Race and Nation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

The post apartheid state forges ahead with nation building, reconciliation, and the cultivation of an inclusive non-racial citizenship. The ANC government seems poised somewhere between denying the importance of group specific realities and having to realise the importance of `difference' in coping with the apartheid legacy. While the state cannot ignore language, culture and identity, its central problem is how to reconcile `difference' with common citizenship. Responses to the TRC Report indicate that all parties resist acceptance of responsibility for their past involvement. The absence of a shared moral universe by all citizens becomes increasingly clear. Different life experiences in legislated inequality have resulted in different value systems, perspectives and identities derived from conflicting interests. The theologically inspired concept of reconciliation, under these circumstances, fails to address conflicting moral claims. An understanding of cultural and psychological influences in the formation of identity and in the construction of the `other' is more important than exposure to moral indignation. Against this backdrop, political education is most likely to be effective where the focus is on more modest goals of democratic conflict resolution.