End Of The Rainbow

In his first book, Breaking a Rainbow, Building a Nation, student activist and political scholar REKGOTSOFETSE CHIKANE unpacks the politics of the Fallist movements. GQ spoke to the young leader about the decolonisation project, the role of coconuts in the revolution and the future of the movement

GQ: The book was written to document the political and personal dynamics of the movements that became known as the Fallism protests, starting with #RhodesMustFall, seeding #PatriarchyMustFall and #FeesMustFall. What was the project of Fallism and how would you distill its ideology?

Rekgotsofetse Chikane: Describing Fallism as a project is probably a better way of describing it than an ideology. A high school/ university group project with all the internal fighting often associated with group projects. It is the combination of three interconnected yet disparate forms of thought, namely: Black Consciousness, Pan-Africanism and Radical Black Feminism. All three combine to form the group members of the Fallism Project, whose purpose is to understand why South Africa’s obvious and unjust internal contradictions are seen as normal.

GQ: The concept of a ‘coconut’ is central to the book and the informal and formal South African politics it explores – how do you define a coconut as a political and cultural identity? And do you identify as one?

RC: The term coconut is usually used to describe a person of colour as being ‘black’ on the outside, but white in the inside. I was often labelled a coconut as a grew up but I have never seen it as a term to put me down. Rather, I think coconuts are an extremely important political group in South Africa. I define them as ‘black’ people who have access to certain spaces usually reserved for white people and they carry political capital in these spaces.

GQ: Why do you think coconuts are so necessary to the revolution? Should they be trusted, or does their proximity to whiteness inherently limit their willingness to overturn the status quo?