South Africa's first democratic government is midway through its first term, an obvious moment at which to take stock of the transition. The rhetoric of 'nation-building' which predominated in 1994, and which is now more or less dampened, except among the political élite, projected three key policies: first, there was to be a huge push towards national development; second, there was to be much increased welfare for the disadvantaged majority, fully incorporating them within the nation for the first time; finally, there was to be a multi-faceted drive for racial reconciliation (which the President himself took as his main task), to be effected by the transformation of institutions (schools, the media, universities, the Army etc) with the aim of moulding a single, common South Africanism.

LRB 17 October 1996 | PDF Download