Straddling realities: The urban foundation and social change in contemporary South Africa
Date
1982-05
Authors
Wilkinson, Peter
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Abstract
Until perhaps as recently as a year ago, it would have
been tempting to construct a 'radical' critique of the
Urban Foundation (UF) around the apparent compatibility of
the organization's programme with the objectives of the
'Total Strategy' formulated by the government of P.W. Botha.
Indeed, elements of such an analysis remain central to the
argument that will be advanced here. But since the events
of the past year have exposed the deep-seated antipathy of
an important section of the government's electoral base
towards any attempt at 'meaningful reform', the inadequacy
of a critique which simply continues to assert the UF's
complicity in 'Total Strategy' must be confronted.
After the recent much-heralded 'report back' conference
between Botha and leading businessmen fizzled out inconclusively
in Cape Town, it would be merely naive to attempt
to maintain the notion of an unpvoblematic partnership of
'state' and 'capital' in a joint project aimed at co-opting
the black 'middle classes' under the guise of implementing
an essentially hollow reform strategy. What I shall be
trying to do in this article, therefore, is to shift the
analysis of the UFVs role in contemporary South Africa
beyond the terms of this now somewhat unproductive polemic.
I propose to approach the problem in two stages. In the
first place, I want to locate the UF within the framework
of the present (November 1981) conjuncture in South Africa
by tracing, briefly and somewhat schematically, certain
developments bearing on the role of the Foundation during
the nearly five years that have elapsed since it was initially
set up in December 1976. Secondly, I shall argue that
these developments have left the UF in a position in which
it is poised between the reality in which it first took
shape and the reality of the present, and I shall explore
some of the dimensions of the critical strategic choice
with which I believe it is now faced.
Throughout, in order to keep the length of this article
within acceptable limits and to avoid unnecessary references
to matters that have received extensive coverage in the press, I will assume a degree of broad familiarity on the
part of readers with the more general aims and activities
of the UF.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented May 1982
Keywords
Social change. South Africa