Multi-Cultural Relations in a Post-Apartheid South Africa

I WOULD LIKE TO discuss multi-cultural relations in post-apartheid South Africa. Received definitions of culture tend to refer to certain long standing traits and characteristics of group behaviour; and groups are often narrowly defined in terms of well established allegiances to tribe, ethnic group, national group, religion, race and so forth. With reference to South Africa, race, in addition to tribe and ethnicity, are often the most important criteria used in the definition of culture. In this discussion I would like to redefine culture in order to include those seemingly transient or momentary activities which are inspired by certain beliefs, hopes and frustrations, and I would like to pay particular attention to the culture of violence, which seems to overwhelm any reasonable hopes of the building of a peaceful, non-racial and democratic South Africa. Violence has become an integral part of South African life, and has evolved into a dominant culture which overshadows all other aspects of the social status quo, especially among the black people. I would thus refer to this state as the culture of violation and violence. I would like to look specifically at how this culture of violation and violence manifests itsetf in day to day lives of ordinary people; not so much from a very broad perspective but a localized and specific one. However, I will attempt to place it in the context of current political issues. As I do this I would like to argue that instead of being a sudden outburst spawned by the new hope for change, this violence has been for nearly two decades a major part of South African culture, and to show how it is often translated, with a great degree of imprecision, into the political divisions of ideological and party politics prevailing in South Africa. Finally, by looking at the present, I shall try to think aloud and throw light on the implications of this culture for a pluralistic post-apartheid South Africa, and in the process, my definition of this culture seeks to lead to the conclusion that it emphasizes the generational conflict and overshadows the racial, economic, ideological and political interests. My discussion is going to be mainly anecdotal. I am traversing a wide landscape with cultural plains, rises, slopes, precipitous ravines and cliffs, dongas, forests and mighty rivers with whirlpools, a varied and treacherous surface which may obscure the clarity of my visibility, resulting in missing important landmarks. It is for this

Geography · Political science · Sociology · Community Health and Development · Gender Studies · Legal Issues in South Africa · South African History and Culture

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