An African Athens

An African Athens Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa Rhetoric, Knowledge, and Society A Series of Monographs Edited by Charles Bazerman Atkinson • Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675-1975 Blakeslee • Interacting With Audiences Dias, Freedman, Medway, Pare • Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts Flower, Long, Higgins • Learning to Rival: A Literate Practice for Intercultural Inquiry Petraglia • Reality by Design: The Rhetoric and Technology of Authenticity in Education Prior • Writing/Disciplinarity: A Sociohistoric Account of Literate Activity in the Academy Salazar • An African Athens: Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa Sauer • The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments Swales • Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textography of a Small University Building Van Nostrand • Fundable Knowledge: The Marketing of Defense Technology Winsor • Writing Like an Engineer: A Rhetorical Education An African Athens Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa Philippe-Joseph Salazar LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2002 Mahwah, New Jersey London This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright © 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be repro- duced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written per- mission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, NJ 07430 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Salazar, Philippe-Joseph. An African Athens : Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa / Philippe-Joseph Salazar. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-3341-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. South Africa—Politics and government—1989-1994. 2. South Africa—Politics and government—1994- 3. Political oratory—South Africa. I. Title. DT1970 .S25 2001 320.968'01'4—dc21 2001023939 CIP ISBN 1-4106-0287-7 Master e-book ISBN Contents About the Author ix Series Editor’s Foreword xi Charles Bazerman Preface xiii Acknowledgments xix 1 Desmond Tutu: The Oratorical Link 1 An Oratorical Frame for Nation-Building 2 Putting the Case for the Nation 4 The Orator as Historian of the Nation 7 An Oratorical Transformation 10 Theology and the Oratory of Liberation 15 2 “So to Speak”: The Rhetoric of Mandela 18 A Speech Never Comes Alone 19 A Speech on the Birth of a Nation 21 The Logic of National Imagery 24 Rhetorical Valediction 27 3 The Two Rhetorics of The Presidency 32 Presidency, Praise, and Prudence 33 Narratives of Empowerment 41 The Rhetoric of the “African Renaissance” 43 v vi CONTENTS 4 Democratic Deliberations 54 Constitutional Communication and Simulacra 58 How to Write Constitutional Texts 60 Troping the People 65 5 Reconciliation and Rhetoric 75 Rituals of Delivery 77 Demonstrating the Social Contract 79 Rhetoric, Reconciliation, and Truth-Telling 82 The Rhetorical Conundrum of Privacy 85 Bowdlerizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 89 6 The “True Colours” of Popular Deliberation 93 The Corporate Body Politic 94 Rhetorical Reportage 97 Rhetorical Statistics 104 7 The Rhetorical Cosmetics of Peace 108 The Cosmetic Shape of Democracy 108 Deliberating on Black in Elle 110 Rhetorics of National Pride 117 Sport as Rhetoric of Peace 122 8 Space as Democratic Deliberation 132 Human Space as Deliberation 133 A Rhetorical Matrix for Space 140 Space as Distinction 141 The Eloquence of Functionality 146 Praising Beautiful Spaces 152 9 Conclusion: Robben Island as Foundation Rhetoric 157 Appendix I 167 Appendix II 171 Appendix III 181 Notes 187 CONTENTS vii References 215 General 215 South Africa 218 Author Index 223 Subject Index 225 This Page Intentionally Left Blank About the Author Philippe-Joseph Salazar is Distinguished Professor in Humane Let- ters at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Director of the Program in Rhetoric and Democracy at the Collège International de Philosophie, Paris. Professor Salazar is author of several books and contributor to many collective volumes; he has been published widely across the spectrum in rhetoric studies. His most recent ap- pointment in rhetoric is as UNESCO Professor of Philosophy in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Russia). ABOUT THIS BOOK What is a “rhetorical democracy” at the dawn of the new millenium? Salazar attempts an answer by proposing to analyze post-apartheid South Africa as a signal terrain for rhetoric studies. In the course of his analysis, he addresses, for example, the impact of religious oratory on the formulation of secular deliberation. He presents the rhetorical stakes of a “performative” presidency of the black empowerment presidency of Nelson Mandela. He further contends that exposure to reconciliation and percep- tion of communal values across racial lines provoke a dialectic be- tween private and public advocacy. He extends his argument by analyzing the “cosmetics” of peace and of the public landscape, the images and spaces through which political deliberation and public rhetoric cluster in a human ecology of arguments regarding the very locale of a working democracy. ix x ABOUT THE AUTHOR This study will help to put rhetoric at the center of investigations on postmodern democracy,owing to the exemplary quality of South Africa—“an African Athens.” Series Editor’s Foreword Charles Bazerman University of California, Santa Barbara Merely a decade ago, who would have thought that apartheid would end soon, without a major revolution, and a new multi-cultural regime would remake the very idea of the South African nation? Who would have imagined Nelson Mandela, as president of the country,embracing the Springbok rugby team—the former sym- bol of white power? Who would have imagined the Truth and Rec- onciliation Commission’s bold amnesties at the price of confession on both sides? In this same decade we have seen other dramatic changes of re- gimes, of political systems, even of economic systems. But none of them has so quickly and so solidly reconfigured the idea, range, and commitment of citizenship. And none of them has so rapidly and firmly addressed and reversed racism in the state and culture. Rather, several new states have reinvigorated ancient hostilities with savage violence. A decade ago, many were predicting just such a bloody future for South Africa, with hatred and revenge being the legacy of long-stand- ing racial repression. But, amazingly, a new nation was born in ges- xi xii SERIES EDITOR'S FOREWORD tures of peace and was achieved in unifying words and symbols. The new South Africa is a remarkable rhetorical accomplishment, overcoming the deep wounds of class and race, forging a multicultural nation out of the former oppressed and oppressors. The old South Africa, while claiming to be an educated nation with a modern economy, had acted with the cruelty of the imperial- ism of former centuries. Then, it changed. De Klerk released Mandela, power was soon transferred. The formerly outlawed Afri- can National Congress took hold of the opportunity. Through rhetorical statecraft the long-imprisoned Nelson Mandela and his associates brought into being a remarkable new polity. This is the story that Philippe-Joseph Salazar recounts in an Afri- can Athens: Rhetoric and the Shaping of Democracy in South Africa. For over two decades a teacher and scholar at the University of Cape Town, specializing in the role of rhetoric in nation building, Salazar viewed the unfolding events through a very special lens. He noted the roots of the new nation in Tutu’s vision of religious community to be created through the rhetoric of unity and meeting of spirits. This vision was taken up by and secularized by Mandela, who pur- sued the vision in political and governmental arenas. As the nation came into being the evolving vision was enacted and realized through multiple cultural sites as diverse as voting registry, corporate advertising, sporting events, glamour magazines, real estate schemes, and public parks and monuments. The lives of nations are complex, carried out in multiple scenes of daily engagements. That is why nations and national cultures are so resistant to change, no matter what drastic events wash over them. Yet South Africa has addressed its need to change in so many arenas, communicating new visions and new ways of being citizens, that it does stand as a guiding light for the politics of the century just being born. South Africa is still a country with a continuing legacy of problems of economy, education, disease, and dispossessed indi- viduals inured to violence. Yet it is a country that has found a path and a vision. Salazar is right to suggest that we take the rhetorical lessons of how new national visions can be forged to bring all people into citizenship. Most of all, Salazar reminds us that rhetoric is not just of di- vision and overcoming, but of unity and cooperation. Preface This volume was written at the end of 2 decades spent observing South Africa’s struggle to shape itself into a civilized society. The first time I set foot in South Africa was on Easter Sunday 1978. The bus from the airport dropped me in midtown Pretoria. The city seemed bleached white by the hot Transvaal sun, its large and neat avenues (wide enough, I would later be told, to allow two ox wagons to turn round simultaneously) lined with dark green patches of well-tended lawns and trees. The city was deserted. I had entered a negative space of European history, where I would be testing knowledge acquired as a novice sociologist on the Sorbonne benches.

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