Another Apartheid Legacy
Apartheid did something uniquely weird to South African culture.
Ultimately, xenophobia goes beyond the hatred of foreigners, beyond the scarcity of resources, and beyond the identity of the current or future president. But nothing about xenophobia in South Africa is, as a Time headline claimed, «beyond racism.» Rather, xenophobia is racism, wrought from the messy apartheid past and post-colonial present.
Focusing as it does on foreigners, the poor, and the president, the U.S. coverage rarely mentions the old colonial state apparatus that the ANC inhabits. This apparatus includes the police and bureaucrats, some of whom occupy the very same positions they held under apartheid.
The recent legal classification of South Africans of Chinese descent as «Blacks» (while those of Japanese descent are considered «Whites») bears this out.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Sphere: Related Content
Barrapunto
CoRank Español
Delicious
Enchílame
Fresqui Ocio
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Menéame
Netscape
Newsvine
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Yahoo MyWeb
Write a comment
No trackbacks
RSS 2.0
Bloglines
Live
MyAOL
Netvibes
Newsgator
Rojo
