For readers who are interested in ideas about secularism, the first chapter is the place to start this book. There you will find a model of political secularism that I have used to understand religion and tradition in South Africa's transition. I suggest that secularism is a normative account of the place of religion in society and government and a way of ensuring that religion is held in that place. As background to this account the first chapter details something of the history of secularism, what forms it has taken around the world and what it means for religion in different contexts. Here I introduce the ideas of differentiation, separation and relationship between the religious and the political as the key operations of secularism.

I also extend some ways of thinking about secularism to traditional and customary authority and law, something that is rather unusual in writings about secularism. I've become convinced that there are large areas of overlap between the religious and the customary in relation to power, authority and everyday practices of social reproduction. I hope this approach, and the form of analysis it offers, helps towards an understanding of other postcolonial contexts and situations where Christianity is not the only or main religion.

For those who are less interested in the concepts and want to go straight to South Africa and its history, the second chapter is a good place to start. There I offer what I call a morality tale – reflections on the ways religion and traditional authority were entangled in or against racialised rule in South Africa's past. The argument in this chapter is that secularism was impossible before democracy because there could be no normative place for religion or tradition. Instead, various forms of white government tried to annex or use living traditions to authorise white rule and deny moral or political community between rulers and ruled.

For those whose main interest lies in the negotiations, the next three chapters look at the great, slow drama that was the constitutional negotiations and the political transition. Amid violence, competing interests and the minutiae of diverse technical and legal processes, a consensus and a Constitution were born together.