AFRICA: Africa World Press Guide

compiled and edited by WorldViews

SOUTH AFRICA
A time to build

As South Africa emerges from the heady success of its first nonracial elections (held in April 1994) it is--in the words of a statement from the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference--"a country very different, a country very much the same." Barbara Hogan, a member of South Africa's newly elected Parliament, explained to the editorial board of the Oakland Tribune: "When we took power [in 1994], we had to bring about a complete change. Apartheid fragmented everything, a nd not just into black and white. Every policy was suffused with an apartheid vision. We had to change every aspect of society" (Oakland Tribune, Nov. 20, 1996, p. A-14).

Ahmed Kathrada, another member of the South African Parliament who visited Oakland, California, with Hogan in November 1996, knows better than most how sweet the 1994 victory was over apartheid, for he suffered 26 years as a political prisoner on South Africa's notorious Robben Island. But Kathrada insists that the battle did not end with the defeat of apartheid. In fact, he contends, "The struggle has just started."

The resource materials in this chapter describe the many obstacles that the government of President Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa face as they struggle to heal the wounds of apartheid and to build a new multiracial nation. The resources also identify the strengths that South Africans bring to these challenges.

Southern Africa region

Books that situate South Africa in the larger geographical context of the southern Africa region are Professor J. D. Omer-Cooper's highly regarded textbook History of Southern Africa (Omer-Cooper 1994), and two collections of essays: the first, by scholar-activist John Saul, Recolonization and Resistance in Southern Africa in the 1990s (Saul 1993), and the second, by various international affairs specialists, The Dynamics of Change in Southern Africa (Rich 1994).

Booklets in the Southern Africa Political Economy series, published by the SAPES Trust (Harare), are useful for the perspectives they offer from social scientists in the region. See, particularly, Post-Cold War Peace and Security Prospects in Southe rn Africa (Rugumamu 1993) and Southern Africa in the Year 2000: An Overview and Research Agenda (Mandaza 1993).

South Africa

We divide the resource materials below into time frames that correspond roughly to twentieth-century South African history before, during, and after the transition period that ended with the historic elections in 1994.

Apartheid South Africa

The revised edition of Professor Leonard Thompson's classic A History of South Africa (Thompson 1995) is a good place to begin for an overview of the sweep of South Africa's history from the black settlements that pre-dated the arrival of the Europ eans to the elections and transition to multi-racial democracy in the 1990s.

Recently published books that shed additional light on the origins and legacy of apartheid include

Autobiographies offer unique vantage points for an understanding of apartheid South Africa:

In his Foreword to Living Apart: South Africa under Apartheid (Berry 1996), Archbishop Desmond Tutu compares photo-journalist Ian Berry's stunning collection of black-and-white photographs of South Africa from the late 1950s to the mid-1990s to the emotionally moving museum display Tutu had just visited during a trip to Nuremburg. "These pictures [in Nuremburg]," Archbishop Tutu writes, "were powerful in their impact, more powerful for being so understated. No technicolor. So you can see why Ber ry's collection fairly took my breath away. It was an extraordinary coincidence, the same medium and cataloguing a further terrible example of our inhumanity to one another. A searing indictment and an important record to counteract amnesia."

Negotiations and elections

Books and pamphlets that describe the period of negotiations leading up to the 1994 elections include

The bibliography, South Africa. As Apartheid Ends: An Annotated Bibliography with Analytical Introductions (Stultz 1993), catalogs many additional titles that cover South Africa up to the period of the elections.

Transition and beyond

Resource materials that deal with the multitude of specific issues that face South Africans in the future are listed below. Books and pamphlets that feature a broad, multi-issue approach are these:

From 1991 to 1995, Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC)--in partnership with the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, and the South African National Civic Organisation-- conducted a series of missi ons in South Africa to assist the government and people of South Africa in their transition to democracy. The reports of these missions have been published by IDRC in a 4-volume set that carries a hearty endorsement by South African President Nelson Mande la. Titles in the Building a New South Africa series are given below (under Economy, Environment, Science and Technology, and Urban Policy).

Issues

Agriculture:
Modernising Super-Exploitation: Restructuring South African Agriculture (Marcus 1989)
Corporate investment:
Foundations for a New Democracy: Corporate Social Investment in South Africa (Alperson 1995)
Democracy:
Democratization in South Africa: The Elusive Social Contract (Sisk 1995); Stabilizing Democracy in South Africa: The Challenges of Post-Apartheid Development (Southern Africa Grantmakers' Affinity Group, Council on Foundations 1994); A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided Society (Horowitz 1991).
Development:
Sustainable Development for a Democratic South Africa (Cole 1994).
Economy:
Building a New South Africa. Volume 1: Economic Policy (Van Ameringen 1995); Managing the Economic Transition in South Africa (Center for Economic Research on Africa 1994); South Africa's Economic Crisis (Gelb 1991).
Education:
Pedagogy of Domination: Towards a Democratic Education in South Africa (Nkomo 1990).
Environment:
(1) Building a New South Africa. Volume 2: Environment, Reconstruction, and Development (Whyte 1995); (2) Restoring the Land: Environment and Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Ramphele 1991).
Labor:
Beyond Apartheid: Labour and Liberation in South Africa (Fine and Davis 1990) .
Media:
South African Media Policy: Debates of the 1990s (Louw 1993).
Police:
Policing the Conflict in South Africa (Mathews et al. 1993); Policing South Africa: The SAP and the Transition from Apartheid (Cawthra 1993); South Africa's Police: From Police State to Democratic Policing? (Cawthra 1992).
Political institutions:
South Africa: Designing New Political Institutions (Faure and Lane 1996).
Political violence:
Bargaining for Peace: South Africa and the National Peace Accord (Gastrow 1995).
Race and class:
The Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa (Frederikse 1990).
Rightwing militants:
Hard Right: The New White Power in South Africa (van Rooyen 1994).
Science and technology:
Building a New South Africa. Volume 3: Science and Technology Policy (Van Ameringen 1995).
Urban policy:
Building a New South Africa. Volume 4: Urban Policy (Van Ameringen 1995).
Women:
Women and War in South Africa (Cock 1993); Lives of Courage: Women for a New South Africa (Russell 1989); Women and Resistance in South Africa (Walker 1991).
Youth:
Heroes or Villains? Youth Politics in the 1980s (Seekings 1993); Creating a Future: Youth Policy for South Africa (Everatt 1994); Childhood in Crossroads: Cognition and Society in South Africa (Reynolds 1989).

Building Democracy in South Africa

In early 1994 the Division of Overseas Ministry of the United Church of Christ (New York) published Building Democracy in South Africa, a resource packet that was designed to

The packet, which was intended to be used for either individual or group study, contains facilitator tips, six issue cards, a map, a handout on the role of the church, a listing of further resources, and action ideas. Contact: DOM-UCBWM Joint Ministry in Africa, 474 Riverside Dr., 7th floor, New York, NY 10115-0109 USA

Copyright © 1997 WorldViews. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or stored in a database
or retrieval system, or transmitted or distributed in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopyi ng, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of WorldViews, except as permitted by the Copyright Act of 1976.