Ten Years After Apartheid: The State Of Nation-Building In South Africa

Abstract

This chapter presents an analysis of the state of nation-building in post-apartheid South Africa. It begins with Eurocentric notions of ?nation', ?race', ?ethnic groups' and other such putative social entities are hegemonic in most parts of Africa. The racial caste system - which is what we are dealing with at the level of social psychology - has particular consequences that exacerbate the problem of promoting a sense of national unity. The modalities and technology of racial classification by the state are demonstrated most clearly in the early history of the implementation of apartheid. The strategies of the post-apartheid governments to achieve ?historical redress', variously referred to as affirmative action, levelling the playing fields, redressing the imbalances of the past, corrective action, and other such elegant variations, are restricted by as many material as ideological constraints. Keywords: post-apartheid South Africa; racial classification