Reflections on national unity in South Africa: a Comparative approach.

This article reflects on the need for a government of national unity in South Africa. Whatever political solution may be arrived at in South Africa, it will be based on the principle of universal citizenship. One may wager with good assurance, on the basis of what has happened everywhere else in Africa and virtually all the world, that in the new political order, all the people who live within its boundaries, except temporary sojourners from other countries, will not only become citizens but will be declared a people, the people and a nation. To create national unity may be no more than to gain acceptance of a nationalism, that defines the citizens of a particular state as a community. One may see this as corresponding to the national democratic stage of political development envisaged in Communist Party analyses of South Africa.