Suchergebnisse

Despite a constitutional and oft-stated political commitment to an undefined notion of non-racialism, South Africans continue to operate in formal and informal ways with 'race' as the common-sense organizing principle of legal systems, ways of thinking, social identities, constructing arguments or closing debate, organizational and mobilizing strategies, policy development and execution, and interaction in daily life. This state of affairs is regrettable and dangerous, often questioned and rejected, but objections are waged and alternatives suggested against the tide of societal trends. What the organizing principle of race thinking does is to close the mind to alternative possibilities – of thought, social practice and ways of living. Here I explore an overview of racialism as it permeates and shapes the life cycles of citizens from birth to death. I make an argument for a way of thinking that is necessarily utopian, as one of few options of escaping a social world made in the image of apartheid.

Since the 1999 elections in South Africa the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has entered into a 'coalition' with the African National Congress (ANC) (now described as such by both parties) at both provincial (KwaZulu‐Natal ‐ KZN) and national levels of government. Such close cooperation, albeit largely at leadership and parliamentary representative level, would have been hard to imagine even five years ago, when the IFP refused to participate in the first democratic elections unless a range of demands were met by the negotiators in the transition process. Such confrontation reflected the vicious, state‐supported, war that was waged between IFP and ANC supporters in KZN and on the east Rand, in which thousands were killed and many more turned into internal refugees.
While any steps to attain lasting peace are to be welcomed, if the past is not addressed such moves may prove to be fragile. An aspect of the past is the relationship between the ANC, as movement and as resistance symbol, and the Inkatha movement of nkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi during the 1970s and 1980s. Inkatha's perception and presentation of 'the ANC during this period is discussed. The argument is that Inkatha leadership had the opportunity, and not only the ideological pressure, to place the movement within an ANC resistance history, that was also populist, denying class and other divisions. However, Inkatha was never able to escape its political location with the KwaZulu ethnic bantustan, and the ANC was driven to an uncompromising position through the rise of internal resistance from the late‐1970s.

South Africa's transition to a democratic order is especially threatened by the strongly contested areas of the place of ethnicity and of regionalism within the new order. This article investigates the most threatening manifestations of such conflict, especially as it relates to the KwaZulu-Natal province, and suggests that legitimate concerns over identity and decentralisation have to be addressed. (SAJIA/DÜI)

The author scrutinizes the main ideas of the "Constitution of the State of KwaZulu/Natal" presented to the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly by the leader of the Inkatha, G. Buthelezi, on 1st December 1992, differences between the ANC (African National Congress) and Inkatha on regionalism in South Africa, support for Inkatha's ideas by the far-right of the country and violence and misery in South Africa because of the linking of ethnicity and regionalism by the protagonists of apartheid. (DÜI-Sen)

In der Südafrikanischen Republik wird deutlich, daß die Zentren der Macht sich von der parlamentarischen Ebene auf die Exekutive, auf das Militär und auf die Polizei verschieben, aber zunehmend auch Machtansprüche von regionalen Gruppierungen geltend gemacht werden, wie z.B. der Inkatha. Dargestellt werden die unterschiedlichen Ansätze und Strategien und die mit Gewalt ausgetragenen Auseinandersetzungen. (DÜI-Fry)