While black elites are quite comfortable to be identified as merely black, and to quibble over what accent of English they speak with rather than whether they have preserved any semblance of their native heritage, many ordinary South Africans find the erasure of their identity in the upwardly mobile streams of cosmopolitan South Africa to be an alienating experience. Some young black people now speak little of their "native" tongue. The ANC under Ramaphosa has attempted to disempower traditional elites, to build towards a homogeneous black republicanism. The Bikoists, Pan-Africanists and Fallists at the university have whittled away the acceptance of languages other than English. People are encouraged to identify first with race, and then only secondarily with a tangible cultural heritage. This appears to be the current trend.
The Endurance of the Imperial Provinces
The Endurance of the Imperial Provinces
The Endurance of the Imperial Provinces
While black elites are quite comfortable to be identified as merely black, and to quibble over what accent of English they speak with rather than whether they have preserved any semblance of their native heritage, many ordinary South Africans find the erasure of their identity in the upwardly mobile streams of cosmopolitan South Africa to be an alienating experience. Some young black people now speak little of their "native" tongue. The ANC under Ramaphosa has attempted to disempower traditional elites, to build towards a homogeneous black republicanism. The Bikoists, Pan-Africanists and Fallists at the university have whittled away the acceptance of languages other than English. People are encouraged to identify first with race, and then only secondarily with a tangible cultural heritage. This appears to be the current trend.