From 'nationhood' to regionalism to the North West Province: 'Bophuthatswananess' and the birth of the 'new' South Africa

Although majority rule has been achieved in South Africa, the final years o f one 'independent' bantustan, namely Bophuthatswana, and their aftermath, illustrate the problems of creating a unified identity. Ironically, in the death threes of apartheid, a Pandora's box of ethnic and regionalist claims was opened. Although these claims were tied to the maintenance of privileg es gained by a tiny minority created through apartheid policy, Bophuthatswa na had also been sustained by an ideology which, although at times highly c ontradictory, was also indicative of the space given to twenty years of ban tustan nation-building. This article provides a reinterpretation of these c omplex territories by showing how, in the 1990s, in the wake of fundamental political changes in South Africa, the Bophuthatswana regime reshaped its nation-building discourse into a distinctive regionalist coalition based up on socio-economic and ethnic criteria, Moreover, unlike previous approaches to the region, it shows how contested territorial claims were integral to this regionalist movement. Whilst the Bophuthatswana regime finally implode d and its regionalist coalition was absorbed into South Africa's North West Province, the legacy of the bantustans for South Africa is replete with am biguity. In the post-apartheid era of transition to the North West Province , some of these fault lines, termed 'Bophuthatswananess', are discussed. Th e continuing influence of their core of 'Batswana arbiters' raises pertinen t questions concerning the obstacles to inclusive nation-building.