Abstract

RATELE, Kopano. The singularity of the post-apartheid black condition. PINS [online]. 2015, n.49, pp.46-61. ISSN 2309-8708.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-8708/2015/n49a4.

Informed by Césaire's awareness on the singularity of the black situation as well as Biko's sense of the consequence of black-conscious solidarity for overcoming white racism, I present some notes concerning social cohesion. I counsel against social cohesion without socio-economic justice. I would like us to consider how we might radically rework what I see as the sentiment urging the discourse of social cohesion into socially-just solidarity in relation to the peculiarity of the black condition. I argue that even if social cohesion is considered a preeminentsocial ideal, it remains an empty signifier if not preceded by policies and programmes to overcome persisting socio-economic inequalities, especially because of the history and contemporary facts of colonial, apartheid and neo-apartheid injustices. I contend that projects intended to foster cohesion might do best if they are prefigured by a radical politics of socio-economic justice. In turn, a politics of social justice needs grounding in an understanding of our unique situatedness as a historically and currently unjust society.

Keywords : Césaire; Biko; blacks; social cohesion; socio-economic justice.

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