‘For the future of the nation’: Citizenship, nation, and education in South Africa

Countries emerging from societal conflicts and division engage in simultaneous processes of citizenship and nation formation. Citizenship education programmes have become a pillar in these efforts, as youth are imagined as being amenable to new ideas and may not be deeply scarred by past division and conflict. In many countries, international organisations, charitable foundations, and consultants work with governments to imagine a shared future for the country based on human rights and economic development, such that citizens will be selfsufficient and not place demands on the state. Yet these efforts do not necessarily address the causes of conflict or its lingering effects. The interaction between these general efforts and the specific histories of countries means that contradictions and tensions become part of the fabric of citizenship and nation. Using interviews, analysis of policy documents and participant observation, this paper examines efforts in South Africa to imagine a new future for the nation, and in which a new education system accessible to all youth instils values associated with cosmopolitanism, self-sufficiency and responsibility, but often avoids direct confrontation with the past. We argue that the education system helps, perhaps, to heal some wounds of apartheid, but in no small measure by ignoring them.

► The post-apartheid education system fosters new ideals of citizenship.
► It emphasises human rights, cosmopolitanism, self-sufficiency and responsibility.
► They promote citizens active in civil society but who will not make demands on the state.
► Some wounds of apartheid may be healed, but in part by ignoring them.