The New Apartheid Study Notes

Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh: The New Apartheid Notes

Publishing Details

  • Publisher: Tafelberg, imprint of NB Publishers, Media24 Boeke (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town, South Africa

  • Copyright: © 2021 Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form without permission.

  • Book Design: Nazli Jacobs, Edited by Russell Martin, Proofread by Angela Voges

  • ISBN: 978-0-624-08854-7 (Print), 978-0-624-08855-4 (Epub)

  • First Edition: 2021, Third Impression: 2023

Dedication

  • For: Qugqwala, Mam'Tolo, and Luc

Abbreviations

  • AAC: Anglo American Corporation

  • AFRA: Association for Rural Advancement

  • AI: artificial intelligence

  • ANC: African National Congress

  • AWB: Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging

  • BEE: Black Economic Empowerment

  • CBD: central business district

  • DA: Democratic Alliance

  • DRDLR: Department of Rural Development and Land Reform

  • ECTA: Electronic Communications and Transactions Act

  • GDP: gross domestic product

  • GEAR: Growth, Employment and Redistribution

  • ID: Identity Document

  • IEC: Independent Electoral Commission

  • IFP: Inkatha Freedom Party

  • IP: Internet Protocol

  • JSE: Johannesburg Stock Exchange

  • KZN: KwaZulu-Natal

  • NAIL: New Africa Investments Ltd

  • NP: National Party

  • NPA: National Prosecuting Authority

  • POPIA: Protection of Personal Information Act

  • SA: South Africa

  • SABC: South African Broadcasting Corporation

  • SAPO: South African Post Office

  • SAPS: South African Police Service

  • SCA: Supreme Court of Appeal

  • SOE: state-owned entities

  • TRC: Truth and Reconciliation Commission

  • UCT: University of Cape Town

Introduction

  • Definition:

    • Autopoiesis: The property of a living system that allows it to maintain and renew itself by regulating its composition and conserving its boundaries.

  • Thesis: Apartheid did not die; it was privatised.

    • Presents provocative questions about apartheid's legacy, continuation, and transformation.

Main Questions Explored

  1. What are apartheid's afterlives?

  2. Is contemporary South Africa a distorted duplicate of its apartheid predecessor?

  3. How does apartheid manifest in recent times despite the Constitution?

  4. What unforeseen consequences arose from the negotiated settlement of the 1990s?

  5. To what extent does apartheid persist after it was declared over?

Conceptualization of Apartheid

  • Apartheid is understood through five interlocking dimensions:

    1. Ideology: A set of beliefs characterizing a white supremacist worldview.

    2. State Project: The legal and governmental categorization emphasizing racial oppression.

    3. Economic Order: Structure benefiting from oppressive binaries in production and wealth distribution.

    4. Technology: Systems of governance controlling everyday life.

    5. Emotional Landscape: Feelings of superiority and grief correlating to benefactors and victims, respectively.

Adaptive Nature of Apartheid

  • Apartheid is noted for its capacity to evolve through incoherence, appealing to conflicting audiences, thus maintaining its influence.

Understanding the Death of Apartheid

  • The claims regarding the death of apartheid reflect complexities in legal, ideological, and emotional dimensions rather than a clear-cut end.

Why Apartheid?

  • The continued relevance of the term apartheid stems from:

    1. Scale of ongoing inequity in South Africa.

    2. Historical context that suggests prolonged effects post-1994.

    3. Personal experiences of those who bear the legacy of apartheid, illustrating lasting impacts.

  • Analogy: Rank oppression from 1-10; historical apartheid at a 9, reduced to a 6 today. Any level of oppression above 3 is intolerable.

Privatisation and Apartheid

Definition of Privatisation

  • Privatisation: Transfer of state assets/functions into private hands for private purposes.

  • Claim: Apartheid has retreated into private realms post-1994.

Features of Privatisation Initiated

  1. Marketisation: Privilege enforced through financial means over legal statutes, affecting various applications (e.g., housing, education).

  2. De-legislation: Abolishment of apartheid laws did not eliminate its lingering presence in common law, especially concerning property.

  3. Denationalisation: Transition from centralized state control to decentralized private governance.

  4. Digitisation: The rise of digital technology reinforcing racial categorization.

  5. Fractalisation: Apartheid splintered into smaller, recursive patterns throughout society.

  6. Internalisation: Hegemonic and covert white supremacy alongside a fragmented interpretation of non-racialism.

  7. Deracialisation: The inclusion of some black individuals into privilege complicates racial issues.

  8. Deterritorialisation: Shifted spatial dynamics post-1994, while maintaining patterns of segregation and hierarchy.

Bantustans and Neo-Liberation

  • The concept of Bantustans as a model for understanding the current republic where privileges remain accessible primarily to white individuals.

  • Political Analysis: Focus on how the ANC’s ascent mirrored Bantustan logic by maintaining white privileges alongside granting black political rights.

Societal Re-structuring

  1. Legacy of Apartheid: Undermined by the ANC’s inability to change underlying power structures.

  2. Persistent Inequality: Ongoing separation and inequality despite political reforms post-apartheid.

Tensions

  • Competing visions in South African society, one of democratic aspiration versus oppressive continuities represented by neo-apartheid.

  • Historical disjunctures between constitutional outcomes and societal realities reveal the interlocking interests of liberation and neoliberalism.

Qualifications

  • The author does not claim South Africa is unchanged since 1994; rather, acknowledges systemic remnants of apartheid persist.

  • The new apartheid is both unpredictable and decentralized, lacking a single architect or clear agenda, depicting an organic evolution.

  • Misinterpretations of the ANC’s negotiation gains overlook entrenched apartheid interests, shielding their economic structures post-transition.

Inspirations

  • The work synthesizes multiple strands: contemporary South African scholarship, critiques of the African state, and technological analyses of oppression re-engaging with apartheid dynamics.

Structure of the Book

  1. Space: Examines urban and rural segregation post-apartheid.

  2. Law: Investigates tensions between private and public law and apartheid's continuity in modern law.

  3. Wealth: Scrutinizes economic stability and the linkages to apartheid’s cultural legacy.

  4. Technology: Looks at the role of technology in reinforcing societal divisions.

  5. Punishment: Focuses on patterns of policing and incarceration consistent with apartheid dynamics in policing and legal frameworks.

  6. Conclusion: Propagates the view of apartheid as a continuous, dynamic force shaping society.

Takeaway:

The evolving and disguised nature of apartheid, termed 'the new apartheid', represents ongoing struggles for equality and justice in contemporary South Africa.