The limits of rainbow nation multiculturalism in the new South Africa: spatial configuration in Zakes Mda's 'Ways of dying' and Jonathan Morgan's 'Finding Mr. Madani'

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Title:	The limits of rainbow nation multiculturalism in the new South Africa: spatial configuration in Zakes Mda's 'Ways of dying' and Jonathan Morgan's 'Finding Mr. Madani'
Author:	Myambo, Melissa Tandiwe
Year:	2010
Periodical:	Research in African Literatures (ISSN 0034-5210)
Volume:	41
Issue:	2
Pages:	93-120
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	literature cultural pluralism space social justice
About persons:	Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda (1948-) Jonathan Misha Morgan
External link:	http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v041/41.2.myambo.pdf
Abstract:	This essay explores the changing politics of place, ownership, and access to public space in the New South Africa. In the transition to a postapartheid South Africa, a robust theory of multiculturalism - Rainbow Nation ideology - was employed to bring people together. But how does that relate to the redistribution of actual nation-space, in the sense of material urban space? Through the literary exegesis of two seminal texts, this essay addresses how and why Rainbow Nation ideology is effective in the abstract sense of establishing democratic parity for South Africa's multicultural population, but fails to address socioeconomic disparity. The texts discussed are Zakes Mda's 'Ways of dying' (1995) and Jonathan Morgan's 'Finding Mr. Madini' (1999). Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]