Examining in detail the apparently inexorable polarization of
society in such countries as Rwanda, Algeria, and South Africa, the
author questions whether current theories correctly explain the
past or offer adequate guides for the future. In their place he
puts forward an alternative neo-Durkheimian view of the possibility
of non-violent revolutionary change, based on the development of
such social and cultural continuities as already exist within each
plural society. But he warns that "this is an age of passionate
commitment to violence in which vicarious killers abound in search
of a Vietnam of their own." The aim of this groundbreaking and
challenging book is to create theoretical perspectives in which to
view the racial conflict of plural societies. Written in the
turbulent early 1970s, the book demonstrates the inadequacy of then
prevailing views such as Marxist interpretations of racial conflict
as class struggle, and the Fanon "a priori" rejection of
non-violent techniques of change, which Kuper holds responsible for
the acceptance of what he calls "the platitudes of violence." The
book concludes with more personal sections focusing on the author's
struggles with the then prevailing South African society, critiques
of that, and censorship of his attempts to make these public. In
the light of subsequent changes in South Africa many decades later,
this book serves not only as an important work of political
sociology but as a personal testament to the fight against racism
in South Africa. "Leo Kuper" was professor of sociology and
director of the African Studies Center at the University of
California, Los Angeles. A South African by birth, he was one of
the first writers on genocide as well as other aspects of African
studies and urban sociology. His major book, "Genocide" (Penguin,
1981), remains in print. The Leo Kuper Foundation is a
non-governmental organization dedicated to the eradication of
genocide through research, advice, and education. It was created in
Washington, DC in 1994 following the death of Leo Kuper, with the
aim of improving measures to prevent genocide. The main area of
work for the past five years has been in support of the creation of
an International Criminal Court. "Troy Duster" is director at the
Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge, New York
University.
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