1st Edition

Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan Africanist Working Class Cultural Critical Perspectives

By Julian Kunnie Copyright 2000
    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    291 Pages
    by Routledge

    Is Apartheid Really Dead? Pan Africanist Working Class Cultural Critical Perspectives is an engaging and incisive book that radically challenges the widespread view that post-apartheid society is a liberated society, specifically for the Black working class and rural peasant populations. Julian Kunnie's central contention in this book is that the post-apartheid government was the product of a serious compromise between the former ruling white-led Nationalist Party and the African National Congress, resulting in a continuation of the erstwhile system of monopoly capitalism and racial privilege, albeit revised by the presence of a burgeoning Black political and economic elite. The result of this historic compromise is the persistent subjugation and impoverishment of the Black working class by the designs of global capital as under apartheid, this time managed by a Black elite in collaboration with the powerful white capitalist establishment in South Africa.Is Apartheid Really Dead? engages in a comprehensive analysis of the South African conflict and the negotiated settlement of apartheid rule, and explores solutions to the problematic of continued Black oppression and exploitation. Rooted in a Black Consciousness philosophical framework, unlike most other works on post-apartheid South Africa, this book provides a carefully delineated history of the South African struggle from the pre-colonial era through the present. What is additionally distinctive is the author's reference to and discussion of the Pan Africanist movement in the global struggle for Black liberation, highlighting the aftermath of the 1945 Pan African meeting in Manchester. The author analyzes the South African struggle within the context of Pan Africanism and the continent-wide movement to rid Africa of colonialism's legacy, highlighting the neo-colonial character of much of Africa's post-independence nations, arguing that South Africa has followed similar patterns.One of the attractive qualities of this book is that it discusses correctives to the perceived situation of neo-colonialism in South Africa, by delving into issues of gender oppression and the primacy of women's struggle, working class exploitation and Black worker mobilization, environmental despoliation and indigenous religio-cultural responses, and educational disenfranchisement and the need for radically new structures and policies in educational transformation. Ultimately, Is Apartheid Really Dead? postulates revolutionary change as a solution, undergirded with all of the aforementioned ingredients. While anticipating and articulating a revolutionary socialist vision for post-apartheid South Africa, this book is tempered by a realistic appraisal of the dynamics of the global economy and the legacy of colonial oppression and capitalism in South Africa.

    * Preface * Acknowledgments * 1. A Comprehensive History of the South African Struggle * The Indigenous African Struggle Against Colonialism and Black Working-Class Resistance to Industrial Capitalism * Summary and Conclusion * 2. Why Apartheid Changed Its Character in 1990 * Capitalism Promotes Post-Apartheid * Black Resistance: Pressure for Post-Apartheid Rhetoric * Post-Apartheid: The Politics and Economics of Survival for the White Capitalist Class * Negotiations and Post-Apartheid: A Black-Consciousness Critique, * Summary and Conclusion * 3. Neocolonial Political Economy in South Africa * Neocolonialist Capitalism and the Black Elite Class * Black Working-Class Responses to the Post-Apartheid Economy * The "Free Market" Economy: South African Style * Land, Housing, and Economic Dependency * Summary and Conclusion * 4. A Pan-Africanist/Black Working-Class Critical Perspective on "Independent" African Political Economies * South Africa and "Independent Africa" * Some Neocolonial Political Economies in "Independent Africa," * Summary and Conclusion * 5. Pan-Africanism and the Struggle Against Colonialism and Neocolonialism * Historical Pan-Africanist Struggle and South Africa: The Pan-African Congress in Manchester, 1945 * The Obstacle to Pan-African Working-Class Unity: Neocolonialism * Revolutionary Pan-Africanism: A Radical Response to Black Oppression * The Role of Revolutionary Ideology * Black Revolution and the Environment * Revolutionary Transformation and Indigenous African Spirituality * Language Policy and Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa * Summary and Conclusion * 6. Black Union Praxis and Worker Culture: Revolutionary Prospects and Limitations * Revolutionary Limitations and Possibilities of the Black Working Class * Creative Cultural Productions and Resistance * Future Revolutionary Transformation in Azania and Africa: The Primacy of Women's Struggles * The Creative Resourcefulness of Indigenous Black Working-Class Women in Revolutionary Struggle * Summary and Conclusion * Epilogue * Index

    Biography

    Julian Kunnie