Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the link between high-mast lighting and the late-apartheid counter-revolutionary strategy of infrastructure upgrading in designated townships, questioning the appropriateness of today's continuous deployment of high-mast lighting in South Africa, in light of the historic context.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the connection between high-mast lighting and the late-apartheid counter-revolutionary strategy, questioning whether today's continuous deployment of this infrastructure in South Africa is appropriate. Since democracy, many redistribution policies have attempted to undo race-based inequality in South Africa; however, public lighting infrastructure has not received much focus. Cape Town's public lighting infrastructure is representative of this, where high-mast lighting acts as a signifier of race-based segregation. The late apartheid period had a great presence of militarisation, which infiltrated into infrastructure upgrading. In 1987, the South African Defence Force withdrew military troops from the townships, instead launching the Winning Hearts and Minds (WHAM) programme, a counter-revolutionary strategy focused on infrastructure upgrading in townships. Many residents were distrustful of the program because it was managed by National Security Management System and seen to have military ties. During the same period, electricity was often extended to townships to power high-mast lights. Many believe that high-mast lights enabled surveillance for the apartheid military and regardless of this opinion, one can speculate that given the apartheid context, the atmospheric quality shaped by high-mast lights created a prison-like environment, instilling a psychological feeling of being surveyed. Yet today, the City of Cape Town's provision of high-mast lighting infrastructure is the predominant solution for townships and informal settlements, despite its own recommendation against the use of high-mast lighting. How do the legacies of late-apartheid infrastructural policies, such as public lighting policies play out in the post-apartheid landscape and what do we make of this infrastructure?

Paper short abstract:

Twenty years after South Africa became a democracy, two documentary films were made to celebrate the event. The films, Miracle Rising South Africa (2013) and 1994 Bloody Miracle (2014), offer two very different perspectives of when the transition played out peacefully 'in the eyes of the world'.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation sets out to interrogate how repackaging history, using testimonies and archival material as employed in two selected documentary films, poses issues of subjectively positioned points of view. Bill Nichols (2013) argues that evidence, narrative and ethics - the essentials for a documentary - are impacted upon when facts become evidence. This only happens once the facts has been positioned in an interpretative frame that suits the point of view of the constructor; in this case, the documentary filmmaker and his or her commissioning editor.

In 1994 after years of apartheid rule, South Africa became a democracy and all citizens could vote to elect a president for the country. Twenty years later two documentary films were made to celebrate the event. However, the films, Miracle Rising South Africa (2013) and 1994 Bloody Miracle (2014), offer two very different perspectives of was considered a 'miracle' when Nelson Mandela was elected as president of the new Rainbow Nation and 'in the eyes of the world, the transition played out peacefully.

While Miracle Rising South Africa (2013) focuses on how the role players managed to avoid a civil war and constructs a glossy representation of the birth of the Rainbow Nation, the second film reveals the attempts by right-wingers and the state's security apparatus to create mayhem in the country by supporting both Inkatha and the ANC (the two strongest political parties at the time), kidnap Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders and to take over the country in a military coup.

Paper short abstract:

The KwaZulu Natal Indaba was initiated by Inkatha and the New Republic Party to find a constitutional solution to South Africa's political crisis. Moderate politicians and business representatives gathered and negotiated until they had found a compromise that was never implemented.

Paper long abstract:

In 1986, more than 30 delegates from politics and business met in Durban to start negotiations about a constitutional dispensation for KwaZulu and Natal exchanging segregation for cooperation to the benefit of all people. Almost eight months later, after numerous weekly meetings and discussions in sub-committees, a constitutional proposal was accepted by 82% of the delegates. If implemented by the South African government, the regional constitution would have abolished most of the apartheid laws in KZN and devolved a lot of power to the province. Legislation would have been done in a system combining majority voting and voting according to 'background groups' to protect their interests. Extensive veto rights would have preserved the power imbalance and made radical change impossible.

This result was a compromise. Initiated by the KwaZulu government (led by Inkatha) and the Natal Provincial Council (led by the New Republic Party), the KwaZulu Natal Indaba gathered moderate reformers but no organisations from the political left and only few from the political right. While especially the black organisations made more drastic demands, white business and some white politicians were not willing to give so much. It is hardly surprising that the resulting compromise did not include radical demands; this meant that it did not demand enough change for the political left but too much for the political right. The Indaba's proposals were never implemented by the South African government but, ironically, the South African government's proposal for CODESA was in many aspects a copy of the Indaba proposal.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores late apartheid processes of state reform, the negotiations and early years of state transformation through the idea of everyday changes and continuities within political institutions to ask how this alters our established understandings of 'the transition'.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers the established narratives of South Africa's state transition and asks how the processes and practices of state reform and transformation look when considered from the perspective of everyday change and continuity: from the doodles in the margins of negotiating papers; the plenary sessions of the Tri-Cameral Parliament that brought Indian and Coloured MPs into the same chamber as White MPs for the first time; to the stubbornly remaining statues of the parliamentary precinct. How do these everyday moments and experiences shape the wider process of transition and how does the scale and pace of change look. What might be the significance of moments and unfolding practices in a 'marginal' institution like the Tri-Cameral Parliament, which in a reformed guise took centre stage after 1994? How was change experienced within the institutions of the state and with what consequences?