The politics of being a human being in Soweto: Identity as a social capital ‘Everything not forbidden is compulsory’ (T.H. White)

Abstract

In this paper, the concept of social capital is redefined in the context of identity politics within contemporary South Africa. A case is made against the fetishism of identity dogmas that thrive upon closed historicity. Any narrative of subjective formation that is beckoned upon closed historicity is a predisposition towards identity ‘commoditisation’. As the term suggests, commoditisation implies that human subjectivity is ‘wholly’ dependent and measured ‘only’ through the compass of social capital. Commoditisation of identity means that human subjectivity is no longer transcendental but an object of possession – I am what I have or where I come from. This fixation on subjective acquisition and ‘possesivisms’ as an ethno-subjective repertoire for our overall subjective formation is identity fundamentalism. Although the notion of social capital in South Africa's context is a residue of South Africa's history of racialist capitalism, its present pervasiveness has generated a peculiar pattern of identity fundamentalism in which competition over economic resources has become construed as a threat to subjectivity. A reflexive understanding of this problem induces awareness for a healthy humanism.

Keywords:

• social capital
• identity fundamentalism
• identity politics
• humanism
• politics of recognition
• subjectivism

Acknowledgements

This essay has been made possible through the kind sponsorship of Mercator Foundation and Dr med. Mathias Schlensack.

Notes

1. Soweto is an acronym for South Western Township at the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

2. Kon develops the thesis of ‘social self’ as advanced by William James. According to William James the human person is constitutive of three ‘selves’: the ‘spiritual self’, the ‘material self’ and the ‘social self’ (see Kon 1989, 71).

3. Somewhere else, I had argued that in postcolonial studies, the terms ‘identity’, ‘subjectivity’ and ‘individuality’ assume an essentialist baggage. (I paraphrase) ‘It is necessary to qualify and codify these terms as a language of my discourse to avoid an overly vacuous rendition … Subjectivity is a noun which according to the Oxford English Dictionary 1989, means, ‘a conscious being … The quality or condition of viewing things exclusively through the medium of one's own mind or individuality; the condition of being dominated by or absorbed in one's personal feelings, thoughts, concerns; hence, individuality, personality … the expression of personality or individuality’. Now, this meaning must be contrasted with another term individuality, also a noun, which means ‘the fact or condition of existing as an individual; separate and continuous existence … the aggregate of properties peculiar to an individual; the sum of the attributes which distinguish an object from other of the same kind; individual character’ (Vol. VII). Still, it would become all the more necessary to compare these with another word identity. ‘A facile look does not specify the difference between these terms. But a closer scrutiny reveals to us embodied differences. Where individuality refers to specific individual trait, character or personality (as distinct), subjectivity is the ensemble of those constituents of individuality but transcends to a larger self-referential point as a distinct character of the subject. The problem is to distinguish a point in which a self-referential becomes tagged “individuality” or “subjectivity”. Many postcolonial writers use these terms interchangeably’. For the current purposes, while these terms are qualified, I shall introduce a new term as featured in my current analysis – identity. Originally from the Latin Idem, identity adduces a variety of multiple meanings ranging from sameness, generic character to a repetitious reference. The term however, does make reference to the relation of psychological identification. On this meaning, it becomes a reference to differentiate a distinct character or individual personality. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to investigate the deeper philosophical concepts of what constitutes identity, I would like to adopt a meaning that would seem to substitute (in application) the term ‘individuality’ as used in this context. The term identity would therefore be loosely employed in this sense (see Eze 2010b, 197ff).

4. Many immigrants or visitors from the so-called Third World to the so-called Western World are often too familiar with stereotypical assessments and questioning they encounter at ports of entry: how much money do you have? Are you intending to study or work? Any proof of strong ties to country of origin? The processing of these individuals at these ports of entries indicates how they are perceived as drags of economic depreciation, a process that generally masks everything else that mark their subjectivity as normal human beings. Their value as human beings is measured by their potential for economic gain or less. Nevertheless, if and when these visitors come from First World economies, they are generally not subjected to the same formatting procedure. These are later seen as tools of economic progress, a scenario that would enhance their subjectivity as human beings. In a later section, I will argue how this kind of subjective capitalism is played out in the South African context.

5. The Chinese were granted the same status in 1984.

6. On the national level, the decision of the South African government on 23 March 2009 to bar the Dalai Lama from a peace conference in Johannesburg is a classic example in which social capital has taken priority over human subjectivity. The reason offered by the government being that they did not want to ‘endanger’ the country's relationship with China. The obvious double standard being of course that it was about a peace conference aimed at discussing xenophobia and racism. The Dalai Lama has become a drag for economic progress; his value as a human being measured against the background of his social capital, where the latter is of course tied to country of origin. (Consider otherwise that the Dalai Lama comes from a Western society, his reception would have been different.)