Racial Redress Citizenship In South Africa

South Africa's democratic experiment is confronted by a central political dilemma: how to advance and address historical injustices while building a single national identity. This issue lies at the heart of many heated debates over issues such as economic policy, affirmative action and skills shortages. Government has opted for racially defined redress while many of its critics recommend class as a more appropriate organising principle. The contributors to this volume challenge both perspectives. As both scholars and activists, and from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the authors explore the issues within four broad themes: the economy, education, sport and the civil service. Addressing the scholarly community, civil society and government, each author brings unique perspectives to the question of redress that is so crucial to the future of South Africa.

When Nelson Mandela was elected President of South Africa in 1994, the world looked on at the miracle of racial reconciliation that unfolded in South Africa. However, the dream of a Rainbow Nation (in Archbishop Desmond Tutus phrase) seems to be fading, and racial identities seem to be more entrenched than ever. What prospects then for the non-racial democracy envisioned by Mandela and the South African Constitution?This book examines the status and future prospects of non-racialism. It discusses the nature of non-racialism and applies the concept to wider national issues and to questions of identity. The book looks out into South Africa's future and assesses generational changes to the country's handling of non-racialism. This latter point is the main theme in the opening preface by Ahmed Kathrada, jailed with Nelson Mandela, who reminds the reader that there is no easy answer: non-racialism is built every day, every minute, by people who seek to transform social relations and allow the Rainbow Nation to flourish.This book was published as a special issue of Politikon.

Written as a tribute to the revolutionary intellectual and leader Mzala Nxumalo, this book discusses the significance of his work in the context of contemporary South African left politics. It explores the history and struggle of the apartheid era that preceded the advent of democracy to analyze a crucial aspect of the national question – that is, the quest for the establishment of a united South Africa to overcome racist and sexist policies that create and nurture divisions among black people. The subjects in this book deal with a wide range of topics, including the new social, economic and political challenges facing democratic South Africa; the need to reexamine the critique of capitalism in the 21st century; the relationship between race, class and community struggles; and the ecological challenges under capitalism. Print edition not for sale in Sub Saharan Africa

This book draws on the South African experience to develop a theory of race trouble with the central observation that transformation in South Africa has reshaped patterns and practices of encounter and exchange between historically defined race groups. Race continues to feature prominently in these new forms of social interaction and, by participating in them, South Africans are cast once again as racial subjects - advantaged or disadvantaged, included or excluded, colonizers or colonized.

Affirmative Action: A View from the Global South provides insight into a range of aspects of the affirmative action policies in seven countries from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East. In addition to these national perspectives, important theoretical concepts and international developments on affirmative action are explored.

Malaysia and South Africa implement the most extensive affirmative action programmes worldwide. This book explores why and how to effect preferential treatment which has been utilized in the pursuit of inter-ethnic parity, specifically in higher education, high-level occupations, enterprise development and wealth ownership. Through methodical and critical analyses of data on education, workforce and population, the book evaluates the primary objectives of increasing majority representation in education, employment, enterprise and ownership. The book also critically considers questions of the attainments and limitations of ethnic preferential treatment in reducing disparity, the challenges of developing capability and reducing dependency and the scope for policy reforms.

What is the place and role of whites in South African political life today? Are whites genuinely willing participants in a ‘non-racial democracy’, willing to forego the racial privileges of the past or, despite legal equality, have they proved reluctant to relinquish power and continue, as black activists assert, to dominate many aspects of South African society? Building upon the burgeoning body of work on whiteness, this book focuses on how whites have adapted politically to the arrival of democracy and sweeping political change in South Africa. Outlining a variety of responses in how white South Africans have sought to grapple with apartheid’s brutal history, the author shows how their memories of the past have shaped their reactions to political equality. Although the majority feared the coming of democracy, only a right-wing minority actively resisted its arrival. Others chose (and are still choosing) to emigrate, used democracy to defend ‘minority rights’ or have withdrawn into psychologically or physically demarcated social enclaves. Challenging much current thinking, Southall argues that many whites have chosen to embrace the freedoms that democracy has offered, or to adapt to its often disconcerting realities pragmatically. Examining this crucial issue against the historical context of minority rule and its defeat, the author presents a new dynamic to the continuing debate on whiteness in Africa and globally.

For several centuries Cape Town has accommodated a great variety of musical genres which have usually been associated with specific population groups living in and around the city. Musical styles and genres produced in Cape Town have therefore been assigned an "identity" which is first and foremost social. This volume tries to question the relationship established between musical styles and genres, and social - in this case pseudo-racial - identities. In Sounding the Cape, Denis-Constant Martin recomposes and examines through the theoretical prism of creolisation the history of music in Cape Town, deploying analytical tools borrowed from the most recent studies of identity configurations. He demonstrates that musical creation in the Mother City, and in South Africa, has always been nurtured by contacts, exchanges and innovations whatever the efforts made by racist powers to separate and divide people according to their origin. Musicians interviewed at the dawn of the 21st century confirm that mixture and blending characterise all Cape Town's musics. They also emphasise the importance of a rhythmic pattern particular to Cape Town, the ghoema beat, whose origins are obviously mixed. The study of music demonstrates that the history of Cape Town, and of South Africa as a whole, undeniably fostered creole societies. Yet, twenty years after the collapse of apartheid, these societies are still divided along lines that combine economic factors and "racial" categorisations. Martin concludes that, were music given a greater importance in educational and cultural policies, it could contribute to fighting these divisions and promote the notion of a nation that, in spite of the violence of racism and apartheid, has managed to invent a unique common culture.