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of nationality of their parents or grandparents. Roughly half of
African states now allow dual nationality. The lobbying of these
individuals with economic power has brought a political maturity
to their states of ethnic origin in matters of citizenship where
years of protest by European or South Asian governments at
discriminatory treatment of their own emigrants to Africa had
only a counterproductive effect. Though dual nationality will only
ever be exercised by a minority in any state, those who hold two
passports can provide a concrete demonstration that it is not
necessary to have a ‘pure’ bloodline to be a good citizen.
South Africa, home of the most extreme version of the settler–
native divide embodied in the notion of apartheid, had farthest to
go to dismantle this system of discrimination and has achieved
the greatest transformation of its legal system. In place of a
baroque multiplication of different classes of citizenship based
on race and ethnicity – both given an entirely inappropriate ‘scientific’ basis – the 1996 constitution creates a single united citizenship, and the rights of all citizens are equal. The new government
sought to address the economic and political legacy of the past
by offering citizenship to many long-term migrants brought to
South Africa under apartheid labour policies; and by measures of
affirmative action and economic empowerment for black people,
rather than by denying the rights of those who had previously held
power to be citizens at all. A new refugee law provided for the
right to asylum and eventual grant of citizenship to recognized
refugees. The Constitutional Court has confirmed that even noncitizens have certain claims upon the state for social protection.
South Africa also provides perhaps the most vivid illustration
of the truth that adopting new laws is only a first step towards
overcoming past and present injustice. The promise of the new
democracy has been sorely tested by the continuing challenge of
domestic racial inequality and racial prejudice, as well as by massive popular resentment at large-scale migration from elsewhere
in Africa. In May and June 2008, ordinary South Africans erupted
in violence that targeted African refugees and migrants: more
than sixty people died, and thousands were displaced. The official
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