The cross-cultural ravine: Why the bridge is necessary, and how to go about building it

Abstract

South African society may be seen as constituted of a diversity of cultures, and in that sense. South Africa could be characterised as being "multicultural", but it is not, however, a practitioner of multiculturalism - at least not in the theoretical sense of the term which encompasses the fonnulation of official policy and associated practices that are exclusively directed at making cultural diversity formally "constitutive of the nation" (McAllister 1996). We therefore have , in the phrase coined by McAllister a denominational multiculturalism - one that can only exist when the boundaries between the various societal groupings, whether they be along the lines of culture, race or religion, are not "formalised and institutionalised" by an officially ratified policy.