SO FAR, THEN, WHAT I HAVE PROPOSED in this book is a reading of post-apartheid avant-gardism as a kind of a new ‘discursive’ paradigm, a ‘canon’, if you like, based on a specific kind of knowledge about South African history. Matched to its historical moment, avant-gardism stood out by virtue of being in charge of its ‘Republican’ brief – it took on the colour of its society, following its lead. (South African-style ‘Republicanism’ was energised by its deeply rooted ‘discursive’ discourse of avant-gardism, which rested on arguments about the historical peculiarity of our new ‘imagined’ homeland – the ‘rainbow nation’.) I have also commented on the way in which morality was set up as an object of contemporary thinking about South African society and culture, arguing that post-apartheid writing slipped out an ethical version of South African history, which signalled the dawning of a new era in which the modern leader was thought of in somewhat ‘biblical’ terms – as having a great impact on history in terms of his (sometimes her) – moral style alone. Hence, in the case of the two characters that I have been discussing in my story (and for whom, I must say, I have a considerable measure of respect) – Mandela and Mbeki – many analysts, swept up in the matrix of social change happening around them, set off to discover the ‘truths’ about their humanity by examining their moral actions. Unmistakably, the ‘Republican’ approach to Mbeki has been much angrier, more oriented towards evoking his ‘Machiavellianism’. Going directly against this belligerent attitude towards Mbeki's style was the ‘Republican’ benevolent attitude towards Mandela, which, so it appears, has been more moderate and self-controlled. Post-apartheid writing frequently asserted Mandela's remarkable humanity and waxed lyrical about his legend and charisma.