Some days I find myself at a nexus of disease: between the promises of democratic belonging and the unfinished work of decolonisation, amid contested histories and claims of belonging.
The questions sitting with me are: Whose project is decolonisation in democratic South Africa? Is it owned by the liberation movement, the state or by the people whose lives were shaped by colonialism and apartheid? And what does it mean to call that project African?
The questions feel urgent as ethnic and cultural identities become prominent in public life. In the Eastern Cape and elsewhere, there are competing claims about history, authority and belonging. I do not take this as proof that people have stopped seeing themselves as South African, still less as African. I take it as a reason to ask whether democracy made enough room for people to negotiate belonging, rather than inherit categories imposed on them.
We often describe 1994 as a peaceful transition. But peace did not mean an absence of violence. Political violence marked the negotiation period; some historians describe the 1985–1995 period as a civil war. South Africa was negotiating a democratic settlement amid conflict.
The questions are what that route made possible, what it constrained and what its language of peace asked people to accept.
The ANC’s 1992 strategic document gives us one part of the answer. It said the movement did not have the immediate capacity to overthrow the apartheid state and that resuming armed struggle was neither preferable nor viable at that point.
The chosen strategy combined negotiations with mass mobilisation and international pressure. That was a political decision made under pressure, not evidence that the democratic future had simply been left unprepared.
But it leaves an important question: Were people prepared for the social and political compromises through which democracy would arrive?
I have wondered whether a wider civil war might have produced different alliances with African states. Countries such as Tanzania, Zambia, Angola and Zimbabwe supported the liberation struggle but they were not one actor with one interest. We cannot know whether they would have intervened militarily in a different South African war. That must remain an open counterfactual.
What we can examine is how the transition shaped the new government’s place in the world.
Nelson Mandela’s presidency brought a strong language of human rights, democracy and peace into foreign policy. South Africa rebuilt relationships across the Global North and South while maintaining ties formed during the liberation struggle. Mandela called for sanctions against the Abacha regime after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, showing the force and limits of that ethical approach. He did not secure broad support from African or Western governments. South Africa’s position was isolated.
That episode shows that moral conviction did not automatically become continental consensus. It also raises a question about the transition: Western governments pressed the ANC to negotiate and embrace market-oriented economic policies, so how much space did the new government have to define a different future?
This does not erase the agency of Mandela or the ANC. It asks us to examine the constraints and partnerships that shaped the democratic state.
Under Thabo Mbeki, the African dimension became more structured. The African Renaissance was tied to building continental institutions. Mbeki played a central role in advancing the African Union and New Partnership for Africa’s Development and positioned South Africa as a bridge between Africa and the Global North. This was a serious attempt to give African countries greater influence over continental governance and development.
Yet Mbeki’s approach also carried contradictions. His quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe prioritised negotiation and regional stability, even as critics argued that it protected an authoritarian government after a disputed election. South Africa’s economic relationships in the region were also unequal. The African Renaissance was a political vision, pursued through diplomacy and economic policy, whose outcomes deserve scrutiny.
The presidencies after Mbeki did not simply erase those foundations. A recent review argues that later administrations changed the methods and emphasis while carrying forward objectives established under Mandela and Mbeki.
That complicates the idea of a clear Africanist period followed by a complete departure. The harder question is whether those founding visions entered the country’s shared political life or remained more visible in diplomacy and official language.
Here, the question of identity returns. In a recent survey, 58% of South Africans felt equally attached to their ethnic identity and nationality; 26% felt more or only ethnic; and 16% valued national identity more. Only 31% said they trusted members of other ethnic groups somewhat or a lot. Eight percent said they would not mind or would welcome a neighbour from another ethnic group. Cultural attachment and openness can coexist, even while trust between groups remains low.
We should be precise about what those figures tell us. They compare ethnic identity with South African nationality; they do not measure continental or Pan-African identity. They cannot prove that South Africans do not see themselves as African. They do invite us to ask what African belonging means in ordinary life, beyond political speeches and foreign-policy strategies.
We should remember how the state organised identity. Apartheid did not invent every ethnic or cultural identity but it classified, territorialised and used them to divide people through reserves and homelands. Those histories did not disappear in 1994. We must confront them without treating cultural identities as the problem. Can these identities coexist in a political community that shares power, resources and responsibility?
As a social worker, I cannot leave this at the level of national symbolism or foreign policy.
The democratic project is encountered in ordinary places: at a clinic, in a social grant application, in a child-protection meeting, in the search for disability support or in a family trying to get help while facing unemployment, violence or insecure housing. A person experiences the state through whether services are reachable, respectful and responsive to the language and circumstances of their community. That is why decolonisation matters to social work practice.
South Africa’s developmental welfare policy linked people-centred services to wider realities such as health, housing, employment, rural development and land reform.
Social work’s commitments to social justice, respect for diversity, collective responsibility and Indigenous knowledge ask us to work with people and communities, not only assess individual needs and refer cases onward. They ask whose knowledge shapes an intervention, who defines the problem and whether people have power in decisions affecting their lives.
Perhaps this is where my unease sits. The democratic transition gave South Africa a constitutional order and a language of national unity. Mandela’s presidency made human rights and ethical diplomacy central to the country’s international identity. Mbeki made continental renewal an explicit political programme. But people still ask who defines the nation, whose knowledge counts, who has access to land and economic power and whose histories are recognised.
I am not asking whether South Africa is African. I am asking whether African belonging has become a shared project that people can shape and recognise in their daily lives. Decolonisation cannot belong only to the leaders who negotiated the settlement, the parties that inherited the state or the institutions that speak in its name. It must also belong to communities whose histories were divided and whose futures remain connected.
The work ahead is to ask what kind of common life makes difference possible without turning it into a boundary of exclusion.
Busisiwe Madikizela-Theu is a Mpondo social worker and lecturer in the department of social development professions at Nelson Mandela University.
Her work explores social work education, Indigenous knowledge systems, community engagement and inclusive development.