Political inclusion without social justice: South Africa and the pitfalls of partial decolonisation

Abstract

The increasing social and political instability in South Africa and an emergent view that links it to the negotiated political settlement invite for a critical review of the ‘South African political miracle’. A central question such a review should attempt to address is whether the political settlement dealt fundamentally with the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, which came to define so much of social, economic and political life in South Africa. This article attempts such a review. Unlike critics of the negotiated settlement who tend to dismiss it totally, I contend, following on Mamdani's Neither Settler nor Native ( 2021), that its major achievement was establishing an inclusive political order in which civil and political rights were extended to all South Africans. The article begins by providing a broad outline of the colonial and apartheid orders in South Africa. While Mamdani (2021) details the political dimensions of these two exclusionary political orders, especially the divisive political identities they fostered and enforced, this article summarises the social and economic dimensions, focusing in particular on land and cattle dispossession. By highlighting these two dimensions, the article seeks to demonstrate the limitations of the negotiated settlement and the risk these limitations pose to the sustainability of inclusive democracy in South Africa. The article then examines what Mamdani calls the ‘South African moment’, which was marked by a challenge to the logic of apartheid and colonialism and the transformation of the political identities those orders had imposed. The third section of the article discusses the promise and limitations of the negotiated settlement. Overall, the article questions the desirability of the ‘South African model’ where social justice is compromised to achieve political inclusion.