Historical Roots of South African Ambivalence Toward “Africa”

Post-apartheid South African foreign policies manifest a resilient ambivalence toward the rest of Africa, but conventional narratives routinely omit pre-apartheid legacies. Rather than emerging as a middle power, South Africa is reclaiming its prior status, after a period of failure due to apartheid. Yet the South African state remains fundamentally a product of colonialism. Reification of intra-imperial regional borders led to its intermediary status in the international hierarchy. Crucially, taken-for-granted territoriality, a foundational practice of sovereignty, perpetuates an othering of the rest of the continent. These sovereignty-based relationships, embedded in a political imaginary that builds an invisible border between South Africa and the rest of Africa, stymies a truly transformative role in the region. As long as South Africans remain blinkered by historical amnesia, foreign policy will readily fall into the tropes of humanitarianism. This chapter explores South African responses to two recurring conflicts to illustrate: Congo/Zaire and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.