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National Identity and Sovereignty: Debates Around the South African Nation-State from 1990 to 2010

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National Identity and Sovereignty: Debates Around the South African Nation-State from 1990 to 2010 Name of Candidate: Abba Omar, Yacoob Student Number: 0501212X Degree: Doctor of Philosophy, University of Witwatersrand September 2017 Title: An examination of the relationship between national identity and sovereignty: debates around the South African nation-state from 1990 to 2010. Supervisor: Prof Ran Greenstein 1 DECLARATION I declare that this Thesis is my own, unaided work. It is being submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any degree or examination at any other University. _______________________________________ (Signature of candidate) 13 September 2017 in Johannesburg 2 Abstract: The study attempts to examine the relationship between national identity and political sovereignty and their impact on the emergence of nations, with a special focus on debates around the South African nation-state from 1990 to 2004. Located within the postcolonialism approach, the study looks at national identity through the prism of ethnicity, language, religion and race, while sovereignty is considered through its two component parts, the state and citizenry. By examining two postcolonial contexts, the Arab world and India, the study has developed a framework which is applied to the study of the South African state. This framework identifies nationalism as a glue which holds sovereignty and identity together in the nation-state. The two cases reveal that there is always more than one nationalist narrative, often competing against each other. In the case of the Arab world the study looks at the tensions between pan-Arabism, Arab nationalism and Islamism. In the case of India a secular Indian nationalism has had to compete against a Hindu nationalism. The study argues that South Africa’s history has been characterised by contestation between a white, Afrikaner nationalism and an African nationalism. As in the two case studies, these narratives are not just polar ends, but rather a complex spectrum which has seen alliances being struck across the racial divide. The essence of the former has been an attempt at addressing the ‘Native Question’, that is how to manage the continued subjugation of the overwhelming number of Africans in this country. Having its roots as a reaction to its socio-economic conditions in the Cape, it evolved into an ethnically constructed view of itself and through which it mobilised political and economic resources to perpetuate its dominance after it reached its zenith in the 1948 elections. This narrative’s arc saw it being redefined in race terms to encompass English-speaking whites, and then through a combination of anti-communist rhetoric and anti-African scare-mongering, included the coloured and Indian parts of the South African population. Today it manifests itself in a return to an ethnic laager which takes the form of attempts at discriminating against non-Afrikaans speakers on the basis of an appeal to victimhood and the exercise of constitutional rights. The African nationalism narrative begins from the mid-1800s, tracing the impact of those educated at missionary schools on the society they came from. This Christian elite came to play a powerful role in establishing a plethora of organisations so that as the wars of resistance were ending, political mobilisation was taking off. This mobilisation took the form of voter registration and voting for those white candidates considered to be acting in the interests of Africans, church congregations as well as newspapers which served as platforms for airing of grievances. A moderate, urban- based, accommodating form of politics ran parallel to a more militant, rural-based form of resistance. The former would shape the first few decades of the African National Congress until the 1940s, while the latter was subsumed under the rhetoric of the nationalist elite – similar to the experiences of India and the Arab world. 3 A key debate from the inception of this narrative was the kind of Africanism which informed African nationalism. These debates continued through most of the first half of the 20th century, leading eventually to the breakaway of the PAC from the ANC because of the latter’s commitment to non-racialism and a broader definition of Africanism. This debate would be revived at different points in the history of the ANC, with the most recent one being at its 1997 conference. The CPSA/SACP played an important role in the formulation of a more radical agenda through its conceptualisation of SA as a Black Republic and later as experiencing colonialism of a special type (CST). The study looks at how the two narratives came to clash over the formulation of the 1996 Constitution and how this foundation document of the ‘New South Africa’ has become the fulcrum around which the two nationalisms continue clashing. With the ANC in power since the 1994 election, special attention is paid to its track-record in government and the manner in which state and civil society has interacted. Core to this is an appreciation of how the two nationalisms continue morphing and the impact this is having on the South African nation-state. 4 I dedicate this to the memory of parents: my mother who taught me the importance of clan; my father who opened my eyes to the world 5 Acknowledgements There are several people who have shown tremendous patience throughout this long marathon: Prof Ran Greenstein, unsparing in his feedback and continuously opening new vistas for me to explore; my children Rabia and Zahra who were told at the beginning of this journey not to ask ‘are we there yet?’; and Latiefa, who had to be the most patient. My appreciation for the many hours she spent poring over early drafts to ensure that ‘the rest of us can understand it’ and for continuing to spur me on, especially when the finishing line felt just too far away. Although they would be surprised to find themselves in this list of acknowledgements, I would like to record my appreciation for the roles Shireen Hassim, Jo Beall, Susan Booysen, Abdul Aziz O Sager, Joel Netshitenzhe and Pallo Jordan played in my intellectual development. A special word of thanks to Tanya Abrahamse and Sue Rabkin for the encouragement and the white board which came to dominate the last mile of the process. Sisterly or brotherly, comradely or collegial, I had the pleasure of many occasions of personal interactions with each one of them. The usual disclaimers apply: any weaknesses in this composition are entirely mine. 6 CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction 8 Chapter Two Sovereignty and national identity in the postcolonial world 13 2.1 A single political authority 2.2. Citizenship 2.3 The nation-state, national identity and nationalism 2.4 The postcolonial approach 2.5 Conclusion Chapter Three Two cases of the postcolonial world 38 3.1 The Arab world 3.2 India 3.3 Conclusion Chapter Four The ‘native question’ versus the national question 99 4.1 The ‘native question’: the interplay of race and ethnicity in Afrikaner nationalism 4.2 Evolution of the National Question 4.3 The negotiations table and first few rounds of democratic elections 4.4 Conclusion 5. Chapter Five Faultlines of the Twentiy First Century 264 5.1 Nationalism at the beginning of the 21st Century 5.2 Sovereignty: state and citizenship 5.3 National identity 5.4 Conclusion 6. Chapter Six Conclusion 319 Bibliography 325 7 Chapter 1 Introduction In this thesis the theoretical issues raised by the concepts sovereignty and national identity are considered within the framework of the postcolonial approach. I examine sovereignty in relation to two associated concepts – that of the state and that of citizenship. The notions of the state and citizenship evolved over many centuries to lead to contemporary formulations, which in themselves remain contested. I look at how national identity becomes expressed in sovereignty in different contexts. I am especially focused on the ethnic, language, race and religious dimensions of identity, given their salience to South Africa. I examine nationalism as the glue which connects national identity and sovereignty. I have used the cases of the Arab world and India to look at the relationship between national identity, sovereignty and nationalism. The framework which emerges from this comparative study is then applied to the South African case. While providing a sweeping historical survey of South Africa, I chose to focus on the period 1990 – 2010 for several reasons. For one it marked a major turning point in the conceptualisation of the South African nation-state. The ushering in of a democratic order with the holding of the 1994 elections and the 1996 adoption of the new constitution represented a major turning point in the evolution of the South African nation-state. The debates which occurred before and during that period continued to reverberate into the twenty first century. I have no doubt that these debates will continue shaping notions of national identity and sovereignty in the future. This parallels the experience of India where the debates leading up to the attainment of independence in 1947 and the adoption of the new constitution in November 1949 continue to resonate up to today in various forms, but especially around the contestation between secularist and Hindutva ideas. Similarly, in the different parts of the Arab world, there were particular points when the forces of secularism and Islamism clashed, laying the basis for contemporary debates. In the case of South Africa the period 1990 to 2010 was when Afrikaner and African nationalism could test their numerical strength and the prowess of their ideas through relatively peaceful negotiations. In doing so it engendered debates which continue to mark the sociological and political landscape today. 8 The core thesis I will be testing is that nation-states have been shaped by two processes: that of identity formation and the emergence of the sovereign state, which have been held together by nationalism.
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