Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Estudios Latinoamericanos

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The presence of human destitution, impoverishment and degradation in the midst of plenty has puzzled social thinkers for millennia. One of the oldest and grandest of theories: the theory of ideology attempts to provide an answer to the puzzle of domination in society. Michael Rosen, in his book On Voluntary Servitude (1996), argues that the solution provided by the theory of ideology is problematic. Furthermore, on the basis of his critique, Rosen argues that we should abandon the theory of ideology and consider alternatives to it. Even though many contemporary academics have turned away from the theory of ideology, because they view it as an imprisoning meta-theory, this study explores the possibility of there being a meta-theory that could help us to make sense of the world. Through an examination of Rosen's critique this thesis shows that Rosen is too quick in his dismissal of the theory of ideology because he fails to consider that a revised functionalist theory of ideology can be expanded to account for the mechanism(s) that ensure that, over time, the society in question acquires ideological consciousness to further its welfare. This thesis shows that Rosen is correct in his criticism of the theory of ideology's explanation of domination because the content, history and social effects of ideological consciousness cannot be fully explained in terms of their role in promoting or stabilising relations of domination. In light of Rosen's criticism the thesis shows that if one provides both an explanation of the psychological motivations of individuals and of the nature of the oppressive society in which they find themselves then what I call an integrated theory of ideology can be developed. In order to illustrate the importance of an integrated theory of ideology the study moves away from high-level theoretical abstraction to concrete social analyses, focusing on the work of Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko and their explanations of domination. The reason this study focuses on their work is because in their role as social scientists, Fanon and Biko provided a powerful critique of colonial, post-colonial and neo-colonial society. It will be argued that Fanon and Biko were able to provide a lasting critique of colonial reality because they offered their critique within the framework of such an integrated theory. Consequently, this study argues that, as Fanon and Biko's work illustrate, an integrated theory of ideology qua critical theory ought not to be abandoned because it is crucial for understanding and resisting forms of oppression that exist in the world today.

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This thesis argues that Ndi Sibiya, fictional writer and protagonist of the novel, Mating Birds by Lewis Nkosi develops a pathological obsession with Veronica Slater, a white woman for whose rape Sibiya is about to be executed. One of the many theorists that have commented on the effects of race on sexuality, particularly in colonized black people is Frantz Fanon. In Black Skin White Masks Fanon asks a question based on Freud’s question, “What does a woman want?” Fanon’s question is different in that he asks, what do black people want, which opens the way for a post-colonial psychoanalytical analysis of Ndi Sibiya. What he is concerned with in Black Skin White Masks is a post-colonial psycho-analytical evaluation of the state of being black in colonial societies. Nkosi does the same in his novel, whereas he deals with Apartheid South Africa as an extension of colonialism. Nkosi and Fanon are both addressing the broader psychological impact racially oppressive societies have on the black person’s psyche. Fanon in his psychoanalytical study of the black man from within the Freudian framework aims to save the man of colour from himself (9) by giving black people a warning that is not much different from the warning Sibiya’s father gives to him: do not lust after the white man’s woman.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the ways in which the censors during the apartheid era responded to the works of three black liberation theorists; namely Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral and Steve Biko. Although other studies of apartheid‐era censorship have been published, this is the first to examine the censors’ reactions to the work of key African liberation writers. Apartheid in South Africa brought with it a stringent system of governance, which included a board of censors who would decide, according their interpretation of the laws of the time, whether a publication was considered to be “desirable” or “not undesirable.” One of the major themes examined in the thesis is the interface and tension between the specific and the transnational. As we shall see, all three liberation theorists put forward Pan‐African ideas of liberation, but often explicated upon the specificities of their particular liberation struggles. In a strange act of mirroring, while upholding the idea of South Africa as “a special case” (exempt from the norms of international human rights law), the apartheid‐era censors were concerned about the spread of Pan‐African theories of liberation. Beginning with Fanon, I speculate on the reason why Black Skin White Masks was not banned in South Africa, though Fanon’s later works to enter the country were banned. I also examine Gillo Pontecorvo’s film The Battle of Algiers, which was influenced by Fanon’s theories, and censorship, arguing that the “likely readers” or “likely viewers” of revolutionary material included not only possible revolutionaries, but also paranoid networks of counterinsurgency. I then move on to examine the apartheid censors’ responses to the works of Amilcar Cabral, outlining the interface and tension between local and continental as described above. The final chapter, which deals with the censors’ responses to Steve “Bantu” Biko’s I Write What I Like as well as Donald Wood’s Biko, the film Cry Freedom and other Biko related texts and memorabilia, has some surprises about the supposedly “liberal” censors’ responses to what they deemed to be “undesirable” and “not undesirable” literature. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis verken die manier waarop die sensuurraad tydens die apartheidera gereageer het op die werk van drie swart bevrydingsteoretici, by name Frantz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral en Steve Biko. Hoewel daar wel ander studies oor apartheidera‐sensuur die gepubliseer is, is hierdie die eerste studie wat die sensuurraad se reaksie op die werk van sleutel‐Afrikabevrydingskrywers verken. Apartheid het ‘n streng beheerstelsel in Suid‐Afrika tot gevolg gehad wat ‘n sensuurraad ingesluit het wat volgens sy interpretasie van die toenmalige wette kon besluit of ‘n publikasie “wenslik” of “nie‐wenslik” was. Een van die hooftemas wat in hierdie tesis ondersoek word is die interaksie en spanning tussen die spesifieke en die transnasionale. Soos sal blyk, het al drie bevrydingsteoretici Pan‐Afrikanistiese idees van bevryding ondersteun, maar dikwels die besondere van hul spesifieke bevrydingstryd uiteengesit. Die apartheidera‐sensors se kommer oor die verspreiding van die Pan‐ Afrikanistiese bevrydingsteorië, terwyl hulle die idee van Suid‐Afrika as “’n spesiale geval” (vrygestel van die norme van internasionale menseregtewetgewing) voorgehou het, was ‘n ironiese spieëlbeeld hiervan. Ek begin by Fanon en bespiegel oor die redes waarom Black Skin White Masks nooit in Suid‐Afrika verbied was nie hoewel Fanon se latere werk wat die land binnegekom het, wel verbied was. Ek ondersoek ook Gillo Pontecorvo se film The Battle of Algiers wat deur Fanon se teorië beïnvloed is, en argumenteer dat die “waarskynlike lesers” en “waarskynlike kykers” van revolusionêre materiaal nie slegs moontlike revolusionêre ingesluit het nie, maar ook paranoïede netwerke van teeninsurgensie. Ek gaan voort deur die reaksie van die apartheidera‐sensors op die werke van Amilcar Cabral te ondersoek en die interaksie en spanning tussen die plaaslike en die kontinentale, soos hierbo beskryf, uit te lig. Die slothoofstuk, wat handel oor die sensuurraad se reaksie op Steve “Bantu” Biko se I Write What I Like, asook Donald Woods se Biko, die film Cry Freedom en ander Biko‐verwante tekste en memorabilia, bevat verrassings omtrent die sogenaamde “liberale” sensors se reaksies op wat hulle as “wenslike” en “nie‐wenslike” literatuur beskou het.

ix, 161 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: KNIGHT BD175.5.M84 B74 2001 / Charles Taylor, in his essay “The Politics of Recognition,” frames the issue of multiculturalism in terms of the relationship between recognition and identity. Upon what basis and to what degree can different identities be recognized in a democratic society committed to equality? He subsequently argues that the ongoing dispute over the issue of multiculturalism can be understood as resulting from the disparate emphasis disputants respectively place upon the notions of dignity and the modern conception of an inwardly derived identity, the former defending a “politics of equality” and the latter a “politics of difference.” Upon this analysis, however, the two opposing sides manifest in this dispute are not sufficiently clarified in order to convincingly support a resolution. In addition, Taylor dismisses all notions of cultural incommensurability, some form of which is required to adequately distinguish the “politics of difference” from the “politics of equality.” In order to sufficiently clarify the bases of the oppositional stands taken on the issue, it is necessary that the dispute over multiculturalism be understood as a conflict between adherents of two opposing traditions within political theory, formed in the colonial past, in their respective attempts to adapt those theories for use in the post-colonial present. Both liberal and dialectical political theories were initially formulated upon the presupposition of cultural homogeneity. Opposing efforts to adapt each of them for use in a context of cultural heterogeneity have led to the present impasse. The key to the successful adaptation of these theories to the present, and thus to a resolution of the impasse, lies in the removal of each of its respective metaphysical doctrines of a priori universalism. Such metaphysically cleansed constructions of dialectical theory and of liberal theory are found in the work of Frantz Fanon and John Dewey respectively. Most readily, one may derive the basis for a resolution to disputes over multiculturalism in Dewey’s conception of the democratic reconstruction of culture, which can be described as a dialectical liberalism and which aims merely to harmonize rather than to eliminate differences in the pursuit of equality. / Adviser: Dr. Cheyney Ryan

South African history is rooted in racial identities, inequalities and injustices, which the post-apartheid government has sought to address for twenty years since 1994. The transition to a post-apartheid society though has been a difficult one with the social structure and everyday life still marked by the racial past. Though racial classifications on an official basis no longer exist, racial identities continue to pervade the country. Of particular significance to this thesis are black identities including the possibility of black inferiority, which I examine in relation to black post-graduate university students in contemporary South Africa, specifically at Rhodes University. In examining this topic, I draw extensively on the work of Frantz Fanon, who wrote about both colonial society and the emerging post-colonial experience. Fanon was a young black intellectual whose work was in part based on his own experiences of being a once-colonised black person in a world which he perceived as being dominated by whiteness. In his work he expresses his own perceptions of whiteness and how the black identity has come to be shaped by and around this dominant white foundation. Fanon extensively discussed the lives of black intellectuals and elites, and demonstrated how the black identity becomes shaped by and around the world of whiteness. In doing so, he raised a range of themes, such as black inferiority, mimicry and double consciousness. I draw upon the work of Fanon in a critically sympathetic manner to delve into the experiences of black postgraduate students as they negotiate their way through a university setting dominated by a white institutional culture. I bring to the fore the argument that the racial identities of these students is not fixed and sutured but, rather, is marked by considerable fluidity and ambiguity such that black identity must be understood not just as a state of being but also as a process of becoming.

This study introduces the Fanonian thought on race and racism, rhetoric of modernity, and new humanism as three constitutive thematic areas in order to enable a new understanding of the South African situation. These thematic areas are examined with specific reference to socio-economic development within the limited context of post-apartheid South Africa. This is done by reading Fanon’s text in the context of South Africa to provide the background against which the unfolding of the post-apartheid era and its political discourses may be analysed. In essence, this study is based on Fanon’s predictions that he made in the text written more than 50 years ago about the future of post-colonial states. Therefore, this study argues that Fanon’s thought has proven to be more prophetic with regard to post-apartheid South Africa and its political reforms which left the fundamental question of structures such as land, economy, and labour unaddressed. What happened on 27 April 1994 is not genuine liberation, but a mere transition from apartheid to democratic dispensation that left the status quo in spatial arrangements uninterrupted. Indeed, it was an elite pact between the African National Congress and white monopoly capital, which betrayed the national liberation movement and the black majority. The contention is that South Africa celebrated the cosmetic reforms that attributed the term liberation incomplete in the absence of fundamental and structural changes. What is therefore recommended is that for there to be success, there must be genuine liberation that is consistent with the needs of society. This means bringing to an end the racially marked structures and reimagining the black condition, through jobs, education, social and economic programmes aimed at empowering the black majority to depend on themselves as opposed to relying on the State. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

This study uses Frantz Fanon‟s thoughts on race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals as the theoretical framework and examines the positionality of Sipho Seepe, Xolela Mangcu and Andile Mngxitama as black public intellectuals in order to understand how they view the post-1994 political discourse. Seepe, Mangcu and Mngxitama‟s views are studied by analysing themes emerging from newspaper columns they have written. This study reveals that the three black public intellectuals examined have been radical and forthright, though they display different understandings of race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals. However, the study reveals that only Mngxitama‟s postionality has been consistently radical, whereas Seepe and Mangcu‟s views have been fluid and are now considered moderate. This study concludes by highlighting the relevance of Fanon‟s thoughts in enabling a new reading of post-1994 South Africa. Of central importance is the creation of the „new being‟, who is informed by the process of liberation, which is the antithesis of the black condition. / Political Sciences / M. A. (Politics)

This study uses Frantz Fanon‟s thoughts on race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals as the theoretical framework and examines the positionality of Sipho Seepe, Xolela Mangcu and Andile Mngxitama as black public intellectuals in order to understand how they view the post-1994 political discourse. Seepe, Mangcu and Mngxitama‟s views are studied by analysing themes emerging from newspaper columns they have written. This study reveals that the three black public intellectuals examined have been radical and forthright, though they display different understandings of race and blackness, the black elite and black public intellectuals. However, the study reveals that only Mngxitama‟s postionality has been consistently radical, whereas Seepe and Mangcu‟s views have been fluid and are now considered moderate. This study concludes by highlighting the relevance of Fanon‟s thoughts in enabling a new reading of post-1994 South Africa. Of central importance is the creation of the „new being‟, who is informed by the process of liberation, which is the antithesis of the black condition. / Political Sciences / M. A. (Politics)