Mark Sanders
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691167565
- eISBN:
- 9781400881086
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691167565.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines how the trial of Jacob Zuma, former deputy president of South Africa. spawned questions of “Zulu” as a pure language and Zuma as “100% Zulu Boy.” After Zuma was implicated in ...
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This chapter examines how the trial of Jacob Zuma, former deputy president of South Africa. spawned questions of “Zulu” as a pure language and Zuma as “100% Zulu Boy.” After Zuma was implicated in corruption, he was dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki. In November 2005, he was indicted for rape. His supporters, demonstrating outside the Johannesburg High Court, wore t-shirts with the slogan “100% Zulu Boy,” and Zuma himself explained his actions in terms of Zulu culture. Judge Willem van der Merwe, who opened his address in Zulu. acquitted Zuma. The chapter considers how, during Zuma's trial, the codes of ilobolo (bridewealth) and inhlawulo (forfeit, fine) reduce everything to a set of heterosexual assumptions, functioning within a patriarchy, but more importantly—like the idea that if one is raped one must be a lesbian—they tend in practice to leave aside, or negotiate away, the matter of consent.Less
This chapter examines how the trial of Jacob Zuma, former deputy president of South Africa. spawned questions of “Zulu” as a pure language and Zuma as “100% Zulu Boy.” After Zuma was implicated in corruption, he was dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki. In November 2005, he was indicted for rape. His supporters, demonstrating outside the Johannesburg High Court, wore t-shirts with the slogan “100% Zulu Boy,” and Zuma himself explained his actions in terms of Zulu culture. Judge Willem van der Merwe, who opened his address in Zulu. acquitted Zuma. The chapter considers how, during Zuma's trial, the codes of ilobolo (bridewealth) and inhlawulo (forfeit, fine) reduce everything to a set of heterosexual assumptions, functioning within a patriarchy, but more importantly—like the idea that if one is raped one must be a lesbian—they tend in practice to leave aside, or negotiate away, the matter of consent.
Claire Laurier Decoteau
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226064451
- eISBN:
- 9780226064628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226064628.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
Whereas Thabo Mbeki reconfigured racial politics in his attempt to avoid financing antiretroviral provision while simultaneously promoting an African renaissance, President Jacob Zuma’s reign has ...
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Whereas Thabo Mbeki reconfigured racial politics in his attempt to avoid financing antiretroviral provision while simultaneously promoting an African renaissance, President Jacob Zuma’s reign has been characterized by a certain sexualization of politics which are analyzed in this chapter through a comparison of the ‘traditional’ sexuality performed by Jacob Zuma and the complex practices of sexuality in the communities where research was conducted (including the practice of transactional sex). This chapter also illustrates how shifts in the political economy have instigated transformations in gender ideologies and sexual practices in the post-apartheid era. Although theories of masculinity in crisis have become popular in contemporary African studies, this chapter argues that the sexualization of politics signifies and masks deep-seated concerns about the ‘success’ of liberation.Less
Whereas Thabo Mbeki reconfigured racial politics in his attempt to avoid financing antiretroviral provision while simultaneously promoting an African renaissance, President Jacob Zuma’s reign has been characterized by a certain sexualization of politics which are analyzed in this chapter through a comparison of the ‘traditional’ sexuality performed by Jacob Zuma and the complex practices of sexuality in the communities where research was conducted (including the practice of transactional sex). This chapter also illustrates how shifts in the political economy have instigated transformations in gender ideologies and sexual practices in the post-apartheid era. Although theories of masculinity in crisis have become popular in contemporary African studies, this chapter argues that the sexualization of politics signifies and masks deep-seated concerns about the ‘success’ of liberation.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846312137
- eISBN:
- 9781846315244
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846315244.006
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter examines the question of male agency in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that fear of the shame brought about by entry into the domain of the speakable and the subject's ...
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This chapter examines the question of male agency in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that fear of the shame brought about by entry into the domain of the speakable and the subject's simultaneous bearing witness to her desubjectification offer insights into men's specific, complex vulnerability within the post-apartheid setting. This vulnerability can result either in violence or positive resilience. In order to understand the power of deeper psychological anxieties and wider social structures that promote domination and subordination in contemporary South Africa, the chapter analyses narratives of masculine vulnerability by looking at the constitutional declaration of women's rights and the challenges presented by the phenomenon of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It also discusses the politics arising from the combination of liberal economic policy, the African Renaissance, and the AIDS denialism of South African President Thabo Mbeki. Finally, the chapter focuses on Phaswane Mpe's 2001 novel Welcome to Our Hillbrow and considers Jacob Zuma, former Deputy President of South Africa, as an explicit representative of a particularly highly profiled image of Zulu masculinity.Less
This chapter examines the question of male agency in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that fear of the shame brought about by entry into the domain of the speakable and the subject's simultaneous bearing witness to her desubjectification offer insights into men's specific, complex vulnerability within the post-apartheid setting. This vulnerability can result either in violence or positive resilience. In order to understand the power of deeper psychological anxieties and wider social structures that promote domination and subordination in contemporary South Africa, the chapter analyses narratives of masculine vulnerability by looking at the constitutional declaration of women's rights and the challenges presented by the phenomenon of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It also discusses the politics arising from the combination of liberal economic policy, the African Renaissance, and the AIDS denialism of South African President Thabo Mbeki. Finally, the chapter focuses on Phaswane Mpe's 2001 novel Welcome to Our Hillbrow and considers Jacob Zuma, former Deputy President of South Africa, as an explicit representative of a particularly highly profiled image of Zulu masculinity.
Thomas Blom Hansen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691152950
- eISBN:
- 9781400842612
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691152950.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This concluding chapter reflects on how much of the situation described in the book may have wider applicability across community, location, and class in South Africa. It also speculates briefly on ...
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This concluding chapter reflects on how much of the situation described in the book may have wider applicability across community, location, and class in South Africa. It also speculates briefly on how Jacob Zuma's presidency is altering predominant styles of politics and public culture toward a more ordinary, imperfect, but also culturally intimate style of political performance that may lead to naked majoritarianism but that also may prove hospitable to the country's many minorities. A combination of cautious hope, cynicism, and nostalgic fantasies of an authentic, wholesome, or meaningful past seems to define South Africa in 2011. The key question is whether—and how—a new, inclusive, but also less heroic form of public culture may develop that can address the many glaring inequalities in the country.Less
This concluding chapter reflects on how much of the situation described in the book may have wider applicability across community, location, and class in South Africa. It also speculates briefly on how Jacob Zuma's presidency is altering predominant styles of politics and public culture toward a more ordinary, imperfect, but also culturally intimate style of political performance that may lead to naked majoritarianism but that also may prove hospitable to the country's many minorities. A combination of cautious hope, cynicism, and nostalgic fantasies of an authentic, wholesome, or meaningful past seems to define South Africa in 2011. The key question is whether—and how—a new, inclusive, but also less heroic form of public culture may develop that can address the many glaring inequalities in the country.
Jason Hickel
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520284227
- eISBN:
- 9780520959866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520284227.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, African Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores an emerging trend in Durban-area townships: people seeking to learn ritual practice in a bid to reconnect with their ancestors. Set against the backdrop of neoliberal ...
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This chapter explores an emerging trend in Durban-area townships: people seeking to learn ritual practice in a bid to reconnect with their ancestors. Set against the backdrop of neoliberal deindustrialization, the chapter focuses on the story of a woman who tries to make sense of why her family’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. Beset by anxiety about her family’s lack of relationship to the ancestors, she attempts to secure their allegiance by performing a ritual that ends in disaster. Her narrative reflects a deep disappointment with modernity and a strange nostalgia for apartheid—township residents longing for the 1960s as a time of supposedly greater social order and more stable gender relations. At the same time, they wonder if, in their excitement for modernity, they might have abandoned their ancestors too quickly, and so they seek to recover certain elements of “tradition” and “African identity.” This trend not only illustrates the syncretism that links urban and rural worlds, it also helps explain the surprising outpouring of support for Jacob Zuma, which has to do with his image as a patriarch who provides for his wives and children.Less
This chapter explores an emerging trend in Durban-area townships: people seeking to learn ritual practice in a bid to reconnect with their ancestors. Set against the backdrop of neoliberal deindustrialization, the chapter focuses on the story of a woman who tries to make sense of why her family’s fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. Beset by anxiety about her family’s lack of relationship to the ancestors, she attempts to secure their allegiance by performing a ritual that ends in disaster. Her narrative reflects a deep disappointment with modernity and a strange nostalgia for apartheid—township residents longing for the 1960s as a time of supposedly greater social order and more stable gender relations. At the same time, they wonder if, in their excitement for modernity, they might have abandoned their ancestors too quickly, and so they seek to recover certain elements of “tradition” and “African identity.” This trend not only illustrates the syncretism that links urban and rural worlds, it also helps explain the surprising outpouring of support for Jacob Zuma, which has to do with his image as a patriarch who provides for his wives and children.
Rosemary Jolly
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846312137
- eISBN:
- 9781846315244
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/UPO9781846315244
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This book explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent conflict, and addresses ethical ...
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This book explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent conflict, and addresses ethical issues normally approached from within the discourses of law, the social sciences, and health sciences, through narrative analysis. It draws from and juxtaposes narratives of profoundly different kinds to make its point: fictional narratives, such as the work of Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee; public testimony, such as that of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Jacob Zuma's (the former Deputy President's) 2006 trial on charges of rape; and personal testimony, drawn from interviews undertaken by the author over the past ten years in South Africa. These narratives are analysed in order to demonstrate the different ways in which they illuminate the cultural ‘state of the nation’: ways that elude descriptions of South African subjects undertaken from within discourses which have a historical tendency to ignore cultural dimensions of lived experience and their material particularity. The implications of these lived experiences of culture are underlined by the book's focus on the violation of human rights as comprising practices that are simultaneously discursive and material. Cases of such violations, all drawn from the South African context, include humans' use of non-human animals as instruments of violence against other humans; the constructed marginalisation and vulnerability of women and children; and the practice of stigma in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.Less
This book explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent conflict, and addresses ethical issues normally approached from within the discourses of law, the social sciences, and health sciences, through narrative analysis. It draws from and juxtaposes narratives of profoundly different kinds to make its point: fictional narratives, such as the work of Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee; public testimony, such as that of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Jacob Zuma's (the former Deputy President's) 2006 trial on charges of rape; and personal testimony, drawn from interviews undertaken by the author over the past ten years in South Africa. These narratives are analysed in order to demonstrate the different ways in which they illuminate the cultural ‘state of the nation’: ways that elude descriptions of South African subjects undertaken from within discourses which have a historical tendency to ignore cultural dimensions of lived experience and their material particularity. The implications of these lived experiences of culture are underlined by the book's focus on the violation of human rights as comprising practices that are simultaneously discursive and material. Cases of such violations, all drawn from the South African context, include humans' use of non-human animals as instruments of violence against other humans; the constructed marginalisation and vulnerability of women and children; and the practice of stigma in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Ashley Currier
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816678006
- eISBN:
- 9781452948195
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816678006.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter discusses the strategy of Namibian and South African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement against anti-lesbian hostility. The Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) ...
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This chapter discusses the strategy of Namibian and South African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement against anti-lesbian hostility. The Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) and Sister Namibia cultivated different strategic orientations to visibility as lesbian movement organizations. The FEW developed an orientation towards public visibility that protected black lesbians and the organization’s public reputation as violence against black South African lesbians in Johannesburg intensified, while Sister Namibia devised ways for the public to regard lesbian rights as women’s rights. The chapter recounts the protest of black lesbian activists against Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa who was accused of raping a female activist.Less
This chapter discusses the strategy of Namibian and South African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement against anti-lesbian hostility. The Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW) and Sister Namibia cultivated different strategic orientations to visibility as lesbian movement organizations. The FEW developed an orientation towards public visibility that protected black lesbians and the organization’s public reputation as violence against black South African lesbians in Johannesburg intensified, while Sister Namibia devised ways for the public to regard lesbian rights as women’s rights. The chapter recounts the protest of black lesbian activists against Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa who was accused of raping a female activist.
