Racism And Class Struggle In The Post-apartheid Era In South Africa From The Perspective Of Marxism

During South Africa’s long colonial and apartheid eras,the white government sought to use every tools to enforce racial segregation,to ensure that different races were divided between class and order,wealth and poverty.With the efforts of anti-apartheid people and organizations at home and abroad,South Africa finally abolished the apartheid system in 1994 and established a new South African government with black power,thus entering the post-apartheid era.As time goes on,we find that in post-apartheid South Africa,although the racial issues in the society seem to have improved,but in fact,there is an undercurrent,and the distinction between “white” and “black” still dominates the ideological peak of the people.It is against this background,this paper try to attempts to make an in-depth analysis of the racial and class problems in South Africa’s post-apartheid era with Marxist class analysis methods,it holds that the racial and class contradictions in the new South Africa have always been intertwined and become more and more complicated,thus becoming an obstacle and a difficult problem to realize harmonious coexistence between different races.Of course,after 26 years of racial reconciliation,South Africa has indeed achieved remarkable results in opposing institutional segregation,but South Africa’s racial problem with profound historical origins cannot be completely solved in just over 20 years.As a matter of fact,this is also true.There are still many aspects reproduce and continue the black-and-white division during the apartheid era in the new South African society.For example,white people can still control South Africa’s economic lifeline,and thus can remain isolated from non-white people in areas such as living space,public areas and education.In addition,in the new era,blacks also oppressed and discriminated against whites and colored people in some fields.For example,due to the change of power,black people have almost monopolized the state power,followed by black people’s spiritual and psychological discrimination against white people,which is what we call “reverse discrimination”.In addition,today’s South Africa is gradually changing from a racial society to a class society.Since South Africa is still a capitalist country after entering the post-apartheid era,this determines that the contradictions within its society are still the contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.In order to safeguard their own interests,the capitalists of the new South Africa did their best to divide the class.Under the joint control of black-and-white capitalists,the class division within the black-and-white people is very serious,and the division within the working class is not optimistic.Therefore,the class problem in post-apartheid South Africa is much more obvious and serious than that in apartheid.Finally,this paper also predicts the basic trend and development trend of racism and class struggle in the new South Africa.In terms of the development trend of racism in the new South Africa,this paper holds that for a long time,the contradiction between black and white in the new South Africa is still difficult to be solved.But as the interests of the new South Africa change,racial tensions will be increasingly diluted by class tensions in the future.In terms of the development trend of class struggle in new South Africa,this paper holds that the struggle is mainly confined to the economic level,and is unlikely to rise to the political,ideological and military level.Even if there are some serious class conflicts,they are mostly based on class reconciliation in the end,and violent conflicts are a minority phenomenon.However,although the tripartite alliance that dominates South Africa has long been in a state of fighting but not breaking down,there have been many hidden dangers within the alliance in recent years,casting a shadow over the future development of the new South Africa,and unpredictable variables may occur.Thus,on the whole,the race and class problems in New South Africa are very complicated.The racial contradictions between blacks and whites and the class conflicts between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are not only very difficult in themselves,but also become more complicated because of the interaction between the two.Therefore,in the post-apartheid era,South Africa still has a long way to go to realize Nelson Mandela’s vision of a “rainbow state” where black and white people live on equal terms and prosper together.