Unifying and dividing processes in national media: The Janus face of South Africa

Abstract

The article aims to open up a theoretical space where the nation building project's inherent contradictions can thrive, making it possible to see the construction of a new South Afiica as a dialectical area of both converging and diverging processes. Using the national broadcaster South Afi'ican Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the frequently used discourse of African renaissance as its central examples, the article argues that both processes of nation building and tendencies of globalisation must be seen as multidirectional processes to allow for a more consistent picture. Both the SABC and the current discourse of African renaissance are influenced by unifying and dividing processes.

The social construction of refugees & asylum-seekers: a case study of South Africa

“…In 1996, on the day of the birth of the liberal and democratic constitution of the new South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, the deputy president gave a rousing speech entitled I am an African, that is recognized by scholars to be a key document in the discourse on the African Renaissance (Orgeret, 2004). In the speech, Mbeki asserts that his heritage, like that of all Africans, is diverse and includes the blood of migrants from Europe, Malay slaves, labourers from India and China and the Khoi and San people of Southern Africa (Mbeki, 1996).…”