Download or read book Transformation from Below White Suburbia in the Transformation of Apartheid South Africa to Democracy written by Ursula Scheidegger and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa is an example of a relatively successful political transition. Nevertheless, the first democratic elections in 1994 did not change the systemic and structural inequalities, the socioeconomic legacies of discrimination or the alienation of the different population groups. At the centre of this study is the transformation potential of two formerly white neighbourhoods in Johannesburg Norwood and Orange Grove. Both neighbourhoods have experienced considerable demographic changes and the various population groups differ in terms of their expectations and their willingness to adjust to the changes provoked by the transition. At the local level, patterns of discrimination and oppression continue. Spaces, opportunities and leverage of social networks engaged in the community are influenced by the resources people are able to access. Moreover, cooperation is contested in a context of pervasive inequality because there is no incentive for privileged groups to change arrangements that benefit them. In this context of conflicting interests and unequal access to power and resources, decentralisation and the promotion of participatory structures in local communities are a problem and the reliance on local networks as agents of development is questionable.

Download or read book Densifying the City written by Margot Rubin and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing an in-depth exploration of the complexities of densification policy and processes, this book brings the important experiences of densification in Johannesburg into conversation with a range of cities in Africa, the BRICS countries and the Global North. It moves beyond the divisive debate over whether densification is good or bad, adding nuance and complexity to the calls from multilateral organisations for densification as a key urban strategy.

Download or read book Beyond Our Wildest Dreams written by Ineke van Kessel and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1980s in South Africa were marked by protest, violent confrontation, and international sanctions. Internally, the country saw a bewildering growth of grassroots organizations--including trade unions, civic associations in the black townships, student and other youth organizations, church-based groups, and women's movements--many of which operated under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front (UDF). "Beyond Our Wildest Dreams" explores the often conflicted relationship between the UDF's large-scale resistance to apartheid and its everyday struggles at the local level. In hindsight, the UDF can be seen as a transitional front, preparing the ground for leaders of the liberation movement to return from exile or prison and take over power. But the founding fathers of the UDF initially had far more modest ambitions. Interviews with Cachalia and other leading personalities in the UDF examine the organization's workings at the national level, while stories of ordinary people, collected by the author, illuminate the grassroots activism so important to the UDF's success. Even in South Africa, writes Ineke van Kessel, who covered the anti-apartheid movement as a journalist, resistance was not the obvious option for ordinary citizens. Van Kessel shows how these people were mobilized into forming a radical social movement that developed a highly flexible and innovative form of resistance that ultimately ended apartheid. --From publisher's description.

Download or read book Gold Finance and Imperialism in South Africa 1887 1902 written by Mariusz Lukasiewicz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book An Ordinary Country written by Neville Alexander and published by University of Kwazulu Natal Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Ordinary Country: Issues in the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa disputes the notion of a "miracle" transition in this country. It argues that the new South Africa had to happen in the way it did because of the specific history of the country and the players involved. While it identifies some of the turning points at which critical choices were made by local and international forces, it shows why, in retrospect, the known decisions were made rather than other possible ones. Alexander explores a range of issues in post-apartheid South Africa including national identity and the rainbow nation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the role and status of language, showing the volatility, the tentativeness, and the fluidity of the situation that is evolving. In looking ahead at probable developments, An Ordinary Country predicts that South Africa will develop, or stagnate, as a "normal" bourgeois democratic social formation for the next generation, at least until the inevitable alternatives to the prevailing system of political economy regain their credibility.

Download or read book Until We Have Won Our Liberty written by Evan Lieberman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-24 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling account of South Africa’s post-Apartheid democracy At a time when many democracies are under strain around the world, Until We Have Won Our Liberty shines new light on the signal achievements of one of the contemporary era’s most closely watched transitions away from minority rule. South Africa’s democratic development has been messy, fiercely contested, and sometimes violent. But as Evan Lieberman argues, it has also offered a voice to the voiceless, unprecedented levels of government accountability, and tangible improvements in quality of life. Lieberman opens with a first-hand account of the hard-fought 2019 national election, and how it played out in Mogale City, a post-Apartheid municipality created from Black African townships and White Afrikaner suburbs. From this launching point, he examines the complexities of South Africa’s multiracial society and the unprecedented democratic experiment that began with the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. While acknowledging the enormous challenges many South Africans continue to face—including unemployment, inequality, and discrimination—Lieberman draws on the country’s history and the experience of comparable countries to demonstrate that elected Black-led governments have, without resorting to political extremism, improved the lives of millions. In the context of open and competitive politics, citizens have gained access to housing, basic services, and dignified treatment to a greater extent than during any prior period. Countering much of the conventional wisdom about contemporary South Africa, Until We Have Won Our Liberty offers hope for the enduring impact of democratic ideals.

Download or read book Fault lines in South African Democracy written by Fred Hendricks and published by Nordic Africa Institute. This book was released on 2003 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa has raised questions, on the one hand, about the tension between the imperatives of justice and equality and, on the other, reconciliation. Transforming the decades' old apartheid system under conditions of a political compromise has turned out to be a formidable challenge. This paper is about the complexity of the transformation process going on in South Africa. Although too early for a real assessment of the experi-ment, the tensions, dilemmas, contradictions, paradoxes and some of the changes have already begun to mani-fest themselves.The paper shows how political deals affect the administration of justice, and how they impinge upon the nature of democracy, often by frustrating efforts to realise social goals in the post-authoritarian phase. It also raises the fundamental question of the broader necessities for the long-term survival of democracy in South Africa.

Download or read book The State and Social Transformation written by African National Congress and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Violence Inequality and Transformation Apartheid Survivors on South Africa s Ongoing Transition written by Jasmina Brankovic and published by DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development. This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its lauded political transition in 1994, South Africa continues to have among the highest levels of violence and inequality in the world. Organised survivors of apartheid violations have long maintained that we cannot adequately address violence in the country, let alone achieve full democracy, without addressing inequality. This book is built around extensive quotes from members of Khulumani Support Group, the apartheid survivors' social movement, and young people growing up in Khulumani families. It shows how these survivors, who bridge the past and the present through their activism, understand and respond to socioeconomic drivers of violence. Pointing to the continuities between apartheid oppression and post-apartheid marginalisation in everyday life, the narratives detail ways in which the democratic dispensation has strengthened barriers to social transformation and helped enable violence. They also present strategies for effecting change through collaboration, dialogue and mutual training and through partnerships with diverse stakeholders that build on local-level knowledge and community-based initiatives. The lens of violence offers new and manageable ways to think about reducing inequality, while the lens of inequality shows that violence is a complex web of causes, pathways and effects that requires a big-picture approach to unravel. The survivors' narratives suggest innovative strategies for promoting a just transition through people-driven transformation that go well beyond the constraints of South Africa's transitional justice practice to date. A result of participatory research conducted in collaboration with and by Khulumani members, this book will be of interest to activists, students, researchers and policy makers working on issues of transitional justice, inequality and violence.

Download or read book After Freedom written by Katherine S. Newman and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2015-03-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years after the end of apartheid, a new generation is building a multiracial democracy in South Africa but remains mired in economic inequality and political conflict. The death of Nelson Mandela in 2013 arrived just short of the twentieth anniversary of South Africa’s first free election, reminding the world of the promise he represented as the nation’s first Black president. Despite significant progress since the early days of this new democracy, frustration is growing as inequalities that once divided the races now grow within them as well. In After Freedom, award-winning sociologist Katherine S. Newman and South African expert Ariane De Lannoy bring alive the voices of the “freedom generation,” who came of age after the end of apartheid. Through the stories of seven ordinary individuals who will inherit the richest, and yet most unequal, country in Africa, Newman and De Lannoy explore how young South Africans, whether Black, White, mixed race, or immigrant, confront the lingering consequences of racial oppression. These intimate portraits illuminate the erosion of old loyalties, the eruption of class divides, and the heated debate over policies designed to redress the evils of apartheid. Even so, the freedom generation remains committed to a united South Africa and is struggling to find its way toward that vision.

Download or read book Essays on the Evolution of the Post Apartheid State written by Mcebisi Ndletyana and published by Real African Publishers. This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book critically examines the challenges, successes, and failures of the post-1994 South African state against the humane values enshrined in its constitution: nonracial democracy and respect for all generations of human rights—civil, political, social, economic, resources and the environment and gender and communication. The book sheds light on the difficulties faced by the State when trying to bring together a diverse society comprised of traditional South African, Western-based and "other" African (immigrant) cultures into a cohesive nation with a common South African identity. The views of the essays may not be entirely consistent and the issues they raise may be contentious. This merely affirms the truism that the State is a contested terrain. The aim of this book is to deepen the search for an understanding of the theory of the State as it applies to a transforming society such as ours and to trudge the dividing line between theory and practice so they can feed into each other in a progressive spiral towards the desired end-state.

Download or read book The Fall of Apartheid in South Africa written by Melissa Koosmann and published by Mitchell Lane. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over forty years, the people of South Africa lived under apartheid, an oppressive system of laws based on racism and inequality. Many heroic people fought against this system, but their actions carried grave risks. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. Helen Joseph faced house arrest and assassination attempts. Steve Biko was beaten to death by police. Find out how in spite of all the risks, antiapartheid resistance grew stronger, and over time, it led to an amazing transformation. Nelson Mandela changed from a prisoner to a president, and South Africa changed itself into the stable democracy it is today.

Download or read book South Africa in Transition written by Aletta J. Norval and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-07-27 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa in Transition utilises new theoretical perspectives to describe and explain central dimensions of the democratic transition in South Africa during the late 1980s and early 1990s, covering changes in the politics of gender and education, the political discourses of the ANC, NP and the white right, constructions of identity in South Africa's black townships and rural areas, the role of political violence in the transition, and accounts of the democratization process itself.

Download or read book South Africa s negotiated transition to democracy written by Tim Eichler and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-01-13 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 1,3, Stellenbosch Universitiy (Political Science), language: English, abstract: In the twentieth century South Africa was characterized by a doctrine of racial and ethnic segregation. Starting with the electoral victory of the National Party in 1948 under slogan of apartheid the white supremacy enhanced vastly. To pass laws, which suppressed and neglected the coloured people, the politico-philosophical ideology of the South African Apartheid system was enforced with brutality (Deegan, 2001:23-25). This political attitude led to pure spite and violent attacks among racial groupings. The apartheid, and especially the violence between races, was at its height during 1960, when 67 demonstrators were killed by the police at the Sharpeville Massacre, and 1976, when the Revolt in Soweto took place (Butler, 2009:10-11). During 1984 and 1988, more than 4000 black South Africans died due to political reasons. In 1990, President FW de Klerk announced a turning point in the struggle for democracy. Releasing Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners and lifting the ban on the anti-apartheid organizations opened the door to negotiations. In April 1994, the first democratic elections were held in South Africa and it ended in ushered in a new era of reconciliation and restitution (Boaduo, 2012:954). South Africa’s way from apartheid to a non-racial democracy has attracted a lot of attention of the international audiences. The carefully arranged ‘transition to democracy’ with its negotiation and reconciliation can be regarded as one of the miracles in the twentieth century. It may be served as an inspiring model how to peacefully approach with a seemingly unsolvable political conflict. The question that is thus posed is: what factors played an important role in making sure that the transitions from apartheid to a non-racial democracy ended up peacefully in negotiations and not in a civil war?

Download or read book Remaking the urban written by Naomi Roux and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the end of the apartheid regime in the 1990s, South Africa experienced a boom in new heritage and commemorative projects. These ranged from huge new museums and monuments to small community museums and grassroots memory work. At the same time, South African cities have continued to grapple with the difficulties of overcoming entrenched inequalities and divisions. Urban spaces are deep repositories of memory, and also sites in need of radical transformation. Remaking the Urban examines the intersections between post-apartheid urban transformation and the politics of heritage-making in divided cities, using the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in South Africa’s Eastern Cape as a case study. Roux unpacks the processes by which some narratives and histories become officially inscribed in public space, while others are visible only through alternative, ephemeral or subversive means. Including discussions of the history of the Red Location Museum of Struggle; memorialisation of urban forced removals; the heritage politics and transformative potential of public art; and strategies for making visible memories and histories of former anti-apartheid youth activist groups in the city’s townships, Roux examines how these twin processes of memory-making and change have played out in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Download or read book South Africa s Transition to Democracy written by Sandy Shaw and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author points out that this book is not an academic study of South Africa and Africa, but a focus on the psycho-political dimension of the new South Africa, asking whether it will work and highlighting positives and strengths that can be made to work.

Download or read book Transforming Cape Town written by Catherine Besteman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An engaging, insightful and at times beautifully written account of post-apartheid transformation in the city of Cape Town. Besteman shows the continuing legacy of apartheid, racial segregation and poverty in South Africa as well as glimpses of new forms of cultural creativity and identity formation that are characterized by empathy, compassion, and hope. Transforming Cape Town deserves to be read by anthropologists and anyone interested in how people confront the challenges of racial exclusion and historical inequality, and how a few bold agents of transformation seek to create new social spaces to cross old barriers.”—Richard A. Wilson, author of The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa “Cape Town and anthropology come alive in Besteman's work. Insightful, dynamic, and well-written, this book opens a 'space of trust' to understanding the pains and creative innovations of transition—of people, politics, and daily survival—in a new light.”—Carolyn Nordstrom, author of Global Outlaws and Shadows of War “Besteman navigates and illuminates post-apartheid Cape Town with uncommon skill. She brings to bear an anthropologist's training, a reporter's eye and ear for the choice remark, the telling detail and a candid sympathy for the disenfranchised, whose lot in South Africa has not necessarily improved under democracy. It's a distressing picture she draws: the persisting mutual ignorance, even reciprocal demonization, across old ethnic and racial lines, alongside the ongoing economic injustice. The revolution in South Africa has been a piecemeal affair, and Besteman's descriptions of the difficulties that even the best-intentioned individuals encounter as they struggle toward creating a general social transformation ring painfully true.”—William Finnegan, author of Crossing the Line, Dateline Soweto, A Complicated War, and Cold New World “Transforming Cape Town is a fascinating account of how people in this divided city engage with democracy, transformation, and the legacies and ongoing realities of radical inequalities. Through conversations with ordinary people, Besteman explores the ways in which apartheid's legacies continue to shape interactions both intimate and public. In doing so, she restores a sense of faith in anthropology as a tool for understanding and critiquing social worlds.”—Fiona Ross, author of Bearing Witness: Women and Truth and Reconciliation