Muslims in post-apartheid South Africa: race, community, and identity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Archbishop Desmond Tutu evocatively called South Africa the ‘Rainbow Nation of God’ to show how, despite the doomsayers who predicted racial civil war, under the guiding hand of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa had adopted a path of reconciliation and non-racialism. A quarter-century on, this optimism is on the wane as ‘racial’ incidents make national headlines virtually daily. This broader context frames this article, which examines the historical and contemporary relationship amongst Muslim South Africans who constitute around two percent of the country’s population. They are mostly composed of Indians, Coloureds, and Black Africans, as defined in the South African census. This article examines the histories of race (and their logics) among Muslims in South Africa, especially between Africans and Indians, including social intimacies and boundary-making. It does so against the background of changing social, political, economic, and cultural conditions, which include an influx of Muslim migrants from Africa and South Asia, rising racial nationalism, widespread poverty and unemployment, and the dissemination of new ideas. While focusing on intra-Muslim relations, the article makes a critical contribution to a broader discussion about race in post-apartheid South Africa.