“A Pageant Apart from Politics”: The Opening of the South African Parliament, 1910-2020

Johnson, Rachel E.

Abstract

In Westminster-model institutions of which the South African parliament is one, an opening ceremony takes place annually at the start of a parliamentary session. In the South African context in the early twentieth century, it involved a speech by the governor general on behalf of the British monarch, but it is now known at the State of the Nation Address (SONA) and delivered by the President, as head of government and head of state of the Republic of South Africa. This article examines the history of this ceremony in South Africa, and in particular looks at the ways in which the ceremony has been disrupted in recent years and used as a site for (re)making ideas of nation and politics. The South African parliament has been reinvented at least four times since it was founded in 1910: from loyal colonial parliament, to republican stronghold of white-rule after 1961, before becoming a late-apartheid reform project in the 1980s and, finally, the post-apartheid ‘people’s parliament’ after 1994. Contestation and outright disruption of the annual opening of parliament reveal the compromises and fault-lines of each of these reinventions – shaped by relationships with its predecessor(s) and by globally circulating ideas and ideals of parliamentary practice.

Citation

Johnson, R. E. (in press). “A Pageant Apart from Politics”: The Opening of the South African Parliament, 1910-2020. Parliamentary History,

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 2, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Journal: Parliamentary History
• Print ISSN: 0264-2824
• Electronic ISSN: 1750-0206
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: South Africa, disruption, ceremony, colonial, apartheid, race, gender
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3326276