RT Article
T1 Cry The Beloved Country? Revisiting Mamdani’s “South African Moment” Through Chief Albert Luthuli’s Self-Narrated Alliance Politics
JF Political theology
VO 26
IS 4
SP 364
OP 382
A1 Mushambi, Dambudzo D.
A1 Van Wyk, Tanya ca. 20./21. Jh.
A2 Van Wyk, Tanya ca. 20./21. Jh.
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1930398212
AB Mamdani posits that the nation-state, an institution inextricably linked to violence and exclusion, creates and politicizes racial and tribal identities, inscribing some as permanent majorities and others as minorities within the political community so constructed. Mamdani avers that in the “South African moment” in the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa decolonized the political by reconstituting the political community without reference to race. This article revisits Mamdani’s analysis through Chief Albert Luthuli’s autobiography Let My People Go, suggesting that the South African moment was birthed earlier than Mamdani argues. Autobiography, which is part of history-making, inscribes one’s personal identity and subjectivity, challenging imposed identities and implicating the lives of others by framing them as friends or strangers in the narrative. In this way, autobiographies create associations or distance between the self and others, resulting in entrenched or contested hierarchies, and the possibility of reconstructing or fabricating social realities and political communities.
K1 reimagining political identity
K1 South African moment
K1 Decolonization
K1 Apartheid
K1 Autobiography
K1 Chief Albert Luthuli
K1 Mahmood Mamdani
DO 10.1080/1462317X.2025.2471690