Law and Revolution in South Africa: uBuntu, Dignity, and the Struggle for Constitutional Transformation (Just Ideas)

The relation between law and revolution is one of the most pressing questions of our time. As one country after another has faced the challenge that comes with the revolutionary overthrow of past dictatorships, how one reconstructs a new government is a burning issue. South Africa, after a long and bloody armed struggle and a series of militant uprisings, negotiated a settlement for a new government and remains an important example of what a substantive revolution might look like. The essays collected in this book address both the broader question of law and revolution and some of the specific issues of transformation in South Africa. Miller considers forms of violence that regularly occur in actual wars but do not often factor into the stories we tell about war, which revolve invariably around killing and death. Recent history demonstrates that body counts are more necessary than ever, but the fact remains that war and death is only part of the story - an essential but ultimately subordinate part. Beyond killing, there is no war without attacks upon the built environment, ecosystems, personal property, artworks, archives, and intangible traditions This book grapples with fundamental questions regarding what type of revolution took place in South Africa over a more than 50 year long struggle. Each chapter grapples with the questions related to the idea that the revolution in South Africa was a substantive revolution, because of its insistence on the establishment of a democratic and constitutional state that recognized the thoroughgoing wrongs of the colonial and apartheid past. Reevaluates the role of war in politics and society based on an expanded definition of the violence that it entails, with special attention to the destruction of nonliving things such as dead bodies, cities, artworks, archives, or languages, and to extreme violence such as torture and rape.