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Title: | From 'Nationhood' to Regionalism to the North West Province: 'Bophuthatswananess' and the Birth of the 'New' South Africa |
Author: | Jones, Peris Sean |
Year: | 1999 |
Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
Volume: | 98 |
Issue: | 393 |
Period: | October |
Pages: | 509-534 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | South Africa Bophuthatswana |
Subjects: | separatism regional government Politics and Government Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/723890 |
Abstract: | This examination of the conversion in South Africa of bantustan sovereignty into regionalist discourses illustrates how, ironically, in the apparent official death throes of apartheid, a Pandora's box of ethnicity and regionalism was opened which was tied to emotional appeals and historical and territorial claims. Whilst space has supposedly been given for marginalized identities in the 'new' South Africa, these contested territorial and ethnic claims illustrate the role of conservative and (neo)colonial forces resisting the pursuit of multiculturalism. Focusing on the case of Bophuthatswana, the article examines the issues of State sovereignty and security, the creation of the South Africa-Tswana Forum (Satswa) as a conservative bulwark against the ANC and the National Party (NP), and regional demarcation proposals based on linguistic, ethnic and socioeconomic arguments. The second part of the article discusses some of the obstacles to postapartheid transition to the North West Province. These include problems of reincorporating the former Bophuthatswana regime's assets, allies and administrative structures. This ambiguous legacy of the former bantustan is termed 'Bophuthatswananess'. Notes, ref., sum. |