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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Mayibuye iAfrika? : disjunctive inclusions and black strivings for constitution and belonging in ’South Africa’ http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40367/ Version: Full Version Citation: Madlingozi, Tshepo (2018) Mayibuye iAfrika? : disjunctive inclusions and black strivings for constitution and belonging in ’South Africa’. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email MAYIBUYE iAFRIKA? DISJUNCTIVE INCLUSIONS AND BLACK STRIVINGS FOR CONSTITUTION AND BELONGING IN ‘SOUTH AFRICA’ TSHEPO MADLINGOZI Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London 2018 1 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own, except where reference is made to the work of others. Signed Tshepo Madlingozi 2 ABSTRACT With a focus on South Africa, I employ the phenomenological approach from an African perspective to analyse strivings for constitution (to constitute an inclusive polity, and etymologically, constare ‘to stand together’) and belonging (affectively and materially). In this postcolony, these strivings can be discerned in perennial protests by impoverished black communities for an inclusive democracy and for social goods; in contestations around land redistribution and against institutionalised forms of social ‘invisibilisation;’ and in calls for the valorisation of life-worlds different from the western. I contend that these strivings should be understood from the perspective that settler colonial constitution-making processes presaged “death of the land” (ilizwe lifile); that is, the shattering of the socio-cultural worlds of indigenous peoples. The outcomes of this processes were ‘native’ pariahdom, homelessness and worldlessness. Accordingly, the original impulse of anti-colonial struggles was Mayibuye iAfrika (‘Return’/‘Re-member’/ ‘Resurrect’ Africa). My two-fold thesis is, firstly, that perennial protests by marginalised communities are impelled by the fact that post-1994 constitutional re-arrangements did not rise to the decolonisation challenge of re-membering the land/world. These re-arrangements have thus perpetuated homelessness, pariahdom and worldlessness. Secondly, I demonstrate that the cause of this failure is partially the fact that ruling party elites - who were beneficiaries of partial inclusion into the settler-constituted polity - failed to overcome their liminal-status induced conditions of double consciousness and racial melancholia. The result is that they elaborated terms of constitution and belonging whose eventual outcomes are, on the one hand, assimilation of ‘native’ elites into the white-dominated world, and on the other, continuing pariahdom and worldlessness for the majority. In Part I, I show that South African anti-colonial leaders based their vision of constitution and belonging on W.E.B. Du Bois seminal manifesto for how people of African descent could achieve liberation and world-reclamation. I argue that this manifesto leads to elite nationalism, a dearth of national consciousness and that it ultimately perpetuates the inherited world of apartness. The main insight from this Part is that quests for post-colonial constitution-making ought to be geared towards re-membering and (re)constituting the historically-colonised world on spiritual, social and material planes – the three realms of African belonging in the world. In Part II, I propose decolonising constitution-making processes centered on politics of Mayibuye understood here as creolising homemaking and re-membering of the world. I do this by advancing Es’kia Mphahlele, Steve Biko and Abahlali baseMjondolo’s interconnected praxes of Afrikan humanness, Black Consciousness and Abahlalism. I contend that these praxes are faithful to the Mayibuye exigency because they, respectively and together, propose ways of re-membering the triadic world and of (re)constituting an all-inclusive polity based on African humanness. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wrote this dissertation in the midst of depression. I would never have completed this project without the intellectual guidance, empathy, pastoral care and the unwavering support of my supervisor, Professor Stewart Motha. I am thankful for Professor Patricia Tuitt’s guidance and support during the early stages of this project. I would like to acknowledge the encouragement of my intellectual sparring partners and brothers Sanele and Paul; and the support of my friends Thiru, Isolde, Jessica, Lucy, Lehlohonolo, Charlotte, Lerato and members of the LSC. My doctoral mates at Birkbeck College including Laura, Kanika, Panos, Enrique, Kojo and Mayur provided friendship and intellectual stimulation. I give thanks to the support I received from my colleagues at the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria and from members of Khulumani Support Group. I benefitted immeasurably from countless conversations with ntate Professor Ramose. Naadi provided immense technical support. I am grateful for the camaraderie of Nwabisa during the last years of this project. Melissa’s understanding and unconditional support were life-affirming. This dissertation is the fruit of my grandmother and mother’s sacrifices, unconditional love, and support. Finally, Papa: menyetla ya hao e ile ya sitiswa ke Apartheid. I hope you are proud of this achievement. I have done this for you. I wrote parts of this dissertation while I was a permanent collaborator of the research project ‘ALICE — Strange Mirrors, Unsuspected Lessons’ coordinated by Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos (see http://alice.ces.uc.pt) at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. The project was funded by the European Research Council, 7th Framework Program of the European Union (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement [269807]. I acknowledge the financial support that I received from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. I wish to dedicate this dissertation to my late mentor Shadrack Mbonani. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................... 8 Strivings for Constitution and Belonging in the “new” South Africa ................................... 8 The Historical Imperative to Re-member the World ........................................................ 13 Being Liminal in the “new” South Africa: Striving against UnFreedom ............................. 17 Overview of Chapters and Objectives of the Study .......................................................... 20 Theoretical Approach ...................................................................................................... 24 Overview of Thesis .......................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 1: THE ORIGINAL SIN IN THE CONSTITUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA AND THE MELANCHOLIC CONSTITUTION VISIONS OF TRANSCULTURAL LEADERS .............................. 27 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 27 1.1 Resisting Constitutionally-sanctioned Pariahdom and Worldlessness ........................ 28 1.1.1 Against ‘death of the land’ .................................................................................. 28 1.1.2 Against colonialist discourse ............................................................................... 29 1.2 De-homed, Unhomed and Worldless in the White Man’s Polity ................................ 35 1.3 Leadership-in-the-Liminal .......................................................................................... 38 1.3.1 The melancholia of transcultural elites ............................................................... 38 1.3.2 Legal liminality and melancholic nationalism ...................................................... 42 1.4 New African Ambivalence.......................................................................................... 43 1.4.1 Resisting invisibility and the ‘Segregation Fallacy’ ............................................... 43 1.4.2 Racial Melancholia ................................................................................................. 46 1.5 The Spiritual Strivings of Liminal Leaders: Double Consciousness and Assimilationist Desires ............................................................................................................................ 48 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER 2: THE CONSTITUTION LEGACY OF PAN-AFRICANISM: POTENTIATED DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS OR RACIAL MELANCHOLIA? ..................................................................... 52 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 52 2.1 Neo-Apartheid and Cultural Liminality in Thabo Mbeki’s New South Africa ............... 54 2.2 The Melancholic Impulse behind Pan-Africanist Homemaking and World-Remaking Agendas .......................................................................................................................... 58 2.2.1 The Du Boisian manifesto ..................................................................................