Unity and Difference in Black South Africa

bloody exchanges variously labelled tribal clashes, black-on-black ethnic strife, and internecine strife.3 Within this rapidly burgeoning culture of violence, scores of families, communities, and sometimes entire regions, have had their social structures and ways of life destroyed.4 Since then, the violence has shown no evidence of abating. Because of the fatal consequences of the ongoing conflict, South Africans are confronted with a struggle where they have to develop a set of strategies that will enable them to successfully combat this situation. While there is no question that the South African government's security forces are clandestinely involved in fuelling the battles and perpetrating murder, it is also necessary for us as blacks to move beyond moral condemnation of the apartheid regime. It is, after all, one thing to hold the moral high ground, and quite another to turn that location into a tangible political advantage; to use it not only as a weapon against the regime, but also as a tool for self-reflection and critique. Therefore, at this juncture, it is incumbent upon the communities to examine the ways in which the cultural identities created, however artificially, by the apartheid system now stand as the raison d'etre of this volatile and catastrophic situation. What strategies, other than the judicial, has the government used to construct different identities among South Africans? How successful have these strategies been? How do we combat the cultural consequences of apartheid? And, most difficult, but perhaps most important of all, is it possible to convert these products of apartheid into a progressive political practice? It is now certain that a committee of inquiry will be set up to investigate repeated claims by a number of anti-government groups that a third force is covertly sponsoring and carrying out these horrendous activities. It has been reported that the third force consists of hooded white vigilantes who initiate instances of on black violence either on their own or with the aid of auxiliaries of the security organ.s5 The Nationalist Party's (NP) relationship with its chief negotiating partner in

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