South Africa Pushed To The Limit

Since 1994, the democratic government in South Africa has worked hard at improving the lives of the black majority, yet close to half the population lives in poverty, jobs are scarce, and the country is more unequal than ever. For millions, the colour of people's skin still decides their destiny. In his wide-ranging, incisive and provocative analysis, Hein Marais shows that although the legacies of apartheid and colonialism weigh heavy, many of the strategic choices made since the early 1990s have compounded those handicaps. Marais explains why those choices were made, where they went awry, and why South Africa's vaunted formations of the left -- old and new -- have failed to prevent or alter them. From the real reasons behind President Jacob Zuma's rise and the purging of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, to a devastating critique of the country's continuing AIDS crisis, its economic path and its approach to the rights and entitlements of citizens, South Africa Pushed to the Limit presents a riveting benchmark analysis of the incomplete journey beyond apartheid.

The Limits of Transition: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission 20 Years on is an interdisciplinary collection that celebrates and critiques the work of the TRC after 20 years. The authors consider whether the TRC has continued relevance for South Africa. The book further explores the legacy of the ‘unfinished business’ of the TRC.

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is a complex figure. He was a committed young Marxist who, while in power, embraced conservative economic policies and protected white corporate interests; a rational and dispassionate thinker who was particularly sensitive to criticism and dissent; and a champion of African self-reliance who relied excessively on foreign capital. As a key liberation leader in exile, he was instrumental in the ANC’s antiapartheid struggle. Later, he helped build one of the world’s most respected constitutional democracies. As president, though, he was unable to overcome inherited socioeconomic challenges, and his disastrous AIDS policies will remain a major blotch on his legacy. Mbeki is the most important African political figure of his generation. He will be remembered as a foreign policy president for his peacemaking efforts and his role in building continental institutions, not least of which was the African Union. In this concise biography, ideally suited for the classroom, Adekeye Adebajo seeks to illuminate Mbeki’s contradictions and situate him in a pan-African pantheon.

Political parties and the party system that underpins South Africa's democracy have the potential to build a cohesive and prosperous nation. But in the past few years the ANC's dominance has strained the system and tested it and its institutions' fortitude. There are deeper issues of accountability that often spurn the Constitution and there is also a clear need to foster meaningful public participation and transparency. This volume offers a different and detailed assessment of the health of South Africa's political system. This study intends to unravel the condition of the party system in South Africa and culminates in the question: Do South African parties promote or hinder democracy in the country? The areas of the party system that are known to require continued work are the weakness of democratic structures within parties, the perceived lack of responsibility of elected parliamentarians towards voters, non-transparent private partner financing structures and a lack of attractiveness of party-political commitment, especially for women. Experts in the respective fields address all of these areas in this book.

As a Somali working since high school in the United Arab Emirates, Osman considers himself “blessed” to be in a Muslim country, though citizenship, with the security it offers, remains elusive. For Ardo, smuggled out of Somalia to join her husband in South Africa, insecurities are of a more immediate, physical kind, and her economic prospects and legal status are more uncertain. Adam, in the United States—a destination often imagined as an earthly Eden, or jannah, by so many of his compatriots—now sees heaven in a return to Somalia. The stories of these three people are among the many that emerge from mass migration triggered by the political turmoil and civil war plaguing Somalia since 1988. And they are among the diverse collection presented in eloquent detail in Elusive Jannah, a remarkable portrait of the very different experiences of Somali migrants in the UAE, South Africa, and the United States. Somalis in the UAE, a relatively closed Muslim nation, are a minority within a large South Asian population of labor migrants. In South Africa, they are part of a highly racialized and segregated postapartheid society. In the United States they find themselves in a welfare state with its own racial, socioeconomic, and political tensions. A comparison of Somali settlements in these three locations clearly reveals the importance of immigration policies in the migrant experience. Cawo M. Abdi’s nuanced analysis demonstrates that a full understanding of successful migration and integration must go beyond legal, economic, and physical security to encompass a sense of religious, cultural, and social belonging. Her timely book underscores the sociopolitical forces shaping the Somali diaspora, as well as the roles of the nation-state, the war on terror, and globalization in both constraining and enabling their search for citizenship and security.

This book provides an innovative perspective on class dynamics in South Africa, focusing specifically on how different interests have shaped economic and trade policy. As an emerging market, South African political and economic actions are subject to the attention of international trade policy. Claar provides an in-depth class analysis of the contradictory negotiation processes that occurred between South Africa and the European Union on Economic-Partnership Agreements (EPA), examining the divergent roles played by the political and economic elite, and the working class. The author considers their relationships with the new global trade agenda, as well as their differing standpoints on the EPA.

White working-class experiences of South Africa's transition provide a reinterpretation of how class colours race in the era of neoliberalism.

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 Tutu?s 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.