South Africa: Progressive constitution, conservative country
This article was published more than ten years ago. The information it contains may be incomplete or out of date.
As much as those who identify themselves as social progressives would like to believe otherwise, writes Dale McKinley, ‘the reality is that South Africa is a bastion of social conservatism’. One of the most glaring contradictions of South Africa’s post-apartheid ‘transition’, says McKinley, ‘is that the widely acknowledged – and regularly celebrated – social progressiveness of the country’s constitution is, in large part, at fundamental odds with the beliefs and views of the majority of South Africans themselves’. Read more