On a spectrum of hostility towards migrants, South Africa ranks at the top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. "Foreign" Africans are blamed for a high crime rate and most other maladies of an imagined liberation. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers? With porous borders, South Africa is incapable of upholding the blurred distinction between endangered refugees and economic migrants. Imagined Liberation asks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies, such as Canada, that avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley stress an innovative teaching of political literacy that makes citizens aware as to why they hate.

This study questions conventional wisdom about the nature and outcome of the South African conflict. Avoiding both wishful thinkiong and mere moralizing, Heribert Adam and Hermann Giliomee critically examine the applicability of such concepts as colonialism, fascism, and class exploitation cherished by the Left, and the notion of pluralism and identity on the political Right. In contrast to the liberal focus, they find the roots of the South African predicament not in ideological racism or prejudiced Calvinism but in the entrenchment of Afrikaner power and privilege. The potent force was historically mobilized against both black competitors and imperial foreign capital. Adam and Giliomee analyze the political economy of ethnic patronage in the bureaucratic expansion of apartheid administration and state capitalism. They trace both the socio-historical background and the ideologies behind changing in-group perceptions. The mechanisms by which Afrikanerdom maintains its crucial unity are evaluated against the cleavages within a ruling oligarchy in crisis. Coercion proves increasingly insufficient against politicized victims of traditional domination.Therefore, the search for a new legitimacy through inter-ethnic alliances characterizes the internal debate on political alternatives. The authros explore the limits of such co-optation strategies and assess the preconditions for federalism in an all-out confrontation.

Refusing to be governed by what is fashionable or inoffensive, Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley frankly address the passions and rationalities that drive politics in post-apartheid South Africa. They argue that the country's quest for democracy is widely misunderstood and that public opinion abroad relies on stereotypes of violent tribalism and false colonial analogies.
Adam and Moodley criticize the personality cult surrounding Nelson Mandela and the accolades accorded F. W. de Klerk. They reject the black-versus-white conflict and substitute sober analysis and strategic pragmatism for the moral outrage that typifies so much writing about South Africa. Believing that the best expression of solidarity emanates from sympathetic but candid criticism, they pose challenging questions for the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela. They give in-depth coverage to political violence, the ANC-South African Communist Party alliance, Inkatha, and other controversial topics as well.
The authors do not propose a solution that will guarantee a genuinely democratic South Africa. What they offer is an understanding of the country's social conditions and political constraints, and they sketch options for both a new South Africa and a new post-Cold War foreign policy for the whole of southern Africa. The importance of this book is as immediate as today's headlines.

On a spectrum of hostility towards migrants, South Africa ranks at the top, Germany in the middle and Canada at the bottom. South African xenophobic violence by impoverished slum dwellers is directed against fellow Africans. "Foreign" Africans are blamed for a high crime rate and most other maladies of an imagined liberation. Why would a society that liberated itself in the name of human rights turn against people who escaped human rights violations or unlivable conditions at home? What happened to the expected African solidarity? Why do former victims become victimizers? With porous borders, South Africa is incapable of upholding the blurred distinction between endangered refugees and economic migrants. Imagined Liberation asks what xenophobic societies can learn from other immigrant societies, such as Canada, that avoided the backlash against multiculturalism in Europe. Heribert Adam and Kogila Moodley stress an innovative teaching of political literacy that makes citizens aware as to why they hate.