Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms
anecdote · South African apartheid ·
retold in 13 talks
South African apartheid ideologists justified racial segregation by claiming it preserved precious local cultures (Hottentots, Bushmen), Žižek uses this to show that multiculturalism can serve racism.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 13
“they directly justified their racism in multiculturalist terms.”
“It was the idea was strictly of course a fake multiculturalism, but nonetheless a multiculturalism.”
“Their point was not blacks are less or whatever, but pure hypocritical false multiculturalism: if we give to blacks all the rights like to us, in one generation their authentic original culture will be lost.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
contents · one story, 3 jobsuses
colonialist multiculturalism
×2
immanent multicultural capitalism
×2
double liberation
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Mangosuthu Buthelezi6Henry Kissinger3Peter Sellars2Isaac Luria2Mel Gibson3Maurizio Lazzarato3Augustine of Hippo3Jean Genet2
alongside works
Every retelling 13
South African apartheid ideologists justified racial segregation by claiming it preserved precious local cultures (Hottentots, Bushmen), Žižek uses this to show that multiculturalism can serve racism., illustrating multiculturalism as ideological form of global capitalism,ideology
The apartheid regime justified segregation by claiming to preserve 'precious cultural differences' (Bushman, Hottentot), which Žižek calls 'fake multiculturalism' used to maintain control, contrasting it with Mandela’s universalist approach., illustrating fake multiculturalism,double liberation
Apartheid ideology justified racial separation not through overt white supremacy but through a perverse multiculturalism: giving blacks full rights would destroy their authentic culture, turning them into vulgar Western consumers. Žižek reads this as a supreme example of ideological manipulation legible only in the official documents., illustrating ideology,racism,false multiculturalism,ideological misrecognition
White apartheid literature defended racial separation not on grounds of economic exploitation but as protection of Aboriginal cultural diversity, illustrating how a true colonizer always concedes deeper spiritual superiority to the colonized., illustrating inverted racism,primitivism and cultural authenticity
Pro-apartheid literature justified racial separation not by Black inferiority but by the need to protect unique indigenous cultures, a case of inverted racism dressed as respect., illustrating colonialism and identity politics,ideology
Žižek read an apartheid propaganda brochure that justified racial separation in almost Marxist cultural-diversity terms: mixing cultures would produce technological alienation, so separate development preserves cultural richness., illustrating cultural relativism as cover for racism,identity politics and apartheid