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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Debates about Lesotho's incorporation into the Republic of South Africa: ideology versus national survival |
| Author: | Makoa, F.K. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | Africa Insight |
| Volume: | 26 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 347-353 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | South Africa Lesotho |
| Subjects: | foreign policy labour migration populism |
| Abstract: | With the recently announced changes in South Africa's immigration and labour policies, the issue of Lesotho's incorporation into its powerful neighbour comes very much to the fore. In terms of these policy changes, migrant workers who have worked in South Africa continuously for a period of five years qualify to become citizens or permanent residents of that country. This means that Lesotho will lose the lifeblood of its economy: migrant earnings. This article first highlights the critical issues in the debate about Lesotho's incorporation into the Republic of South Africa, including the hurdles that the debate needs to overcome if it is to become part of a national agenda, while also reassessing the parameters of the arguments in the light of the recent changes in South Africa's immigration and labour policies, the nature and thrust of the liberation struggle and the demise of the apartheid system. Second, it shows that in order to make sense to an ordinary Sotho the incorporation debate will need to address the critical philosophical/ideological issues of sovereignty, including the place of the monarch or the sovereign and national survival, and their relationship, and argues that these do not depend on Lesotho being a separate geographical entity. Ref. |
