Limits to Democracy and Emancipatory Politics in South Africa post-1994
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Date
1994
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Inequality, Democracy Development
Abstract
Who is the subject of democracy? For whom does it hold out promise, and how
does the existential condition of those who aspire for freedom through democracy
impose conditions upon the very practice of democracy? In this paper I show
how racialized, classed, autochthonized and gendered people in South Africa are
gradually being condemned towards a ‘slow death’, and towards an existence more
akin to the ‘living dead’. As the people’s possibilities of freedom become more and
more defined by and restricted to place, inward-looking logics – anti-immigration
legislation and xenophobia– deepen the notion of South Africa’s exceptionalism and,
increasingly, the people seek a reactionary validation from within the ethnic group,
nation and race. Such de-radicalization of a politics of being is more profoundly
expressed as the reality of abject existence becomes apparent and the people no
longer find validation or affirmation of their humanity in and of itself. Reduced to their
‘entitlements’ rather than their rights, the people are faced with the stark realization
that the government has long abandoned them, and the race/nation/gender/class
to which allegiance once meant a politics of resistance, now merely function as
institutionalized identities, depoliticized by their (neo)liberal application under the
constitution. As social identities becomes a liability, so too do any politics that
suggest a common existence and a politics of struggle based on shared suffering.
This atomization of individuals and their alienation from the structural roots of their
oppression suggests the impossibility of claiming justice from a state that has long
disarticulated its interests from those presented by the people, and now merely
functions as a guarantor of society’s slow death.
Description
Keywords
Democracy, Emancipatory Politics
Citation
Ossome, L. Limits to Democracy and Emancipatory Politics in South Africa post-1994. Inequality, Democracy Development, 51.
URI
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicholas-Kilimani/publication/317721291_Inequality_Democracy_and_Development_under_Neoliberalism_and_Beyond/links/594a831ca6fdcc89090cb29d/Inequality-Democracy-and-Development-under-Neoliberalism-and-Beyond.pdf#page=51
https://nru.uncst.go.ug/handle/123456789/7383
https://nru.uncst.go.ug/handle/123456789/7383