Behind the Mask

Getting to grips with crime and violence in South Africa

After more than twenty years of democracy in South Africa, the history of the liberation struggle is losing relevance in the national consciousness as the country grapples with the pressing challenges of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

How has the end of apartheid affected the experiences of South African children and adolescents? This pioneering study provides a compelling account of the realities of everyday life for the first generation of children and adolescents growing up in a democratic South Africa. The authors examine the lives of young people across historically divided communities at home, in the neighbourhoods where they live, and at school. The picture that emerges is one of both diversity and similarity as young people navigate their way through a complex landscape that is unevenly post-apartheid. Historically and culturally rooted, their identities are forged in response to their perceptions of social redress and to anxieties about others living on the margins of their daily lives. Although society has changed in profound ways, many features of the apartheid era persist: material inequalities and poverty continue to shape everyday life; race and class continue to define neighbourhoods, and integration is a sought-after but limited experience for the young.

A fusion of linguistic, religious and ethnic groups with rich, diverse roots and intersecting histories make up South Africa. However, the literature on most of the smaller groups tends to be thin and uneven and often tends to relegate them to the margins of the countrys major narratives. This innovative study introduces readers to a fascinating world of linguistic, religious and cultural politics in the South African port city of Durban from around 1950, the world of the Arabic Study Circle.

From the perspective of the connections between this history and current conditions, Chinese naval voyages to the Gulf of Aden and the waters off Somalia today are a continuation and development of Zheng He’s voyages to Africa, highlighting China’s status in solving contemporary international issues and safeguarding global maritime security.