E dward W ebster and K arin P ampallis, editors. The Unresolved National Question in South Africa

Since its introduction into South Africa by the Communist Party during the 1920s, the debate over the “national question” has arguably been the central organizing framework of left-wing political thought. In this excellent collection, The Unresolved National Question in South Africa: Left Thought under Apartheid, the editors and contributors seek to reconstruct the way that different sections of the South African Left, broadly understood to include the major currents opposed to apartheid, conceptualized the national question and envisioned its resolution. In the first part of the collection, the essays address four foundational traditions that cohered by the 1940s and 1950s and framed much later debate: Marxist-Leninism, the Congress tradition of the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies, the revolutionary socialism of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), and Pan-Africanism. In the second section, the essays examine developments from the 1960s to the present, including the implementation of the Bantustan policy and the rise of Zulu-ness, the Black Consciousness Movement, feminism, the independent trade union movement, and liberal constitutionalism. Arguing that the issues posed by the national question debate remain unresolved, the editors offer the volume as a contribution to the ongoing discussion over building national unity and democracy in South Africa.

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