Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Compiled by the Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za © 2003 Human Sciences Research Council First published 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN 0 7969 2030 3 Design and typesetting by Christabel Hardacre Cover design by Fuel Cover photograph by Bruno Bossi Production by comPress Printed by Paarl Print Distributed in Africa, by Blue Weaver Marketing and Distribution, PO Box 30370,Tokai, Cape Town 7966, South Africa. Te l: +27 +21-701-4477 Fax: +27 +21-701-7302 email: booksales@hsrc.ac.za Distributed worldwide, except Africa, by Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, USA. www.ipgbook.com To order,call toll-free: 1-800-888-4741 All other inquiries, Tel: +1 +312-337-0747 Fax: +1 +312-337-5985 email: Frontdesk@ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 David Chidester, Phillip Dexter and Wilmot James Part I Order 21 1Sovereignty, identity and the prospects for southern Africa’s people 23 Peter Vale 2The importance of political tolerance for fostering social cohesion 42 Amanda Gouws 3Cultural justice: the pathway to reconciliation and social cohesion 67 Chirevo V Kwenda Part II Production 81 4 Labour,globalisation and social cohesion in South Africa 83 Tony Ehrenreich 5The poverty of work and social cohesion in global exports: the case of South African fruit 92 Stephanie Barrientos and Andrienetta Kritzinger 6Together and apart: African refugees and immigrants in global Cape Town 120 Owen Sichone Part III Exchange 141 7Building a new nation: solidarity,democracy and nationhood in the age of circulatory capitalism 143 Thomas A Koelble 8Building a better world: using the positive forces in globalistion to counteract the negative 173 Jan Hofmeyr Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Part IV Connections 193 9The family and social cohesion 195 Susan C Ziehl 10 Global tourism, marginalised communities and the development of Cape Town’s City Bowl area 224 Sandra Klopper 11 Grounding ‘globalisation from below’:‘global citizens’ in local spaces 242 Steven Robins Part V Resources 275 12 Human solidarity in postcolonial, Holocaust and African-American literature 277 Giles Gunn 13 Globalisation, identity and national policy in South Africa 295 David Chidester, Adrian Hadland and Sandra Prosalendis Conclusion: social cohesion in South Africa 323 David Chidester, Phillip Dexter and Wilmot James Contributors 339 Index 348 WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER vi Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Preface This book addresses the crucial question of social cohesion: what holds us together when everything seems to be pulling us apart? Set in the context of a changing South Africa, the book engages this question of social cohesion under difficult globalising conditions.As the chapters demonstrate, globalisa- tion has presented not only obstacles but also opportunities for social cohe- sion in South Africa. This book explores both. Following the first democratic election in 1994, South Africa became a new, unified and democratic nation just when nations seemed to be going out of style, when national sovereignty and integrity were being eroded by global market forces beyond any nation’s control. In exploring the problem of national identity,coherence and cohesion in a new South Africa,therefore,we are immediately confronted by the effects of globalisation. In the glow of the South African ‘miracle’, national identity seemed as easy as one, two, three: South Africa had one flag, two national anthems and three national sporting teams. Of course, national identity has always been more complicated. In his classic essay,‘What is a Nation?’, Ernest Renan found that national identity was based on a sense of collective uniformity in the present and continuity with the past. But he also observed that a nation is a collectiv- ity that misunderstands its own history and hates its neighbours. Is that the kind of continuity with the past and uniformity in the present that could form the basis for a national identity in an emerging South African nation? As we will see in this book, national identity, social cohesion and human coherence are being shaped at the intersection of transnational forces, cross- cutting the local and the global. Certainly, the global market is at play. In the light of government policy, adapting to global market forces, some of the authors might feel a certain nostalgia for a kind of political discourse, as recent as 1999, in which South African President,Thabo Mbeki,launching the African Renaissance, declared, ‘We must be at the forefront of the struggle against the god of the market, a superhuman power to which everything vii Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za human must bow in a spirit of powerlessness’.Certainly, a few years later, such political discourse,adopting an adversarial position against the ‘religion of the market’, was not part of the New Economic Partnership for African Development (Nepad) that has been at the forefront of President Mbeki’s hopes for a unified, revitalised Africa. Not only concerned with the global market, this book examines many other globalising forces. Globalisation involves the transnational dynamics of glob- al citizenship, multinational corporations, organised labour, human rights movements, feminist movements, transnational religions, popular culture – a whole range of cross-cutting global forces. At the same time, the authors of this book are concerned with local forms of identity, coherence and cohesion. In some cases, the ‘local’assumes new forms of ‘cultural citizenship’,revitalis- ing indigenous culture in ways that are local, grounded and rooted in place but often the ‘local’ is shaped by people who are out of place through dias- pora, migration or exile.As the chapters of this volume illustrate,globalisation is always experienced in local transactions of social identity, coherence and cohesion. These are wide ranging questions. To focus our investigation of these ques- tions, we brought together two institutions, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), for a conference in August 2002. The HSRC had recently established a new unit, the Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme. Dedicated to examining factors that facili- tate or inhibit social cohesion,this HSRC unit works with the entire spectrum of human formation, including the arts, sports, religion, history, family, edu- cation, media and the social dimensions of science. A variety of human, cul- tural and social resources are necessarily brought into the mix, providing different focal points for investigating fundamental questions of human life in South Africa. At the same time, we had a delegation from Nedlac, which has been South Africa’s primary institution for facilitating social dialogue among govern- ment, business, labour and community. Seeking consensus on social and eco- nomic policy, the practice of social dialogue suggests the possibility of broader social agreements about what it means to be South African. WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER viii Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za The point of this whole exercise was not to answer the question of what holds us together when everything is pulling us apart, but to explore possible co-operation between Nedlac and the HSRC, identifying areas of strategic co-operation in research projects for the future. Nevertheless, as this book demonstrates, we did get some answers. Although most of the answers are provided by working academics employed by universities,this book also includes strong statements in chapters,one by a leader in organised labour, the other by a leader in global business, which adopt a direct mode of address that provides a nice contrast to the complexi- ty of academic discourse. Still, without forsaking complexity, even the aca- demic authors in this book have sought to communicate with a wider audience by being clear about what is at stake in social cohesion. The authors are true to their academic disciplines: Political Studies, Sociology, Social Anthropology, Global Studies,Literary Studies,Art History, Religious Studies, Media Studies and Cultural Studies.At the same time,with a remarkable com- mitment to interdisciplinary exchanges, willing to talk with each other, the authors are primarily interested in making sense.As a result, we have a book, with academic credibility, that is of more than merely academic interest. For their participation in the conference that led to this book, we thank Gretchen Humphries, Parliamentary Officer of the Federation of Unions of South Africa; Les Kettledas, Deputy Director General, Labour Policy and Labour Market Programmes, Department of Labour; Petronella Linders, Divisional Co-ordinator, Economic Empowerment, South African Federal Council on Disability; Muzi Maziya, Director, Research Policy and Planning, Department of Labour; Khulu Mbongo, President of the South African Youth Council and Overall Convenor for Community in Nedlac; and Borence Moabi of the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce. Deborah Sills and James McNamara, representing the Board of Directors,were part of this proj- ect from the beginning. At the HSRC, vital contributions were made by Pam Barron, Jean Whitten and Lynne Wilson of the Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme and Mthobeli Guma of the Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS and Health Research Programme. In the editorial process, staff of the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa (ICRSA) – Thomas Alberts, Raffaella Delle Donne, Federico Settler and Judy Tobler – worked through our raw material. The staff at HSRC Press, with special thanks to Garry Rosenberg and Mary Ralphs, transformed that material into this book. ix PREFACE Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za As the beginning rather than the end of our collaboration, this book provides an initial framework for the Social Fabric Initiative, a research partnership of the Social Cohesion and Integration Research Programme of the HSRC, Inyathelo (The South African Institute for Advancement), Nedlac, the Western Cape Provincial Development Council,the University of the Western Cape School of Government, and Mwengo (Mwelekeo wango-NGO Vision: Reflection and Development Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa). As the Social Fabric Initiative develops, we hope to learn more about what holds us together. David Chidester, Phillip Dexter, Wilmot James Cape Town WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER x Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za [...]... in international business, can lead to new ways of being, acting and doing business in the world that actually advance human happiness Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za Recognising the corrosive effects of ‘casino’ capitalism, Hofmeyr traces a compelling outline of the possibilities of ‘partnership’ in doing business, even in doing global capitalist business, by taking seriously the human dynamics... intercultural relations Doing global business, according to Hofmeyr, demands discipline, accountability and public scrutiny but it also requires cultivating virtues of ‘business care’ in dealing with people from diverse cultural backgrounds In the conduct of international business, something as basic as good manners is essential for creating a context of trust in business dealings Underlying this respect... an enormous gambling house’ With $1.5 trillion at play in world markets every day, Castro observed, the global casino is a confidence game underwritten by the ‘eternal deceit’ of the international financial, banking and trade arrangements through which ‘money has become a fiction’ Based on deception and illusion, like an alchemist’s dream of turning paper into gold, the global gambling house has stripped... against the advice of globalising forces variously identified as the neo-liberal agenda, the World Bank, or the Washington Consensus As Peter Vale suggests, however, the state in southern Africa is not an obvious agent for social cohesion In the genealogy of the region, southern African states, with their arbitrary boundaries, entrenched coercion and tenuous legitimacy, provide no solid ground Instead... the case of some women, who perceive foreign men as being, potentially, less abusive and more generous than local men Although harsh experience has not necessarily born out this assumption, the ethnographic profile outlined by Owen Sichone suggests that the new service industries provided by foreign Africans are often sustained by local sexual, marriage and family relations In this respect, once again,... cohesion: one based on kinship, the other based on contract These two ways of achieving social cohesion have been given various designations – mechanical solidarity versus organic solidarity; ascribed identity versus achieved identity; or the face-to-face relations of Gemeinschaft versus the abstract, impersonal and negotiated relations of Gesellschaft But all of these contrasts seem to be based on distinguishing... economy, as the catalyst for a coalition of business and government in cleaning up the streets Dirt, as the anthropologist, Mary Douglas, taught us, is ‘matter out of place’, a thoroughly contextual, culturally negotiated engagement with the organisation of things (1966) In Cape Town, what registers as ‘dirt’, as ‘matter out of place’, in the global tourist industry? As Sandra Klopper shows, in evocative... problematic If by ‘ontology’ we mean what Aristotle meant – the study of Being qua Being – then we mean a thing, or structure, that was actualised via the workings of formal, material, efficient and final causes If we do mean this, then we must recognise that the ontological structure of which we speak, when we speak of southern Africa, is radically unstable Because colonial history and colonising cartographers... multinational business and transnational migrations of workers A case study in the fruit industry shows the impact of changes in the global value chain on the employment, living conditions and well-being of workers A case study of informal enterprises, such as car parking, hair cutting and street vending, shows the prominent role of African migrants, refugees and exiles in these emerging service industries... fundamental question of trust from a South African perspective in the global economy Free download from www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za What is the global economy? During 1998, two international leaders, one from the United States, the other from Cuba, came to South Africa to deal with this question In their speeches before the South African Parliament, Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro reminded us that the ongoing . we hope to learn more about what holds us together. David Chidester, Phillip Dexter, Wilmot James Cape Town WHAT HOLDS US TOGETHER x Free download from. addresses the crucial question of social cohesion: what holds us together when everything seems to be pulling us apart? Set in the context of a changing South