Do South Africans Exist?
Do South Africans Exist?
NATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY AND THE IDENTITY OF ‘THE PEOPLE’
Ivor Chipkin
Wits University Press
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Johannesburg
South Africa
Text © Ivor Chipkin, 2007
Cover artwork © William Kentridge, ‘Casspirs Full of Love’,
1988-1989, charcoal and pastel, Collection: Johannesburg Art Gallery Citations © archives and institutes from which sourced, as indicated
First published 2007
ISBN 978-1-86814-445-7 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-77614-377-1 (Web PDF)
ISBN 978-1-77614-378-8 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-1-77614-379-5 (Mobi)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission, in writing, of both the copyright holder and the publishers.
Cover design and layout by Hybridesign
To Ingrid, Eamonn and Liat
Table of Contents
Introduction:The Sublime Object of Nationalism
Chapter 1:The Nature of African Nationalism
Chapter 2:The Democratic Origin of Nations
Chapter 3:African Nationalism in South Africa
Chapter 4:The South African Nation
Chapter 5:The Impossibility of the National Community
Chapter 6:The Production of the Public Domain
Chapter 7:The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Identity of ‘the People’
Conclusion:Notes Towards a Theory of the Democratic Limit
Acknowledgements
This book began its life as a PhD thesis at the Ecole Normale Superieure. Phillipe Gervais-Lambony made my French adventure possible and I want to thank him for his faith and friendship during this time and since then. My gratitude also goes out to Marie-Anne and Isis. I think too of Afifah Barkallah and Justus Njagu.
The text has also benefited from discussions with Debbie Posel and Achille Mbembe and other former colleagues at the Wits Institute for Social Economic Research. Vyjayanthi Rao has been an inspired friend in Johannesburg, Mumbai, New Haven and cyberspace. I am especially grateful to William Beinart and also to St-Antony’s college for the chance to spend some time at Oxford, where several chapters of this book were written. Peter Hudson has always been a generous reader of my work and given me invaluable support and assistance.
I was able to complete this manuscript while working for the Human Sciences Research Council. I am grateful to Adam Habib and my other colleagues in the Democracy and Governance Programme for their collegiality and friendship.
In preparing this book for publication, I was fortunate to have the excellent services of Hilary Wilson as proofreader, Margie Ramsay as indexer and Karen Lilje as book and cover designer. If this book is a little easier to read it is because of the editing and the advice of Alex Potter. Estelle Jobson managed to bring this whole project together. I am very grateful to her.
The publishers and I wish to thank Jeannine Howse of the Johannesburg Art Gallery and Byron Kozakiewiez of Beith Digital for assistance with locating and scanning the cover artwork. We gratefully acknowledge the permission granted by William Kentridge to reproduce his art on the cover of this book. We wish too to acknowledge the following institutions, from whom extracts in their archives or publications have been reproduced and credited accordingly: Grove/Atlantic, New York; Image, Doubleday, Random House, New York; The South African Labour Bulletin, Johannesburg; and Verso, London.
List of Acronyms
| ACT | Area Co-ordinating Team (Manenberg) |
| ANC | African National Congress |
| Comintern | Communist International |
| Cosatu | Congress of South African Trade Unions |
| CPSA | Communist Party of South Africa |
| Devcon | Department of Community Development |
| Fosatu | Federation of South African Trade Unions |
| GWU | General Workers’ Union |
| Mawu | Metal and Allied Workers’ Union |
| MK | Mkhonto we Sizwe |
| NDR | national democratic revolution |
| NGO | non-governmental organisation |
| Numsa | National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa |
| PAC | Pan-Africanist Congress |
| RDP | Reconstruction and Development Programme |
| SACP | South African Communist Party |
| Sactu | South African Congress of Trade Unions |
| SALB | South African Labour Bulletin |
| Saso |
South African Students’ Organisation
|