Black republican tradition, nativism and populist politics in South Africa

The formation of the Native Club in 2006 provoked widespread debate across South African society as it was deemed to be heralding black reverse racism in a country that had only recently emerged from the violent and exclusivist system of apartheid. The Native Club was interpreted as a threat to the spirit of ‘rainbowism’ and to current efforts at forging common citizenship for whites and blacks. The main weakness of the current debates on the Native Club and the phenomenon of nativism is the relative absence of historicisation and contextualisation within broader issues – in particular antinomies in black liberation thought and historical populist imaginations of citizenship and the nation. This article seeks to historicise and contextualise the Native Club and the phenomenon of nativism within the broader politics of contested conceptualisations of the national question and contested definitions of the teleology of the liberation struggle, as well as differing imaginations of the nation and visions of citizenship and democracy. It is only through a grounded and nuanced historical approach that the logic and the dangers of nativism could be understood together with the resurgence of populist politics crystallising around Jacob Zuma and the broader succession debate currently enveloping South Africa.