Africana Library

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Apartheid as ideology
(1972-05) Stadler, Alfred William
Writers on South African race policy frequently distinguish between the ‘administrative-repressive’ structure and the ‘utopian’ or 'declamatory' aspects of apartheid, between the ongoing processes of racial discrimination and the ideal of total territorial separation between the races. (2) Van Den Berghe argues that the contradictions between the "idealist" and "realist" strains in apartheid may be resolved, "insofar as each operate at a different level. The answer lies in the old dilemma of means versus ends that is inherent in the exercise of power." This kind of argument conceals the problematic nature of apartheid. The fact that politicians' actions frequently diverge from their expressed intentions is not in itself very interesting. It is the construction which political actors place upon the relationship between means and ends which reveals the nature of ideological assumptions. In South Africa, the consciousness of a dichotomy between the ongoing activities of the political order and the professed objectives of the regime reveals the contradictions of the South African situation.