnicity. For Maria, Peekay is a force of personal revelation. She realizes her own understanding of reality to be quite lacking and chooses to explore this newfound knowledge at the expense of her relationship with her own family and eventually her own life. For Duma, this freedom becomes the seed of hope he will plant within his people to help them transcend their own condition. Peekay’s freedom inspires Hoppie to act boldly in defiance of the government and culture, even going so far as to display mixed race boxers together openly on the doors of his gym, an action that gets him imprisoned and his gym burned.

Whenever a person chooses an identity independent of social normality, that person forces all those who come into contact with them to make choices about their own identity. These choices tend to have one of two outcomes, either to free that person from their own self perceptions or to push that person further into their own existing self identity. Either way, this almost inevitably creates conflict both internally to that person and externally within the social groups to which that person belongs. Liberation, in all its forms, seldom comes without conflict.