History and Dimension of the Violence in Natal

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History and Dimension of the
inNatal: Inkatha's Role
Violence
inNegotiating Political Peace
Gerhard
Mare
Introduction
VIOLENCE IN THE NATAL PROVINCEOF SOUTH AFRICA HAS CLAIMED THE
THE
lives of about 4,000 people during the three years since the last quar?
ter of 1987. To give some comparative perspective, there were ap?
proximately 700 people, mainly youth, killed countrywide (overwhelmingly
by the"securityforces")duringtheperiod June1976 toOctober 1977 in the
revolt that started in Soweto; 69 people were killed by the police during the
anti-pass protests at Sharpeville in 1960; during the 23-year war inNamibia,
830 members of the South African occupying forces died. Several thousand
civilians and SWAPO fighterswere also killed.
In a mere three weeks during August 1990 in Soweto, more than 500 peo?
as violence, apparently related to that in Natal, boiled over into the
died
ple
townships of the east Rand in theTransvaal province. From July to the end of
September1990,800 peoplewere killed in thisregion.
In the "troubles"
in Northern
Ireland 2,724 people (both security force
and
members, paramilitary forces,
civilians) had died between 1969 and 1988
It
must, however, be kept inmind that thepopula?
(Fortnight, February 1989).
tion of South Africa is about 20 times thatof Northern Ireland.
The type of violence that has come to characterize much of South African
competition for political and material resources has, indeed, reached dramatic
proportions. To many researchers and political analysts it seems that itwill
continue well into the future. Even those who propose solutions would con?
cede that to achieve the conditions for peace is in itself an enormous task. In
this contribution I will examine some factors that are essential to understand?
ing the context for the violence, especially inNatal. I will focus on the role of
Bantustan ("homeland") chief minister
the Inkatha movement of KwaZulu
GERHARD
MAR?
teaches
in the Centre
Studies and the Sociology De?
4001 Durban, South Africa. He is the
Inkatha and South Africa
Buthelezi's
for Industrial and Labour
partment at theUniversity of Natal, King George V Avenue,
author, with Georgina Hamilton, of An Appetite for Power:
(Indiana University Press and Ravan Press, 1987).
186 Social Justice Vol.
18,Nos.
1-2
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
187
inNatal
?
not because all the blame can be laid at his
Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi
or
that of the organization he heads, but because thepolitics that
personal door
Buthelezi has engaged in has been central to the region and to understanding
thewar of thepast four years.
that
After all, the political structure and administrative region, KwaZulu,
forms such a central element in the apartheid policy, has been in place for 20
years now, while Inkatha itselfwas formed in 1975. The major opponents to
?
the United
the political direction of Inkatha are of more recent origin
Democratic Front (UDF) was formed in 1983; theCongress of South African
Trade Unions (COSATU) at the end of 1985; while theAfricanNational
(ANC) was banned in South Africa from 1960 until February 1990.
Congress
Tribal Warfare,
Economic
Deprivation,
or Political
Intolerance?
analysts, politicians, and newspaper commentators have tried to
the
violence, fairly indiscriminately, as "tribal" or ethnic warfare (see
classify
Johnson, 1990); as "faction fighting" (a term that, in a large section of the
white South African consciousness, carries connotations of primitive, "tribal,"
revenge-filled killing); or as "black-on-black violence," as though such a racist
Some
appellation is of any greater use than calling theAnglo-Boer War "white-on
white violence."
Others have typified the violence as the result of the specific psychology of
"the youth" (another extremely loaded and little-examined term).Within this
perspective we can take the publications of the Inkatha Institute as typical. In?
stitutedirector, Gavin Woods, for example, wrote that:
of which we have developed a graphic presentation por?
?
Black
trays
youth as being the central dynamic of the violence
based on statistics thatprove youth to be accountable for 90% of the
violent perpetrations (1990: 3).
The model
The youth, so this argument goes, act not in terms of political persuasion
but because of a "youth psychology that produces the levels of volatility that
results in the behavior in question." "Youth psychology" is, in turn, deter?
mined by the "appalling ghetto communities"
?
vides material for instigators tomanipulate
form thatpolitics enters.
they come, and pro?
and it is only in thismediated
fromwhich
the Inkatha Institute argument, which clearly benefits from shift?
ing political responsibility to a "youth psychology" and which has been criti?
cized on several counts, is one that rests primarily on seeing two conflicting
political camps. Such an analysis emanates from John Aitchison of theUni?
Against
versity of Natal's Centre forAdult Education, who has monitored
over the past number of years:
the violence
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188
Mare
I need to say that inmy mind there clearly are sides, that it is obvious
that people can identify the sides, and that people do. I believe the
that political allegiances have been
evidence from witnesses...shows
crucial in deciding who should live and die. This conclusion...does
not necessitate rejecting the influence of criminal activity in the vio?
factors which fuel it, nor indeed the
lence, nor the socioeconomic
messiness
in any conflict which makes
(1989: 2).
riskyundertaking
the apportionment of blame a
Yet others marry a theory of social deprivation with the political factor of
war between two players in political resistance in South Africa, theANC and
its supporters and Inkatha. Hindson and Morris (1990b: 3) wrote that:
Political rivalry has undoubtedly played a major part in the conflict.
But the ideological and political determinants of violence are rooted
in underlying social and material conditions in the Black residential
areas.
In this article I argue thatwithout a longer historical perspective than the
one that is usually used in analyses of the violence, or that is frequently totally
absent, it is impossible to understand either the present conjuncture or tomake
any assessment of future prospects for peace or for war. Furthermore, while
agreeing thatmaterial conditions are important, equally important are the or?
ganized class interests represented through the organizations primarily in?
volved in the violence.1 To examine these we have to delve into the history of
the region over the past two decades and refer to events, real or imagined,
reinterpreted or created.
The Natal Region
Some causes
of the violence ?
or of the form it has taken inNatal ?
lie
in the remnants of the colonial past and the regional distinctiveness of this part
of southern Africa. Colonial rule over Natal, both before and after the incorpo?
ration of Zululand in 1897, rested firmly on the principle of indirect rule
through existing tribal structures or appointed chiefs. The administrative sys?
tem has been described as "putting a layer of British judicial and administra?
tivemachinery on top of precolonial African institutions" (Etherington, 1989:
172).
Under British colonial rule in south-eastern Africa, the area that is now the
Ciskei and theTranskei (two of South Africa's "independent" Bantustans), the
power of chiefs had been undermined to a degree through the concentration of
power in the hands of themagistrates and attempts to advance the formation of
a peasantry. In Natal, however, those powers were extended and legislatively
?
their
frozen.With the erosion of the precolonial source of the chiefs' power
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
189
?
a centralized (first colo?
ability to grant land and cattle (Marks, 1970: 41)
nial and then South African) back-up for their control became increasingly
important.
The Union
government confirmed both their centralized authority over
now the State President, the
chiefs (through making the Governor-General,
over theAfrican popula?
and
in
their
role
control
continued
"Supreme Chief)
tion through the 1927 Native Administration Act. This Act "was an attempt,
among other things, to impose a uniform system of Black administration
throughout South Africa" (Marcus, 1990: 14). Marcus writes that it sought to
"bolster the power of chiefs and headmen in the hope that these people would
exercise discipline over dissident elements" (Ibid.: 17).
After a doomed attempt to provide an advisory body forAfrican political
representation in theUnion of South Africa, through theNative Representative
(NRC) (formed in 1936, the year of the Trust and Land Act, which
confirmed racial territorial segregation), theNational Party (NP) government
abolished even such watered-down
representation of views. In 1951, three
came
into power, the NP abolished the thoroughly discredited
years after it
Council
and passed the Bantu Authorities Act. Expressing sentiments similar to
those used byMarcus about the 1927 Act, Lodge described theBantu Author?
ities Act as providing "a cheap repressive administration for a potentially re?
bellious population [through reshaping] local government in an authoritarian
NRC
fashion"(1983: 263).
This Act would
reintroduce traditional tribal democracy to African people,
then-Minister
of Native Affairs and later Prime Minister, Hendrik
argued
Verwoerd ?
the "architect of apartheid," whose edifice would bring so much
furthermisery on an already divided society. In opposition ranks, itwas per?
ceived in a totally different light and was one of the Acts against which the
Campaign, led by theANC, was launched.
It is under thisAct thatButhelezi assumed his "traditional" role as chief of
the Buthelezi "tribe" in the early 1950s. This is not the place to enter the de?
bate on the approval or non-approval by the ANC
and its leaders of
Defiance
Buthelezi's participation and the conflicting explanation he has offered.What?
ever the case may be, his sometimes rebellious role was from this time cir?
cumscribed by the grand design of apartheid. This was also the case with his
participation in the other levels of administration under thisAct and the 1959
?
a pyramid of ethnically sepa?
Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act
rated control thatwas to build regional and territorial authorities on the base of
tribal authorities. The pinnacle, the Zulu Territorial Authority, was formed in
1970 and two years later became theKwaZulu Legislative Assembly (KLA),
at each stage headed by Buthelezi and granted greater powers of administra?
tion and legislation (for a fuller discussion see Mare and Hamilton, 1987; and
Temkin,
1976).
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190
Mare
region has had a distinct cultural and political history that has
made available a range of mobilizing symbols toAfrican leaders. These sym?
bols draw on the real, imagined, and created cultural, psychological, and his?
torical dimensions of "Zuluness." Inkatha leader Buthelezi is themost recent
The Natal
to have appropriated such symbols.
The regional distinctiveness, or at least the aspect I refer to here, is rooted
in the bringing together of the small, scattered social and productive units that
characterized south-east Africa early in the 19th century. This has been de?
scribed as the formation of the "Zulu Kingdom" under Shaka. In the contem?
porary mobilizing discourse, it is presented as follows (in this case in a speech
at a Shaka Day
Bantustan):
celebration, a day that is a public holiday within theKwaZulu
Our Founder, King Shaka, is known throughout the world as one of
the greatest Emperors that ever lived on the planet Earth. Our pride in
who we are walks with us wherever we go....
I get so furious when my political opponents snipe at my Zuluness
and the Zuluness of the Zulu nation. We were a people long before
those who snipe had any identity.We were a people since the begin?
ning of time (Buthelezi speech, September 23,1990).
What is important about the use of this "myth of origin" is that it serves
both to provide a social identity that is then given territorial form in the area of
Natal (or even more specifically within KwaZulu)
and organizational form in
Inkatha?
you are a "Zulu" only through Inkatha. As Buthelezi told theKLA
in 1975:
In other words, all members of the Zulu nation are automatically
members of Inkatha if they are Zulus. There may be members who
are inactive members as no one escapes being a member as long as he
or she is a member of the Zulu nation (quoted Mare and Hamilton,
1987:57).
Fifteen years later,Buthelezi is less keen tomake these claims of inclusiv
ity.For example, he recently distanced his party from some incidents of vio?
lence in theTransvaal:
For the press to immediately jump to conclusions that any and all vi?
olence concerning Zulus automatically constitutes involvement by the
Inkatha Freedom Party is incorrect and extremely damaging to the
IFP (Natal Mercury, December
4,1990).
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
191
His, and the Zulu king's inclusive call to Zulu unity is less confidently, but
more belligerently, made in the context of the violence. On the other hand, a
defense of KwaZulu
(the Bantustan) as synonymous with the "Zulu Kingdom"
is very recent, and followed a COSATU/ANC
campaign for the dissolution of
theBantustan as administrative unit.
Buthelezi's version of the creation of "a nation" also serves to justify par?
ticipation in apartheid structures as he argues that theBantustan authority does
no more than provide regional administration for the "Zulu nation." I will re?
turn to the implications of this argument and that of necessary allegiance to
Zuluness for the violence inNatal.
The Bantustan
Is Formed
The 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act shifted the ideological
basis of control of African people away from a directly racial distinction to
that of territorially based "cultural nationalisms," the so-called homelands or
Bantustans. It provided for eight (later to be increased to 10) areas of
from the
"national, separate development," to the stage of "independence"
central authority. Only four went as far as "independence" ?
the Transkei,
?
while the other six are known as "self
Ciskei, Venda, and Bophuthatswana
governing national states."
As the pinnacles of a system built on tribal authorities and regional author?
ities, the Bantustans reflect theirbases, both in composition (unelected people,
mainly chiefs, outnumber those who participate in the farcical elections) and
(to control and administer). The control measures were most essen?
tial over theworking class ?
tribal authorities functioned as labor bureaus in
the state's system of contract migrant labor, while anti-union legislation and
and over the population "superfluous" to
actions characterize theirposition ?
?
the young, the disabled, aged, unemployed, plus most
direct production
in purpose
women.
However, theywere not simply extensions of the negative aspects of state
policy and essential elements to profitable production by capital. These areas
also became enclaves
for dependent accumulation behind their racial and eth?
nic curtains. The Bantustan authorities provided protection for traders, small
service contractors, and a civil service on an ethnically exclusive basis against
the ravages of racial monopoly capital in the society at large, and ensured the
survival of the extensively discredited system of rule through chiefs.
stated fairly consistently that itwould not take "independence,"
KwaZulu
much to the initial chagrin of the central state. There were several unsuccess?
during thefirst half of the 1970s, through op?
state support around the same mobilizing
with
central
formed
position parties
"Zulu
tradition."
of
However, on most other levels it has functioned
symbols
as has been expected of all the other units.
ful attempts to unseat Buthelezi
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192
Mare
has had to take responsibility for the social welfare needs
First, KwaZulu
of a permanent population that generally is not in consistent productive em?
ployment. Social pensions swallowed one-fifth of the totalKwaZulu budget in
the
mid-1980s and 53% of thehealthandwelfarebudget(Lund, 1988:22).
Inkatha made the understandable mistake of taking control over
which
is understandable because of the power that control over
education,
an
such
essential socializing medium potentially gives to a political move?
ment. Under Education Minister Oscar Dhlomo, Inkatha even introduced its
own syllabus that presented themovement's version of political history and
social order. It was a mistake, because it could neither alter the fundamental
Second,
inequalities of apartheid education, nor deflect the antagonism generated by
the crude subservience thatwas the essence of apartheid's "Bantu education"
(seeMdluli, 1987;Mar6,1989).
Third, Inkatha became responsible, through the chiefs and, from 1980,
?
through theKwaZulu police force (ZP), for "law and order." Social unrest
such as that related to extensive social dislocation through apartheid policies
and through natural disasters, which were aggravated by apartheid policies by
theAfrican population more vulnerable to the ravages of drought and
now became a concern of the regional government. From the earliest
debates within the newly formed KLA, chiefs complained of rebellious youth
and unemployment-related crime, as well as of the numbers of people seeking
making
floods?
land because
tended powers
they had been evicted by white farmers. Calls for arms and ex?
featured often in their speeches as a corollary of "law and
order."
The system of labor tenancy, through which Africans gained access to
white-owned land by selling their own and their family's labor for part of the
year in exchange for grazing and cultivation rights, was abolished district by
district inNatal during the late 1960s and the 1970s. This process, legislatively
?
an estimated 300,000
enforced, caused misery to untold numbers of people
people were moved from farms (see, for example, Surplus People Project,
1983: 73-78). The removals occurred into the area designated "KwaZulu,"
i.e., for African occupation within Natal, comprising some 38% of the land
area of the province.
During the early 1980s, a devastating drought hit the region, forcing even
more people to seek urban employment at a time that has been characterized
as one of "organic crisis" in the country as a whole (Saul and Gelb, 1981).
Natal accounts, in any case, for only one-sixth of the country's gross domestic
product (GDP), while accounting for a quarter of the population, who live in
seven percent of South Africa's total land area. The number of people arrested
under the notorious "pass
laws," designed
to keep
the unemployed
out of
"whiteSouthAfrica,"nearlydoubledfrom 1980 to 1982 (SAIRR, 1983:373).
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
193
A few years later, this population, now increasingly part of a semi-urban
population, living in overcrowded shanty towns in some of the areas least suit?
able for housing, was subjected to enormous floods. The social dislocation
caused by these events and processes created the opportunity for corruption
(for example, accusations were leveled against chiefs over the distribution of
relief funds and goods), and additional control over resources. With a popula?
tion shift that, it is claimed, makes Durban one of the fastest growing cities in
theworld, access to land provides patronage and extortion possibilities for one
that of the shacklord (another being
kind of Inkatha-related "warlordism" ?
thatunder some Inkatha-supporting chiefs).
Fourth, the existence of KwaZulu has allowed for the growth of a protected
trading and administrative class with an interest in the continuation of a form
of regional government, not only for the present but, for some, into the future.
It is of interest that although Buthelezi has often claimed that Inkatha was
formed primarily to guard against the foisting of "independence" on KwaZulu,
the first issue that Inkatha took up (but not for the last time) was around dis?
satisfaction by a group of traders at the selective advantage that the move?
economic policy meant for another fraction of traders and for white
owned commercial interests (for a discussion, see Mare and Hamilton, 1987:
106-116). Traders and chiefs have been advantaged most by the policies of
Inkatha, although not uniformly, and have been a conservative backbone in the
ment's
movement's
struggle with anti-apartheid forces (especially with the working
class).
Finally, Inkatha has relied on politicized cultural diversity, on a militant
Zulu ethnicity, tomobilize people into its fold. To argue that in itsmanipula?
tion of a cultural and historical identity the Inkatha movement, and especially
its leader Buthelezi, has played into the hands of the apartheid ideologues is
not the same as saying that cultural diversity is not a reality in South Africa
thathas to be taken into account by politicians concerned with the future sta?
bility of this country. Rather, it is to say that in this regard the politics of
Inkatha and of the NP are similar in their attempts to shape social identity.
From certain historical continuities Buthelezi argues that "Zulus," a social
construct thathas been anything but constant over time, should have a separate
political dispensation, that itsmembers have certain unique personality traits,
thatan insult directed at that identity deserves retribution, and that its survival
justifies conflict with other organizations and individuals.
The KwaZulu
authority, and thatmeans the Inkatha movement, has had to
take responsibility for protest thatwas inevitably directed at it.Not only were
these services totally inadequate in themselves but they were also clearly
racially skewed and no amount of protest by KwaZulu could take this away.
KwaZulu and Inkatha now stood between the state and the regional African
a situation
population. This situation was aggravated by two factors: first, in
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194
Mare
the "pressure points" of survival are controlled by people who are
themselves frequently powerless and discriminated against, patronage and
1990, on
bribery become the order of the day (see, for example, Macintosh,
to
to
also
served
these
services
has
Access
chiefs).
gain membership for
where
Inkatha and allegiance toKwaZulu
(see the discussion inMare and Hamilton,
1987: 70-73). Oaths of allegiance to the chief minister and his government are
required of civil servants (including doctors, nurses, and teachers).
Furthermore, exactly the areas forwhich Inkatha, as the sole party willing
to participate in KwaZulu,
took responsibility became points of intense con?
on
after
the
1976. Buthelezi perceived himself as creating a
flict
national stage
through his strategy of working in the system, but to his op?
ponents and, most importantly, to those who were forced to be "citizens" of
this apartheid creation, he and his organization became the responsible party
for theworst friction of racial oppression and discrimination. Pensions were
"liberated zone"
inadequate whether inKwaZulu or in the rest of South Africa; education was
no better, whether itwas the hated "Bantu education" or fell under KwaZulu
with its "Inkatha syllabus"; town councillors had to administer the same ghet?
tos, but now they belonged to Inkatha and the KLA;
transport, an issue of
great tension because of the distances forced on Africans through spatial seg?
etc. (For a fuller discussion of
regation, was in part controlled by KwaZulu;
see
these issues,
Mare, 1988.)
Inkatha
and the ANC: National
against Regional
Inkatha's relationship with the African National Congress (ANC) serves as
an accurate reflection of themajor contradiction that the movement and its
leadership have been caught in. That contradiction lies in the tension between
being, on the one hand, a regional movement (which, in this case, means being
the cornerstone of the state's policy since
trapped in ethnic mobilization,
a
on
national
the other,
1959); and,
political organization thatbuilt on the his?
toryof black resistance since the formation of theANC in 1912 and that used
to the fullest the backing it received from theANC's
endorsement of the for?
mation of Inkatha in 1975.
The manner in which Buthelezi has tried to bring these two strands to?
gether, even before 1975, was through his support for a federal option in South
Africa In theKwaZulu LegislativeAssemblyDebates (KLAD 4, 1974: 137)
he said:
No one can accuse me of wanting to deprive the Zulus of their sepa?
rate nationhood promised them under the policies pursued in this
land, for under a Federal formula thiswill be retained, but at the same
time we would
be part of a Multi-National
Federal
State of South
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History and Dimension
Africa
without
of theViolence
which
we
can
Slaves" ofWhite South Africa.
195
inNatal
only
be
"independent-dependent
He could thus both participate in what had been set up as apartheid separa?
tion, using it to the full inmobilizing an ethnic constituency, and argue for in?
clusion in a wider South Africa. It is in light of this approach thatwe under?
stand Buthelezi's
repeated appeals to "black unity" while simultaneously act?
an
terms
in
of
ing
extremely divisive "Zulu nationalism." Whether it has be?
come a self-fulfilling prophecy or not (in part forced upon him by the antago?
nism from his opponents), there is little doubt that the divisive aspect is the
most important. However, itmust be clarified that inmy analysis, Inkatha and
Buthelezi have never been "stooges of apartheid," an accusation often lev?
elled. Buthelezi has genuinely fought against racial discrimination. Itwould be
more accurate to say thathe stands for an ethnically plural federal system, and
an economic policy of non-racial (ormulti-racial) capitalism. That there have
been parallels between his goals and reformist NP directions is true, such as
common perspectives on "group rights" and an approach based on immutable
cultural variety that needs recognition and even reward under a new system of
government.
The political direction of Inkatha during the 1980s set it on a path that led
purposively to regionalism, federalism, and increasingly to militant ethnic
mobilization. As noted above, the generalized resistance of the post-Soweto
?
as a party in charge of an
period brought the areas controlled by Inkatha
?
into the arena of conflict.
extension of the apartheid state
The signs were there even before 1976: in 1975 a boycott of buses running
between townships and the industrial town of Newcastle in northern Natal cre?
ated a great deal of tension between KLA members and the communities. The
bus company belonged to theBantu Investment Corporation, a body perceived
by Buthelezi as a KLA-controlled Development Corporation in the making
(thatwas indeed to be the case). Township mayor and Inkatha leader Dr. Frank
Mdlalose
(subsequently a KLA member and now KwaZulu minister of health)
warned of anarchy if the boycott should continue, and blamed the youth.
This scenario of conflict between theKLA and transport-boycotting com?
munities repeated itself in 1979, also in northern Natal, and involving large
numbers of people forcibly removed from their freehold areas in "white South
Buthelezi defused
Africa" to industrial dormitory towns within KwaZulu.
with theSouthAfricanministerin
communitysolidarityby dealing directly
charge of administration of African people.
In 1980, conflict between various Inkatha personalities in the Newcastle
area brought other conflicts to the fore. The same Dr. Mdlalose was now min?
ister of the interior inKwaZulu. As a newspaper commented at the time:
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196
Mare
During yesterday's five-hour-long meeting it was clear that...the
KwaZulu Government was for the first time (sic) beginning to feel
thewrath of many blacks because of bus-fare and rent increases. Dr.
as Minister of the Interior, seems to be regarded as directly
Mdlalose,
responsible...
(Daily News, March 10,1980).
and theKwaZulu government also got the blame for increases in
Mdlalose
rates in 1980 in the poverty-stricken township of Mondlo
in northern Natal.
and was built to house people who
This township is administered by KwaZulu
had fallen victim to various state-enforced removals. The Inkatha movement
was
described
at the time as "the instrument used by Ulundi (the capital of
and was held responsible for conditions in lo?
for local governance"
KwaZulu)
cal administration.
In education, too, the tensions manifested themselves even though the
KwaZulu-administered
schools were not caught in the spiral of violent protest
to the same extent during the 1970s as the rest of South Africa. Initially, pupils
from Soweto had been welcomed to the Bantustan by Buthelezi, but conflict
soon broke out, both between school authorities and pupils (for which Oscar
Dhlomo, KwaZulu minister of education, blamed Soweto pupils) and between
Zulu and outside pupils. The latter cause was to be expected as conditions of
schools made it
overcrowding and poor or non-existent facilities inKwaZulu
to
with
additional
demand.
cope
any
impossible
Finally, in the labor field, signs of the clashes of the 1980s were also to be
discerned. Buthelezi has made much of his support for trade union rights for
African workers, who were until 1979 excluded from legally recognized bar?
gaining rights. However, his consistent calls for the incorporation of all work?
ers within a common industrial-relations system have to be balanced against
his even stronger support for investment in the Bantustan, where cheap and
labor was
the most
important drawcard to capital, local and foreign.
endorsement of such investment already appeared in advertise?
ments offering investors "problem-free labor resources" in 1974.
The closest and most practical links that the KwaZulu
government had
with workers came through the councillor for community affairs in theKLA,
docile
Buthelezi's
Barney Dladla, during the volatile years of 1972 and 1973. In 1973, about
100,000 workers went on strike inNatal over wages, a mass protest that gave a
tremendous boost to the slow process of reorganizing workers aftermost pro?
gressive unions had been crushed in the 1960s. Dladla addressed workers, en?
tered into negotiations, and made practical suggestions for using the power
that lay in thewithdrawal of labor. He was axed from his post, despite protest
a move thatwas perceived to be in part a result of the
from labor leaders?
independent base he was creating among workers, separate from the plans that
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History and Dimension
Buthelezi
of theViolence
197
inNatal
had laid for Inkatha (see, for example, Mar6
and Hamilton,
1987:
116-133).
Once Inkatha had been formed, it envisaged that trade unions would affili?
ate with it, along with sports bodies and teachers' unions, for example. The
1970s and early 1980s were periods of standoff between the still-weak unions
and Inkatha. That was also to change in the 1980s. Buthelezi frequently threat?
ened to use the power of theworking class during this period, but without his
"own" unions this remained empty rhetoric.
These signs and early skirmishes were overshadowed by the events of the
1980s. A build-up of tension occurred between Inkatha and theANC, and also
between Inkatha and the internally based opposition leaders and organizations.
The 1977 banning of nearly all the Black-consciousness
organizations by the
on
central state did not temper the dislike brought
by the structural involve?
ment of Inkatha in executing state policy. A much less flexible attitude toward
Inkatha, unlike the stance taken by the unions in the region during the 1970s in
their dealings with Inkatha, was carried into the ANC by the influx of post
Soweto recruits.
a change in theANC's earlier strategy of establishing a
areas through its attempt to guide and support
of
urban
outside
presence
moves
as
as
well
Inkatha,
perceived to be progressive in other Bantustans
as
to the Transkei's Matanzima
of
the opposition
Sabata Dalindyebo
(such
some
at
length from ANC President Oliver
government). It is worth quoting
This necessitated
report to theNational Consultative Conference in 1985 since it illus?
trates the ambiguity in the perception of Inkatha during the 1970s that
Buthelezi could use to his advantage:
Tambo's
Unfortunately we failed to mobilise our own people on the task of
resurrecting Inkatha as the kind of organisation thatwe wanted, ow?
ing to the understandable antipathy of many of our comrades towards
what they considered as working within die Bantustan system. The
task of reconstituting Inkatha therefore fell on Gatsha Buthelezi him?
self, who then built Inkatha as a personal power base far removed
from the kind of organisation we had visualized, as an instrument for
themobilisation of our people in the countryside into an active and
force for revolutionary change. In thefirst instance, Gatsha
dressed Inkatha in the clothes of theANC, exactly because he knew
that themasses to whom he was appealing were loyal to theANC...
conscious
(Mzala,
1988:124).
Quite correctly, Tambo perceived that itwas not only because Inkatha be?
came a "personal power base" for Buthelezi thatANC cadres were not willing
towork through the organization, but also primarily because of the role that
was structurally required of Inkatha as working "within the system." Itwas not
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198
Mare
only the political indignation felt by students and intellectuals who had domi?
nated the Black-consciousness
organizations, but also the day-to-day experi?
ence of apartheid administration mediated through Inkatha that antagonized a
much wider population.
At the end of 1979, matters came to a head at a meeting in London be?
tween theANC and an Inkatha delegation (for a fuller discussion, see Mare
1988: 122-128). No longer could
and Hamilton, 1987: 136-149; and Mzala,
Inkatha make an unchallenged claim to continuity with the "founding fathers
of the ANC." Open antagonism increasingly characterized the speeches of
Buthelezi and other Inkatha leaders while theANC, through its publications
and broadcasts, placed Inkatha outside of the growing progressive movement.
In 1980, educational unrest broke out in some of the townships of
in a significant way. The KLA and Inkatha not only condemned the
also played a direct role in crushing the student action in the
but
protests
KwaMashu
township and elsewhere. The heavy-handed action antagonized
and
gave a taste of the future.
parents
KwaZulu
Organizationally, the situation changed in South Africa with challenges to
the relative isolation within which Inkatha had operated, firstwith the forma?
tion of theUnited Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983, and thenwith a new trade
union federation. The UDF was launched to oppose the state's ethnically
based "tri-cameral" constitutional proposals (implemented in 1984). This sys?
tem continued to exclude Africans, even from the loaded new Parliament that
continued to be dominated by white interestswhile incorporating Indians and
brought together hundreds of local community, youth,
"coloureds." The UDF
civic, and other organizations. Through its leaderships, patrons, and approval
from exile, it laid claim ?
much more effectively than Inkatha could by now
?
to the tradition of resistance symbolized by theANC since 1912.
was formed in
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
1985. The numerical weight and political center of gravity of COSATU
lay in
in
and
heartland
of
the
industrial
National
Union
of
Mineworkers
the
(NUM)
was
formed
South Africa, theTransvaal, respectively. Furthermore, COSATU
during a time of intense resistance that started in 1984 and became known as
the "insurrectionary period." There was much less sympathy for the regional
specificity of political conflict in Natal and the tensions that this created for
themode of operation of unions primarily based in theNatal region.
?
al?
Inkatha did not await these various moves, but anticipated others
own
Union
of
the
United
Workers
of
its
the
formation
union,
approved
though
ofCOSATU by fivemonths.
SouthAfrica (UWUSA), followedtheformation
Li July 1980, the Inkatha Central Committee decided to concentrate its ener?
gies in regional consolidation of themovement. In motivation, it referred to
attacks from theANC and the South African Communist Party. Through this
that it had not had
apparent change in strategy, it indirectly acknowledged
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
199
inNatal
success in its stated post-1977 claim to be a truly national movement,
rather than overwhelmingly representing Zulu-speakers. The Central Com?
mittee tried tomeet criticism that itwas now even more "tribal" by arguing
much
that "social, economic, historical, and strategic factors make it necessary for
thePresident to use Natal as a springboard to national problems."
First, Inkatha set inmotion a series of investigations of the region's politi?
cal and economic
condition and made wide recommendations. The Buthelezi
Commission, drawing on the expertise of academics and big business, pub?
lished a report in 1982 thatproposed the elimination of thewastage of separate
administrations and services. Their analysis was based on the clear links that
existed between
the province
contained.
and the many pieces of the Bantustan
that it
Second, Inkatha formed a police force (ZP) in 1980 that has served as an
effective extension of the South African Police, under a seconded SAP officer
as commissioner. At the same time, it had a command structure thatwas di?
as minister of police, adding to his other posts
rectly under Buthelezi
(Inkatha's president, chief minister, and finance minister). The deputy com?
missioner also serves on the Inkatha Central Committee, meshing the ZP even
more effectively with the political movement. In January 1987, a few months
before the massive outbreak of violence around Pietermaritzburg, Buthelezi
addressed theZP:
In our Black
in Exile, working through
townships theANC Mission
surrogates (a term then used for theUDF and COSATU-GM),
tryand
in
the
African
of
scales
favour
violent
solutions
which
will
South
tip
ensconce a Marxist
in
State
South
Africa.
You
(the
one-party
Police) will be serving in Black townships where the poli?
tics of intimidation combine with all kinds of criminal elements to
KwaZulu
sow discord and chaos.
the
round of negotiations,
Third, Inkatha launched an ambitious
a
a
KwaZulu/Natal
Indaba, to draw up constitution for regional government. If
this constitution had been implemented as intended, itwould have created the
first state in a South African federation. It is not possible to discuss the Indaba,
both process and outcome, in any detail here (see, for example, Roberts and
Howe, 1987; and Mare,
1987). However, it is necessary to sketch the barest
outline since its proposals have considerable influence in the present political
fluidity and on the future role that Inkatha might play.
The Indaba's suggestions were for a single regional government with pow?
ers equivalent to those of the Bantustan (in other words, in excess of the
provincial structure); itproposed two levels of government, with the first be?
ing chosen on the basis of proportional representation with a single voters'
roll, while
the second would
be
composed
of five
cultural
and
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racial
200
Mare
"background groups," elected by a voting population similarly divided. This
second level would have considerable powers over "own" affairs, and could
veto legislation passed by the other house. Provision is also made for the con?
tinuation of tribal authorities as rural local government, a house of chiefs, and
several elements of regional police and military forces.
It is clear that such a constitutional arrangement would
serve the interests
of any ethnically mobilized
organization. In late 1990, several articles ap?
that
the
suggest
possible implementation of such a model inNatal. The
peared
Indaba constitution received state approval two years after itwas publicized
and its recommendations have been featured in tentative statemodels
gotiating position in the future.
for a ne?
The fourth aspect of Inkatha's strategy during the 1970s flows from the
Indaba exercise. The consultations brought together several conservative po?
litical parties, nearly all participating in the discredited tri-cameral system?
representatives of organized capital, and a range of cultural and religious
groups. It created a broad alliance under the banner of a constitutional pro?
posal that would ensure, and reward, the continued relevance of ethnic
politics.
Fifth, Inkatha attempted to strengthen its administrative hold over a larger
section of theAfrican population living in the region, but outside of KwaZulu.
It called for the incorporation of several townships that fell under provincial
control. These moves led, however, to intense resistance in the townships of
Chesterville, Lamontville, and Hambanathi.
Finally, Inkatha intensified its ethnic discourse, calling on "Zulus" to stand
firm against the onslaught from those who despised their values, their leaders,
and their territory.The Zulu king, who had entertained early political ambi?
tions of his own, but who was constitutionally sidelined by Buthelezi into a
symbolic position, came back into the Inkatha fold. His "apolitical" pro?
nouncements as a unifying factor of the Zulu nation have, if anything, been
even more belligerent than those of Buthelezi. An "Inkatha syllabus," as noted
above, was also instituted in schools.
The stage had been set for the interorganizational violence of the latterhalf
of the decade. On one side of the conflict was the ANC and organizations
sympathetic to it, riding on a wave of dissatisfaction and popular revolt di?
rected at local and regional government and the divisions of apartheid; on the
other was Inkatha, entrenched as a regional and local government and consoli?
dating as ethnic movement.
The Violence
During the 1980s, when it appeared that the state would lose all control
over the structures it had created among African people, when township coun?
cils came under massive political and physically violent attack, when revolt
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
201
spread to the Bantustans, Inkatha defended those structures, attempted the in?
corporation of even more people under its jurisdiction, and extended its re?
pressive apparatuses through the formation of the ZP. Regional consolidation
was necessary for Inkatha to survive in an increasingly hostile environment
and to ensure new alliances.
It was also inevitable, resulting both from its par?
in
Bantustan
the
system and themanner inwhich ithad to ensure the
ticipation
?
ele?
interests of its economically and politically dominant constituency
ments of theZulu petty bourgeoisie.
Reference has already been made to the school boycott in 1980 thatwas
crushed with vigor by what Buthelezi termed "parents and other members of
the public." Buthelezi variously blamed the boycott on "Xhosa lawyers,"
"foreign representatives," "political opportunists," and trade unionists (Mare
and Hamilton, 1987: 186-187). What seemed to concern him almost as much
as theboycott was
the "denigration" of himself.
At theUniversity of Zululand, where Buthelezi is chancellor, tension has at
various times broken out into open conflict. In 1980, Inkatha supporters beat
uniform being worn by
up students who were opposed to the movement's
Buthelezi's entourage on the campus at graduation ceremonies. These events
were overshadowed, however, by the violence on the campus in 1983, when
five students were killed and many injured in an invasion of the hostels by
Inkatha supporters. These attacks followed protests (including stone throwing
and insults) at the presence of a large contingent accompanying Buthelezi to a
ceremony commemorating the 1884 death of Zulu King Cetshwayo. Once
again, abuse of Buthelezi served as a justification for the violence perpetrated
by Inkatha supporters.
At the community level as well, the first half of the 1980s produced con?
as a "liberated zone"
flictwith Inkatha?
Buthelezi had defined KwaZulu
within which he was not willing to brook any opposition. This period wit?
to incorporate
nessed an attempt to extend the authority of that zone. Moves
and
three townships that fell outside of theKLA's
authority,
opposition to rent
an
that by-passed
the
resistance
increases, shaped
through
organization
Inkatha. In 1983, one of the prominent leaders in the affected communities,
Harrison Dube, was murdered. Clashes between pro- and anti-incorporation
factions flared during 1984 and early 1985, causing several deaths and much
misery in the now-divided communities. Importantly, from now on the names
of political organizations competing within a national arena, specifically the
UDF and Inkatha, were attached to people involved in violence.
The clashes, especially in Hambanathi, should have given warning of an?
other, much larger, outbreak at the end of 1985. This became known as the
"Inanda violence," after the area in which itwas concentrated. The issue is too
complicated to enter into here in any detail (see Sitas, 1986; Hughes, 1987;
and Beall et al., 1987). The many deaths, looting, vigilante activity, arson, and
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202
Mare
(between Africans and Indians) followed themurder of another
opponent of Inkatha, the lawyer Victoria Mxenge, who also served as a UDF
leader in the region. Whoever was responsible for her death (her husband had
racial violence
been brutally murdered, allegedly by the state's sinister Civil Co-operation
Bureau in 1981), it led to protest action, initially mainly by scholars, with
young people now also at the forefront of political struggle in the region.
Criminal elements, racist motivation, attacks on exploitative traders, political
?
all played a role. An especially brutal incident was the attack
antagonism
on a memorial service forMxenge, allegedly by Inkatha supporters, which left
17 dead.
Although some researchers reported little evidence of a UDF-affiliated
presence in Inanda, the popular and political definition of the conflict was seen
in terms of Inkatha against theUDF. Inkatha leaders warned of no-go areas for
UDF members, and placed themselves on the side of "law and order."
When the Federation of South African Trade Unions was formed in 1979,
itpulled together unions, including those formed inNatal just before and after
the 1973 strikes. In a way, thiswas an early warning to Inkatha that their de?
sire to incorporate organized labor would not be realized. As with so many
political initiatives, Inkatha has shown consistent antagonism to moves that
fall outside its control. Although worker action features strongly in threats di?
rected at the state during the early 1980s, the Inkatha Central Committee at?
tacked "white activists" who were exploiting workers "for their own political
ends," serving as "mere surrogates for certain exiles." Furthermore, theKLA
has been most unsympathetic to worker aspirations and organizations within
its own governmental employ (Mare and Hamilton, 1987: 128).
Two clashes, both resulting in deaths, will serve as examples of Inkatha's
response toworker action. Conflict escalated after the formation of COSATU
on May
late in 1985 and the formation of the rival Inkatha-linked UWUSA
in
the
the
Zulu
of
the
addressed
1986.
On
23rd
May,
king, Zwelethini,
Day
to
a
above
in
Natal.
He
northern
"rise
mine
claimed
of
coal
politics,"
opening
and then attacked COSATU
and theNational Union ofMineworkers
(NUM).
He warned non-Zulu workers to respect the leadership of Inkatha and theKLA
if they wanted to work in Natal. A few days later, violence broke out at an?
other coal mine in the region between the NUM and UWUSA members sup?
ported by mine management and Inkatha outsiders. At least 11 people died
(Mar6, 1987: 520-521). Four years later, the events are being repeated with
horrifying similarity. Thousands of Xhosa-speaking workers at coal mines in
?
?
with many returning home
the same area have been affected
by violence
said to have started after rumors spread that they had insulted Zulu leadership.
At the end of 1986, three trade unionists were murdered in the small com?
in the Natal midlands. The inquest found that
munity of Mphophomeni
were
Inkatha members
responsible. It followed a strike at the Sarmcol factory,
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
203
inNatal
themost important site of employment for workers living inMphophomeni.
The workers are still holding out, even though they were replaced by scab
workers who were organized into UWUSA
(Ibid.: 521). The year 1986 was
characterized by vicious clashes between union groupings elsewhere
as well.
inNatal
Looking back at 1986, it is clear that the general violence in South Africa
now fully included Natal.
Inkatha members were the victims of attacks
(sometimes apparently by insurgents), and they also attacked their opponents.
ANC insurgents died in battles with police, and several car bombs and limpet
mines exploded or were defused inNatal, causing death and injury.What was
different inNatal, though, was the deflection of the violence onto Inkatha, and
the consistency with which themovement played a role that differed from that
of the state only in degree.
From 1987, the occurrence of violence swung dramatically to Natal. The
?
away from direct state involvement in
participants changed as dramatically
crushing political opposition and insurrectionary violence, and anti-apartheid
forces. After seven years of regional consolidation, Inkatha was perceived as
the enemy by the same social forces who were elsewhere mobilized against
the state and itsmuch more obvious undemocratic black agents (such as the
community councils). Inkatha's repeated statements of standing in theway of
a "Marxist takeover" became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
During the last quarter of 1987, in a three-month period several hundred
people died, most of them non-Inkatha. The trigger for the escalation was
probably Inkatha's recruitment drive in theNatal midlands. Reasons advanced
for a drive at this time have included the need to consolidate support following
the release of the Indaba constitution and the commitment, at the time, to a
referendum to test it in the region. Previously there had been no reason for
Inkatha to mobilize on a mass scale for electoral purposes (it has always
claimed mass support). In elections to theKLA, itsmembers have been voted
in on pitifully low polls or have stood unopposed. The referendum would have
been a real test, and loss of control over local government was as damaging as
the non-incorporation of townships a few years earlier. Second, attacks on
Inkatha-supporting and supported local government officials in the townships
around Pietermaritzburg, as part of a national campaign against local govern?
ment structures, necessitated a restatement of its control.
The war has been vicious, fought with a wide range of weapons ranging
from sticks, spears, and knives to homemade guns and automatic weapons.
Arson has featured prominently as control over territories is established or
buffer zones are created. Tens of thousands have become refugees, and ser?
vices such as education and health are non-existent inmany areas (for a dis?
cussion of some of the incidents in thewar, see Kentridge, 1990). This inter
organizational violence has spread from themidlands to include nearly all of
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204
Mare
in the
Natal, and during 1990 has broken out with brutal viciousness
Transvaal. There it has taken on an added dimension of frequently defining the
enemy as belonging to another ethnic group.
What is the role of the central state's police and army? The focus in this
article has been on the less-easily explicable violence between people who
owe allegiance to two political directions, both claiming to be working for the
?
liberation of South Africa. My argument has been that the goals of Inkatha
with its commitment to so many values of the dominant class and to "law and
order," and caught in the demands largely allocated to it by apartheid of ad?
?
have increasingly approached
ministering and controlling a population
those of the state. This has been especially the case since de Klerk's commit?
ment to the abolition of apartheid as a system of racial discrimination, a sys?
tem that Inkatha had always opposed. The state has benefited, and still does,
from the violence thatweakens opposition to its present and future policies. It
has also played an overt and covert role in fanning the violence. Further, direct
actions of its forces have caused, and continue to cause, many deaths in the
region.
Just as it is impossible to separate the Inkatha movement from theKLA (in
?
itwas formed, after all, to control the di?
other words, from the Bantustan)
so is it ultimately impossible to sepa?
rection of that extension of apartheid?
rate the ZP from the South African Police. The ZP is a force under the control
of a regional administration of the central state, its powers defined by the state,
and extended only with the approval of the state. Relevant to the violence is
the appointment of the security police head, Jac B?chner, as commissioner of
in the area where the violence reached its peak, theNatal
police in KwaZulu
midlands. That appointment was welcomed by Buthelezi.
Conflict Post-Apartheid:
Democracy
or the Renamo
Option
South Africa is still several years away from a trulypost-apartheid society.
It is, however, in a transitional stage where past practice and present jockeying
for position provide a basis formaking a few tentative comments. I have ar?
gued that Inkatha cannot be analyzed simply as another of the organizations
thathave opposed apartheid. It also has to be seen as a governing party, albeit
in a discredited segment of the apartheid state. That role has important impli?
cations for understanding where its strengths lie, and where it is most
vulnerable.
Inkatha is also the only significant conservative organization
that has mo?
bilized on thebasis of ethnicity(theNP also did thistogain power in 1948,
but was able to use state power to shift away fromAfrikaner exclusivity and to
come to represent general class, cultural, and racial elements). Here lies prob?
ably the most important factor for its future politics. The class interests that
Inkatha has represented so successfully have been important only in a re
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
205
gional, and Bantustan, context. At a national level there are parties in a much
better position to ensure their representation, such as the ANC. There is one
important exception, though, and that is "traditional authority." Here, again,
Inkatha probably has a stronger hold because it has been able to link ideology
it represents itself as the only party willing to defend
and material welfare ?
Zulu chiefs.
the source
On a larger scale, Inkatha has linked the survival of KwaZulu,
of whatever patronage it can dispense, with the powerful ideological construct
of "Zuluness" and the "Zulu Kingdom." For peace in the region, and in South
Africa, itwill be essential to unlink cultural diversity from political power and
material benefits. Since there are so few successful antecedents, especially in
Africa where division was essential to colonial rule, this task cannot be di?
vorced from thematerial restructuring of the country.
The form of the immediate struggle centers on the future of the Bantustan
?
and in Bophuthatswana have those in control indi?
for only in KwaZulu
cated that they will strongly resist automatic reincorporation into a unitary
state. In the latter case, "independence" notwithstanding, reincorporation will
there is a less clearly defined social identity and because the
to it by the central state has always been more widely
allocated
population
be easier because
distributed than is the case inKwaZulu.
KwaZulu offers more than ethnic mobilization. It also offers patronage and
repressive forces with a legitimacy that derives from their links to the central
state. The suitability of Inkatha as a future electoral ally of theNP further in?
tensifies the dilemma for the state. It can be predicted that the Indaba consti?
tutionalmodel offers a way out for the NP as well as for Inkatha and its re?
gional allies. The Bantustan is too closely linked with the past to be retained,
but regional government is essential if Inkatha is to have any significant
power. Whether theANC is to support such a compromise, having rejected the
Indaba as sneaking a federal structure in through regional "solutions" before
national negotiations, is doubtful at this stage. The call for the dissolution of
and the disbanding of the ZP is geared to separate Inkatha from the
powers deriving from regional government, powers that lie at the heart of the
KwaZulu
conflict inNatal.
As COSATU's
Alec Erwin put it:
The notion that you can create boundaries within which Buthelezi is
not challenged is a recipe for a Lebanon-type situation. The people of
Natal are not geographically
separated into supporters and non
Chief Minister Buthelezi must,
supporters of Inkatha and theUDF....
like all other politicians, enter a political process that is based on
freedom of association. His support cannot be entrenched in the form
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206
Mare
of geographical zones, itmust be entrenched through whatever
port he gains in a political process (Erwin, 1990).
sup?
The political culture in the region, as in the whole of South Africa, must
change to allow for the democratic and structured competition that apartheid
has made impossible for so long. However, thatwill only happen if the politi?
cal organizations involved in the violent conflict are uncoupled from themate?
rial benefits that they can provide or protect for theirmembers, or that they
they can gain. In the case of Inkatha, thismeans that the Bantustan
must
be abolished, including its police force, control over land, pen?
system
believe
sions, and trading rights, its reliance on undemocratic tribal authority struc?
into a political party
tures, and its collapsing of cultural identity ("Zuluness")
and territory.
The enormous social problems that face this region must be realistically
tackled, and the solutions, however slow, must be approved of by the people
living here. In the same way that the granting of limited benefits can be linked
to ethnic identity, so deprivation can be blamed on ethnically based discrimi?
nation and serve as a mobilizing call. The continuation of this kind of mobi?
lization into the future allows for Renamo-style destabilization, which has so
devastated Mozambique.
A changed political
culture will also demand trust in the processes of
and
policing
justice, processes that have either been totally absent for many
or
that
have functioned in a crudely selective fashion. Without these
years
changes, the politics of opposition cannot be shifted away from the only ef?
fective style, thatof war and of violent defense.
NOTES
I have sympathy
they are inconsistent when
1. While
(1990a)
Attempts
to address
for the general argument advanced
by Hindson
it comes to suggesting solutions. They say that:
the socioeconomic
conditions
in the Black
areas without
and Morris
first
bringing the violence to an end are bound to fail, and may well contribute to tension in
an area. The immediate causes of political violence must be dealt with first and this can
only be done if themajor parties in the conflict, Inkatha, theANC, and the Government
come together and agree to put an end to it (1990b:
42).
back seat when it comes to suggesting solu?
thus take a chronological
tions and they fall back on politics and goodwill. I would suggest that this is because of an artifi?
and the political
cial separation between the "determinants" of "social and material conditions"
structures and histories through which those determinants work. I have shown how Inkatha was
formed, 15 years ago, primarily as the political representation of a regional African petty bour?
Their
geoisie
"determinants"
(traders mainly,
but also "traditional"
authority, namely
the chiefs).
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History and Dimension
of theViolence
inNatal
207
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