Post apartheid politics and issues of race : the views and position of political parties in South Africa on the crisis in Zimbabwe

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Race has been used as an instrument of domination and separation of theSouth African population for a long time. The dawn of the democraticdispensation in 1994marked a shift from the policy of racial separation to thecreation of the non-racial democratic South Africa. However, political partiesin this country have constantly re-politicised race in the post apartheid eramainly for political gain. The purpose of this study will be to describe, explainand analyse how political parties in South Africa use the crisis in Zimbabweto racialise politics in this country.The study will show that the dilemma facing political parties in South Africais that they cannot avoid focusing on racial issues. The focus is on four mainpolitical parties, the ANC, the PAC, the NNP and the DA. The studyspecifically looked at the following issues in Zimbabwe: the Land crisis, the2003 March presidential elections and the economic crisis to see how theyhave influenced political discourse in South Africa. As anticipated,predominantly black parties have shown some empathy with RobertMugabe's government, while predominantly white parties have called for amore confrontational measure against Mugabe's government. Nonetheless,this study found no conclusive evidence to suggest that the crisis inZimbabwe has fuelled race conflict in this country. But that race is politicisedby parties in South Africa for political gain.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University