National melancholia and Afrikaner self-parody in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

The publication of Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich's study of post-Hitler Germany, The Inability to Mourn , did much to advance the utility of Freud's essay, 'Mourning and Melancholia', in our understanding of the problem of nations' failure to relinquish fully identifications with fallen regimes. Following the path paved by the Mitscherlichs, I examine, in the context of contemporary South Africa, the prohibition of continued identifications with apartheid; I frame this prohibition as a loss that cannot be grieved. Looking at the case of Oppikoppi, a predominantly Afrikaans South African music festival, I examine the recent phenomenon of Afrikaner self-parody as a form of melancholic response to this loss, as a form national melancholia. I employ the Freudian concept of melancholia in understanding self-parody as a spectacular technique that at once denigrates, preserves and transforms the past in its ironic repetition as parody. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)