The sublime object of blackness

Abstract

This paper considers an advert placed in one of the major South African Sunday newspapers. The advert in question proposes that there is a white, right-wing conspiracy against President Thabo Mbeki, to discredit his leadership and the leadership of Blacks tout court. We will suggest here that the advert both reflects and is a harbinger of a radically new form of nationalist politics in South Africa. In the way that the term Black is invoked, the Presidency and the government are transformed into quasi-religious objects that are immune to proof and to criticism.