“The blood-and-soil arguments that have fortified France or Sweden as nation-states are no more logical than those later mounted in favor of statehood for Palestine or East Timor or Croatia.”
—from Rob Nixon's “Of Balkans and Buntustans”
TRANSITION 60: Table of Contents
POSITIONS____________________
Of Balkans and Bantustans
In South Africa and the former Yugoslavia alike, political
opportunists operate under the cover of supposedly
ancient tribal enmity. Rob Nixon
targets the popular decoy of ethnicity.
Culture Beyond Color?
If the culture of apartheid is corrupt and sterile,
the culture of its victims has been brutalized and
debased in turn. The literary liberation of the new
South Africa, Zoë Wicomb
argues, will be a protracted process.
Of Arms and the Essayist
What becomes a legend most? Octavio Paz was Latin
America's best candidate for Representative Man, but
his own shifting allegiances have left even his disciples
confused. Ilan Stavans
sorts things out.
Born Guilty?
The image of jubliant Germans celebrating unification
has dissolved into the spectacle of neo-Nazis and
racial violence. Is there really only one Germany--that
of Treblinka and Auschwitz? Maria
Diedrich explores Germany's current crisis.
Discriminations
Think all prejudices look alike? Elisabeth
Young-Bruehl outlines the schisms between
the -isms.
Back to the Future?
The years ahead may prove a sinkhole or a turning-point,
according to an influential theorist of “development.” From a global perspective, Goran
Hyden suggests that the solution lies not
in technocracy but in the creation of social capital.
UNDER REVIEW____________________
Sister Act
From SNCC to the Panthers, black women take command
in three recent accounts of a turbulent era. Kathleen
Cleaver rates their performance on the
stage of history.
Time's Valley
Civilation or barbarism. Wimpy relativism or cultural
homogeneity. Are these really the choices? Scott
L. Malcomson wants to know.
The Citizen Myth
It's neither dulce nor decorum: it isn't even true.
Maybe, John Brenkman
suggests, it's time to overhaul our society's mythic
charter.
White on White
Sieglinde Lemke surveys
the image of the black in Western popular culture.
An American Negro in South Africa
How Ralph Bunche spent three months in South Africa,
and only rarely lost his cool. Robert
Harris reports.
Race and Reason
Can the idea of Africa survive interrogation? Norman
Rush makes inquiries.
Wolves in the Hills
State Department cowboy Chester Crocker was the architect
of White House policy toward South Africa and Angola.
Maybe he thought it was High Noon in Southern Africa,
Geoffry Wisner observes,
but his tactics should remain Unforgiven.
Reading and Teaching Bourdieu
Algerian-born and French-trained, Pierre Bourdieu
may be poised to be the Sartre of the nineties. V.Y.
Mudimbe passes judgment.
The Ethnographic Zoo
Philip Burnham on
the pygmy in the zoo--and the politics of exhibition.