The Will to Transform: Nation-building and the Strategic State in South Africa

Abstract

This paper proposes the neologism ‘the will to transform’ to explore the political rationalities of a state-sponsored national reconciliation project—specifically the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC). In this instance, the will to transform refers to the strategic impulse for nation-building that emerges from multiple agencies in society but is codified and directed by ‘the state’. The will to transform not only implies action, it opens up critical questions concerning strategic intentionality and the agency of ‘the state’. As the case explored in this paper shows, the will to transform is not a given but rather an emergent device. In opening up a terrain of analysis centred around the will to transform, the objective of this paper is to disturb the secure conceptual vantage point offered by Foucauldian theorisations of the state by placing state-led projects of nation-building at the heart of the arena of strategic intentionality.

Acknowledgements

This article draws on a doctoral research project supported by an Open University research studentship and undertaken between 2007 and 2010. The author wishes to thank Clive Barnett, Jenny Robinson, and Allan Cochrane for guiding the research and Nick Blomley for his support. He would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments.

Notes

Thabo Mbeki, then ANC President and South Africa's Deputy President, picked up on this view in a parliamentary debate on reconciliation and national unity held on May 29 1998, when he described South Africa as divided along racial lines and consisting of two races—a prosperous White race and a poor Black race.

Groote Schuur Minute, May 1990, Preamble.

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993, Act 200 of 1993, Postamble.

Boraine, a former Methodist minister and former opposition Member of Parliament who went on to become the director of IDASA, would eventually be appointed to the position of Deputy Chairperson of the TRC.

“Truth Is the First Step” —Interview with José Zalaquett, in Transitions, June 2009, at p. 2.

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 200 of 1993.

State v. Makwanyane and Another (Case No. CCT3/94), at para. 308.

State v. Makwanyane and Another (Case No. CCT3/94), at para. 224.

State v. Makwanyane and Another (Case No. CCT3/94), at para. 222.

Of course, the discourse of ubuntu in the context of the reconciliation project generated intense criticisms mainly revolving around the extent to which political actors sought to link it to popular will and to “de-politicize” history (see Wilson, 2001; p. 13; Herwitz, 2003, p. 42).

Letter: Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, Legal Resources Centre, August 10, 1994. Kairos Collection, SAHA AG2918; Proposals for the establishment of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, The Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture, June 30, 1994. Kairos Collection, SAHA AG2918; Proposal to the Ministry of Justice on the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation, Human Rights Commission, no date. Kairos Collection, SAHA AG2918; Memorandum to the Select Committee on Justice, Amnesty International, January 13, 1995. Kairos Collection, SAHA AG2918.

Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, Section 3(1).

Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, Section 3(1).

Statement by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on his Appointment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, November 30, 1995.