ABSTRACT
On 10 May 1994, South Africa’s first democratically elected government staged the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first president of a new South Africa. Taking place on a hill in Pretoria, erstwhile bastion of Afrikanerdom, in the amphitheatrecourtyard of the Union Buildings, Sir Herbert Baker’s monument to British Empire and white supremacy and still the seat of executive government, witnessed on television by millions worldwide, and in person by 150,000 people on the lawn below the buildings, this event was understood by participants and observers alike to inaugurate not only the new president but also the new nation.1 At the center of the proceedings was the swearing in of the president who took the oath of office “in the presence of all those assembled here” while standing in a small pavilion, open to the VIPs in the amphitheatre but sealed with plexiglass at the rear end facing the crowd below. The official enactment of the new state and its representative actors in this privileged space was, however, framed by performances outside, which preceded, succeeded, and accompanied the act of inauguration itself.
