Black Political Thought In The Making Of South African Democracy

"... a comprehensive analytical survey of the multidimensional evolution of black political thought in South Africa's politicization process." --Choice "Many citizens experience a sense of reluctance to share a single national identity with all of those who are defined by law to be their compatriots. This problem can be explained and surmounted, but it cannot be evaded by those who aspire to build a stable democracy in South Africa." --Richard L. Sklar, from the Foreword What will it mean to be a citizen in the new South Africa? This penetrating study analyzes the issues of dual citizenship, black consciousness, populism, racial proletarianization and their interaction with various political ideologies. Halisi's analysis has practical implications for the development of political identity in the new South Africa.

South Africa's 1994 election was widely hailed around the world as miraculous. In this book, Anthony Butler examines South African experiences to cast doubt on this celebratory attitude to democracy. Contemporary political analysis highlights the benefits that democracy can sometimes bring. Butler, by contrast, argues that democracy can be malign. He attacks the myth that democracy ended apartheid, and shows that democratic practices themselves contributed to its evils. The author also explores weaknesses in political science as a discipline. This book will be essential reading for specialists in South Africa, and will appeal to political theorists, students of comparative politics, and historians.

Focusing on individual political thinkers and beginning with indigenous African political thought, the book successively examines African nationalism, African socialism, populism and Marxism, Africanism and pan-Africanism, concluding with contemporary perspectives on democracy, development and the African state.

A ground-breaking work in Africana political thought that links the plight of progressive political endeavors in Africa with those in the Diaspora and beyond, Democratic Tragedy in the Postcolony engages with two of the defining political sagas of the postcolonial era. The book presents Michael Manley of Jamaica and Nelson Mandela of South Africa as tragic political leaders at the helm of popular democratic projects that run aground in the face of the constraints that a subordinate position in the global economy presents for such endeavors. Jamaica’s experiment with democratic socialism as an alternative path to development at the height of the cold war is considered alongside post-Apartheid South Africa’s search for a development model consistent with the demand for civic empowerment and equitable distribution of social goods in the aftermath of Apartheid. Democratic Political Tragedy in the Postcolony theorizes the defining tragic impasse and the telling vacillations by which the postcolonies in question are brought to the neoliberal catastrophes that currently prevail.

A ground-breaking work in Africana political thought that links the plight of progressive political endeavors in Africa with those in the Diaspora and beyond, Democratic Tragedy in the Postcolonyengages with two of the defining political sagas of the postcolonial era. The book presents Michael Manley of Jamaica and Nelson Mandela of South Africa as tragic political leaders at the helm of popular democratic projects that run aground in the face of the constraints that a subordinate position in the global economy presents for such endeavors. Jamaica's experiment with democratic socialism as an alternative path to development at the height of the cold war is considered alongside post-Apartheid South Africa's search for a development model consistent with the demand for civic empowerment and equitable distribution of social goods in the aftermath of Apartheid. Democratic Political Tragedy in the Postcolony theorizes the defining tragic impasse and the telling vacillations by which the postcolonies in question are brought to the neoliberal catastrophes that currently prevail.

South Africa historian Clifton Crais combines a cultural history of state formation with an analysis of African conceptions of power and the moral problem of evil. He explores the role of ideas held by Africans and Europeans in shaping political society throughout South Africa's history. He demonstrates how Africans contested one of the great evils of the twentieth century: apartheid. Crais discusses colonialism, resistance, nationalism, violence, and the challenges to creating democracy.

"Black Social and Political Thought: Selected Writings, Volume II" is a collection of writings developed over a period of years. It is the result of both theoretical and practical experience of the author, and represents a blueprint for the serious student and/or activist. The book explores such topics as: the Black Intelligentsia, Race and Class, and Struggle against Racism and Imperialism. It also provides practical suggestions for implementation for culture and political socialization, re-education of the African American child and parent, internal social relations, liberation of the Black Nation, building communication networks, student activism and the process of unlearning. It also delves into the impact of capitalism, imperialism and the global economic crisis, which is particularly relevant at the current time. "Black Social and Political Thought: Selected Writings, Volume II" represents not only the why, but also the how, from a person who has devoted his life to black empowerment. It is a refreshing addition to the body of knowledge currently available in the area of Black Studies and is a must-read. Dr. Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 31, 1941. He attended schools in the Philadelphia public school system and graduated from West Philadelphia High. He attended Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio from 1960-1962. Dr. Ahmad dropped out of college for twelve years to work full-time as an organizer in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. During that 12-year period he studied and worked with Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, Queen Mother Audley Moore and James and Grace Lee Boggs. He helped form and led two organizations; the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and the African People's Party. He also worked with Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) in helping to build the Black Panther Party and was a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Returning to school at the University of Massachusetts, he received a B.A. in 1976. He later earned a M.A. from Atlanta University and a Ph.D. from Union Institute and University. He has taught at Wilberforce University, Kent State University, Cleveland State University and is currently Assistant Professor at Temple University in the Department of African American Studies in Philadelphia. He is the author of "We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations, 1960-1975" (2007), "African American History Since 1900" (2008), and "Selected Writings, Volume One" (2004).

The Souls of Black Folk is Du Bois’s outstanding contribution to modern political theory. It is his still influential answer to the question, “What kind of politics should African Americans conduct to counter white supremacy?” Here, in a major addition to American studies and the first book-length philosophical treatment of Du Bois’s thought, Robert Gooding-Williams examines the conceptual foundations of Du Bois’s interpretation of black politics. For Du Bois, writing in a segregated America, a politics capable of countering Jim Crow had to uplift the black masses while heeding the ethos of the black folk: it had to be a politics of modernizing “self-realization” that expressed a collective spiritual identity. Highlighting Du Bois’s adaptations of Gustav Schmoller’s social thought, the German debate over the Geisteswissenschaften, and William Wordsworth’s poetry, Gooding-Williams reconstructs Souls’ defense of this “politics of expressive self-realization,” and then examines it critically, bringing it into dialogue with the picture of African American politics that Frederick Douglass sketches in My Bondage and My Freedom. Through a novel reading of Douglass, Gooding-Williams characterizes the limitations of Du Bois’s thought and questions the authority it still exerts in ongoing debates about black leadership, black identity, and the black underclass. Coming to Bondage and then to these debates by looking backward and then forward from Souls, Gooding-Williams lets Souls serve him as a productive hermeneutical lens for exploring Afro-Modern political thought in America.