ABSTRACT
At the closing of the twentieth century, as happened in many other South African communities, a new chief was crowned in Mpephu, in the very north of Venda. Thousands of spectators had assembled on the patch cleared between the thatched rondavels surrounded by banana and avocado trees, to see one BMW after the other drive in. The omnipresent press zoomed in on every halfnaked girl in traditional garb, on the praise-singers and drummers, and ultimately on the helicopter that brought the guest of honour, Nelson Mandela. The young king sat on a stage, under a Coca Cola banner proudly announcing the ‘Coronation of His Majesty King Toni Peter Mpephu Ramabulana’. After having received the formal appointment certificate from the provincial premier, who stated that he acted under the power vested in him under Proclamations 29/1991 and 50/1986, King Mpephu was lectured by one royal after the other. ‘Remember to always stay sober, to respect your nation and particularly the royal family’, a family member told Mpephu. And yet another said:
Finally, Prince Sovandla of Swaziland spoke: ‘As we continue to venture into the unknown we … must not reject the foreign, but rather take what is best for our nations …’
This contribution is about the intimate relationship between globalization, retraditionalization and the law in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that
the surprising cultural revivalism that took place from Venda to Cape Town in the years after the demise of Apartheid drew on forces commonly associated with globalization, and was crucially shaped by them, while simultaneously surprisingly often being defended in legal, rather than political terms. But before turning to the jubilant celebration of cultural difference and its underlying dynamics in South Africa in general, and in the cases of the Bafokeng and the Bapedi in particular, it might be useful to offer some conceptual clarity and to briefly sketch the theoretical background to this investigation.
