Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities

by Mahmood Mamdani

Second, whereas Nuremberg was informed by the logic of ethnic cleansing—that is, the logic of physical and political separation between yesterday’s victims and perpetrators—there was never serious thought of creating an Israel for victims of apartheid in South Africa. Some fearful Afrikaners did unsuccessfully propose creating an autonomous community to defend themselves, but this only strengthens my point: South Africans affirmatively rejected separation. It was clear that victims and perpetrators, blacks and whites, would have to live in the same country. This led to legitimation on both sides of the conflict. Once-banned liberation organizations—the ANC, Pan Africanist Congress, and the Communist Party—were legalized. Meanwhile anti-apartheid activists accepted that members of the apartheid regime, such as the National Party and right-wing networks such as the Afrikaner Broederbond, would take part in the post-apartheid political landscape.