From that same interview that I have been so liberally cutting and pasting from this week—in Comparative Literature–the Communist poet and intellectual, Jeremy Cronin, talks about the conundrum for black intellectuals after the end of Apartheid:

… For obvious reasons that I’ve already alluded to, a great premium is placed on unity and loyalty within the culture of the ANC-led liberation movement. In the days of illegality and repression, carefree individualism could be a deadly indulgence. Unity and loyalty are still important. But national liberation movements, pre- and postindependence, also have a problematic habit of identifying themselves as “the nation.” There are numerous examples crystallized in once-popular slogans: “CPP is Ghana, Ghana is CPP”; “SWAPO is the Nation, the Nation is SWAPO”; “the Kenyan African National Union is the Mother and Father of the Nation.”

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