When apartheid ended in the early 1990s, a wave of optimism swept over southern Africa. A decade on, hopes of peace and prosperity for the region have been dashed.
"In this Comment, Peter Vale, Nelson Mandela Professor of Politics at Rhodes University in South Africa, examines the dynamics that continue to shape the region — and looks ahead to where southern Africa might go from here. In doing so, he presents a challenge for the region and for those who care for its people — 'to claim a new future by looking beyond what is currently thought possible'.
This essay has argued that southern Africa is continuously invented, negotiated and constructed. The monopoly role played by sovereignty and its partner, capital, in the making of the region has, however, been ruptured. As a result the power of state-making — its myths, its appeals to blood, its continuous reinvention of particular pasts — has lost its purchase on the lives of a people who are in search of new forms of identity.
As the past and the present show, the politics of southern Africa are unending: there is no end to its history. The challenge, both for the region, and those who care for its people, is to claim a new future by looking beyond what is currently thought possible."
CIIR Comments series
Catholic Institute for International Relations, London, UK
We are in touch with a woman in Durban who sends us bead work made by a group of impoverished women. Although only their remarkable little dolls are pictured here, they make beautiful necklaces, bracelets, purses and and other items.
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Teardrop Crafts
2600 Columbia Avenue
Castlegar, B.C., Canada, V1N 2X6
tdrop@web.ca
© 1998-01-22 George Richards update=250704