tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/kwazulu-natal-27185/articlesKwaZulu-Natal – The Conversation2024-03-26T16:03:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2245532024-03-26T16:03:55Z2024-03-26T16:03:55ZZulu culture and sexual orientation: South African study reveals the health costs of stigma<p>Same-sex relationships are legal in South Africa and <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/gay-and-lesbian-rights">protected</a> by the constitution. Unfair discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is against the law. </p>
<p>But in practice many cultures don’t necessarily see this as a right.</p>
<p>Traditional Zulu culture, for example, perceives same-sex relationships and sexual intercourse as taboo and <a href="https://njas.fi/njas/article/view/185">unAfrican</a>. Statements like <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167209338072?casa_token=3Nlm_dy4VSAAAAAA:tsFKGVDS7M-aA6S7bf0WSEMP79fpblscX-UsoJ6oXi_G-VBMMicAAQVwROuOrvzsMm4JYDfjNu0CLdQ">“real men are not gay”</a> indicate some people’s ideas about masculinity and sexuality. </p>
<p>These cultural norms have profoundly negative effects on Zulu men who have sex with men.</p>
<p>This abuse often triggers <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5843994/">depression, suicide and drug abuse</a>. </p>
<p>As a public health specialist with an interest in marginalised groups, I conducted <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/full/10.31920/2634-3649/2023/v13n1a2">research</a> looking into the role Zulu culture plays in discouraging men who have sex with men from accessing healthcare. </p>
<p>Stigma rooted in cultural beliefs was rife and many of the men we interviewed were too afraid to go to a health clinic.</p>
<p>This research is a tool for policymakers to use to ensure better healthcare for marginalised communities.</p>
<h2>How we went about our study</h2>
<p>In South Africa, men who have sex with men are categorised as a <a href="https://southafrica.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl1136/files/documents/KeypopPolicybrief.pdf">key population</a>, a vulnerable group more likely to get sexually transmitted infections, due to their socio-economic isolation. </p>
<p>Our study participants were living in <a href="http://umlazi.co.za/what-is-the-population-of-umlazi/">Umlazi</a>, an urban area of least 400,000 inhabitants in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The province is the home of the Zulu monarchy and the majority of Zulu people – the largest ethnic group in South Africa. More than <a href="https://www.worlddata.info/languages/zulu.php">13 million</a> people speak isiZulu as their first language. </p>
<p>Many Zulu people forced from “<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/umlazi">white” towns</a> during apartheid ended up in Umlazi. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666154323000728#:%7E:text=The%20mushrooming%20of%20informal%20settlements,Isipingo%2C%20Amanzimtoti%2C%20and%20Jacobs.&text=Fig.,1.">Informal settlements</a> have also mushroomed around Umlazi as those desperate for work flock to urban areas in search of jobs. </p>
<p>In our study we interviewed 25 participants, men who have sex with men, between the ages of 21 and 55. They were representative of different areas of KwaZulu-Natal as they had roots in Ulundi, Nongoma, uPhongolo, eDumbe and Vryheid. </p>
<p>They shared their experiences in a very emotional way. They described how they were frequently forced to conceal their sexual orientation to avoid being rejected or discriminated against. Study participants were representative of different areas of KwaZulu-Natal as they had roots in Ulundi, Nongoma, uPhongolo, eDumbe and Vryheid. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Culture is very stigmatising, discriminatory, and depriving. I grew up in a community where people see same-sex relationships as culturally taboo, so tell me, how would you come out in such a community? People create culture; instead of discriminating against same-sex relationships, these same people must accept and embrace them as cultural norms. (Funani) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For some participants, the traditional rite of passage from boyhood to manhood at the age of 21 was a source of alienation and pain.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At the age of 21 you are celebrated as a man in the Zulu culture … you are dressed like a Zulu warrior with skin, a spear, and a shield. I was deprived of this because they said I am not a man. … I became sick because of this and was admitted to the hospital for weeks. I almost lost my life because I was deprived of my rights. (Linda) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet another participant spoke about his experiences of not being accepted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t care about culture because the culture has let me down as a gay man. Culture does not respect me … I would have killed myself in the more conservative rural areas because the culture does not accept me. I have suffered so many mental health crises because of this. (Sanele) </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘I could hear them laughing’</h2>
<p>The men consistently cited fear of discrimination and a lack of understanding among healthcare providers as reasons they avoided health clinics. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I went to my local clinic because I had a sexually transmitted infection and needed care. When being attended to by the nurse, I was asked some silly questions that did not feel like they were taking my medical history. Then I was reprimanded about my sexuality as being culturally wrong and needing to change, which made me decide never to use my local clinic again. (Lindani) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the participants related to these experiences.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had a sexually transmitted infection and went to my local clinic for medical care. Getting there, a nurse attended to me, and during the section, she walked away to a separate room, where she went to tell other nurses about me. I could hear them laughing. I took my bags and left the clinic and never went back. (Siyanda) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The impact on the men’s health could be critical:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would rather die with my sickness than use such facilities. (Anele) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Due to my outfit I was kept in the queue for a long time, and when I was finally attended to, the nurse asked me if I am male or female. I respectfully answered her, and she called her other colleagues to make fun of me. (Solomon)</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Cultural sensitivity</h2>
<p>Collaboration with cultural influencers and community leaders is essential to protect the rights of men who have sex with men while honouring cultural values. </p>
<p>Such interventions should be culturally appropriate, holding in esteem and respecting the Zulu traditions and values, as well as embracing the full spectrum of health matters encountered by men who have sex with men. </p>
<p>Similarly, healthcare providers should receive training to support this community and establish discrimination-free healthcare environments. </p>
<p>Efforts such as these would promote inclusivity and healthcare access for all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ikekhwa Albert Ikhile does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Same-sex relationships in Zulu culture are perceived as taboo and unAfrican. Some men who have sex with men avoid seeking care at health clinics.Ikekhwa Albert Ikhile, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113652023-09-21T13:27:43Z2023-09-21T13:27:43ZZulu land dispute: Ingonyama Trust furore highlights the problem of insecure land tenure for millions of South Africans in rural areas<p>The recent <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-04-the-battle-between-the-zulu-king-and-his-prime-minister-over-the-ingonyama-trust-is-likely-to-divide-kzn-voters-in-2024/">fallout</a> between the Zulu king, Misuzulu, and his now late traditional prime minister, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, over the running of the Ingonyama Trust highlights a pervasive problem in South Africa: insecure land tenure in rural areas. </p>
<p>The Ingonyama Trust administers about a third of the land in KwaZulu-Natal province. Buthelezi insinuated that the king – or those around him – wanted to corruptly sell the land for profit. He also questioned the competence of the board chairperson appointed by the king. The king denied the charge, saying the board would <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-06-04-the-battle-between-the-zulu-king-and-his-prime-minister-over-the-ingonyama-trust-is-likely-to-divide-kzn-voters-in-2024/">“never allow the sale of the land”</a>.</p>
<p>But the legally questionable practices of the Ingonyama Trust, such as charging people rent on land they own communally, and its unilateral decision-making about communally owned land, reflect the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-african-communitys-win-against-mining-company-matters-107746">insecurity of land tenure</a> for millions of rural South Africans. </p>
<p>Land disputes arise when the principles at the core of <a href="https://ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/health_uct_ac_za/533/files/living%2520customary%2520law%2520and%2520families%2520in%2520South%2520Africa.pdf">customary law</a> are breached. The breach can be by the state or by the representatives appointed by the communities to manage or administer the land on their behalf and for their collective benefit.</p>
<p>Constitutional <a href="https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11660/12130">land reform measures</a> are intended to provide security of land tenure to all land holders equally. All laws, including customary law, are subject to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>. Any law, rule or conduct found to be inconsistent with constitutional principles of human dignity, equality and freedom is invalid. </p>
<p>In areas run by traditional leaders, land is owned collectively, in line with <a href="https://ci.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/content_migration/health_uct_ac_za/533/files/living%2520customary%2520law%2520and%2520families%2520in%2520South%2520Africa.pdf">customary law</a>. South African law <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2010/10.html">recognises</a> the application of living customary law, in accordance with the constitution.</p>
<p>Customary communal land tenure comes with inherent rights for land holders. They include collective ownership rights, equal benefit from the land and natural resources, and decision-making authority. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/customary-land-governance-holds-in-ghana-but-times-are-changing-and-not-for-the-better-205497">Customary land governance holds in Ghana. But times are changing and not for the better</a>
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<p>My <a href="https://scholar.ufs.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11660/12130">research</a> areas include issues of rural land tenure, custodianship and property law. </p>
<p>In my view, the Ingonyama Trust has misconstrued <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/journals/CCR/2011/4.pdf">customary communal land tenure</a>. Its dual application of both trust law and traditional customary law causes confusion. It’s not clear what the property rights of communal land holders are. Applying both sets of laws also blurs the limitations on the powers of the trust and traditional representatives. </p>
<p>Such misconstructions of customary law are often intertwined with corrupt practices and power mongering. These misconstructions preserve certain individuals’ powers and interests at the expense of the greater community. This occurs when understandings of individual private property ownership are applied to customary communal land tenure in a way that diminishes the need for communal consent and consultation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24566755">Living customary law</a> – which is developed over time by the community, is specific to that community, and occurs through collective practice and decision-making in accordance with shared values and rules – is then supplanted by misapplications. These misconstructions can originate from various sources, such as statutory regulations, distorted common law beliefs, and patriarchal traditional leadership practices that masquerade as customary law. </p>
<p>The result is insecure tenure for rural land occupants. The Ingonyama Trust epitomises these problems.</p>
<h2>How customary communal land tenure works</h2>
<p>Customary <a href="https://www.academia.edu/37320502/Land_reform_political_instability_and_commercial%20_agriculture_in_South_Africa_An_assessment">communal land tenure</a> is found in communities that have a genealogical or ancestral connection to that land. Some are beneficiaries of the government’s <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-37812014000200004">land restitution programme</a>. They collectively hold all property rights to their land. </p>
<p>Living customary law gives them, collectively, the power to hold individual community members and leaders or representatives accountable for breaches of their fiduciary duties to the community.</p>
<p>Often a statutory entity is created, such as a trust or association, that regulates the way the land is managed. For example, some communities in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform#:%7E:text=The%20Act%20makes%20provision%20for%20the%20restitution%20of%20rights%20in,and%20a%20Land%20Claims%20Court.">land restitution programme</a> are members of an association in terms of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/communal-property-associations-act">Communal Property Associations Act</a>. </p>
<p>Such communities elect representatives who manage the administration of the association and have fiduciary responsibilities in terms of the act. Associations are governed by their constitution and the Communal Property Associations Act. Similarly, the Ingonyama Trust is governed by traditional customary law and the statutory trust framework. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/customary-and-religious-laws-are-impeding-progress-towards-womens-health-in-nigeria-154221">Customary and religious laws are impeding progress towards women's health in Nigeria</a>
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<p>Both forms of communal land holding are distinguishable from private property ownership, which confers registered ownership rights on individuals. Private ownership is primarily governed by the common law. It gives the land owner autonomous decision-making powers with few limitations. The owner has extensive unilateral decision-making authority in respect of their privately owned land. They can, for example, transfer ownership, dispose of, or encumber their property (without consultation).</p>
<h2>The Ingonyama Trust and its tenure challenges</h2>
<p>The Ingonyama Trust was <a href="http://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/">established in 1994</a> by the then KwaZulu Government to administer all land it held. It is a corporate entity and administers 2.8 million hectares of the land in KwaZulu-Natal. The territory was once administered by the erstwhile KwaZulu homeland. This followed <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.1909116">a deal hammered out earlier</a> to entice Buthelezi and his Inkatha Freedom Party to take part in the elections that ended apartheid. The province is a stronghold of the party.</p>
<p>The Zulu monarch is the sole trustee, even though the land is <a href="http://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ingonyama-Trust-Act-as-amended.pdf">owned by the Zulu people</a>. The king represents the people and the land must be managed for their benefit and welfare. </p>
<p>The trust is plagued with disputes for not involving the community in its business transactions. There has been little evidence of collective benefit for the community. </p>
<p>The disputes expose unequal profit from trust assets, privileging a select few, instead of all the communal land holders equally. To sum up crisply: the trust has treated communal land like privately owned land.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-south-african-communitys-win-against-mining-company-matters-107746">Why South African community's win against mining company matters</a>
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<p>In 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeal <a href="https://lrc.org.za/24-august-2022-supreme-court-of-appeal-dismisses-ingonyama-trust-board-application-for-leave-to-appeal/">directed</a> the Ingonyama Trust to cease letting trust land to the land beneficiaries to whom the land belonged. It was ordered to repay the rent.</p>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">a panel appointed by parliament to review post-apartheid legislation</a> recommended that the trust be amended or repealed. </p>
<p>However, such criticism is perceived by some as a slight against the king and is met with social and political resistance. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv02898.htm">Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa</a> contends that the Ingonyama Trust cannot be repealed, amended or dissolved without the king’s approval – in accordance with customary law. </p>
<h2>Traditional rule versus democracy</h2>
<p>The misapplication of tenure under the Ingonyama Trust exemplifies structural conflict between trust tenure and customary traditional rule. </p>
<p>The trust applies a form of traditional despotic rule that can be at odds with democratic principles enshrined in the constitution. Under traditional despotic rule or authoritarian rule, customary law is interpreted in a way that naturally limits the need for community consultation, consent and participation in all decision-making related to the land from the “subjects”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">South Africa's courts and lawmakers have failed the ideal of cultural diversity</a>
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<p>This despotic rule is also at odds with trust tenure and the communal landholding rights of rural communities. The extent to which the community is able to equally use and enjoy their land, and the economic benefits accruing from it for collective social and economic progress, should be the yardstick against which communal land tenure is measured, and land rights clarified and protected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthea-lee September-Van Huffel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land disputes arise when the fundamental principles of customary law are breached. The breach can be at the hands of the state or its representatives.Anthea-lee September-Van Huffel, Lecturer, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2052302023-05-22T10:59:03Z2023-05-22T10:59:03ZButterfly behaviour shows ways to protect natural habitats in a rapidly changing world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525078/original/file-20230509-19-kh5sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C417%2C1807%2C1004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Sooty blue butterfly (_Zizeeria knysna_), a common yet easily missed resident species in grassland habitats.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charl Deacon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Natural landscapes are continually transformed to make room for agricultural and urban developments – often at the expense of important habitats and species.</p>
<p>That’s why, to avoid unnecessary species extinctions, it’s crucial to know which habitats to protect. In a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320723001775">recent paper</a> we studied how changes to the landscape affected butterflies in a grassland area of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.</p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/butterfly-behaviour-shows-ways-to-protect-natural-habitats-in-a-rapidly-changing-world-205230&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>The sheer speed at which landscapes are being transformed by human activity means that conservationists simply don’t have the time to gather detailed information on all the species in a particular region. That slows down conservation responses. It’s also not always possible to conserve entire landscapes and doing so is not always economically feasible.</p>
<p>Butterflies are icons in the sky. On warm summer days we can watch them dance elegantly from flower to flower. But they aren’t just beautiful to look at. They are <a href="https://www.entomoljournal.com/archives/2016/vol4issue2/PartB/4-2-36.1.pdf">important pollinators</a>, and are important in natural food chains. For scientists, they are sentinel species. By identifying how they interact with landscapes we gain a better understanding of how other insect species do, too.</p>
<p>Our research offers a closer look at how butterflies interact with the landscapes they roam. This, in turn, allows us to delve into how conservation measures can be adopted to better protect butterfly communities against the effects of people changing natural habitats.</p>
<p>We found that a variety of different grassland types, in addition to flower diversity, is important for butterflies. When it’s not possible to conserve whole grassland areas, a variety of smaller grassland patches can help protect butterflies and other insects against environmental transformation. This means that effective insect conservation is possible in areas earmarked for large-scale transformation – without sacrificing economic gain.</p>
<h2>The landscape</h2>
<p>Timber estates occupy a large proportion of the grassland landscape in the KwaZulu-Natal province, where we conducted our study. This leaves little habitat for grassland butterflies in some areas. </p>
<p>To ensure that the biological impact of plantation forestry is minimised, forestry practitioners have moved towards leaving at least a third of natural grasslands untouched among timber plantations. This provides butterflies and other insects with enough habitat to roam the landscape while timber production continues in other sections.</p>
<p>But this approach raises an important question: does it matter which grasslands are set aside for conservation? Or is one grassland much the same as another?</p>
<h2>The butterflies</h2>
<p>Many butterfly species roam in high elevation habitats, like the Mistbelt Grasslands of KwaZulu-Natal province. The area also forms part of one of the world’s <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Hotspots_Revisited.html?id=kD1iSgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">biodiversity hotspots</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525843/original/file-20230512-15-skp3ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Geranium bronze butterfly settles on some flowers in the study area.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charl Deacon</span></span>
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<p>Inconspicuous species such as the Natal spotted blue (<em>Azanus natalensis</em>) and the Meadow blue (<em>Cupidopsis cissus cissus</em>), along with large and showy species such as the Mountain pride (<em>Aeropetes tulbaghia</em>), frequent grasslands in the region. A keen eye might even spot some magisterial species briefly darting over, like the Flying handkerchief (<em>Papilio dardanus cenea</em>). Strikingly, these species and their counterparts rarely enter timber plantation compartments; they rely on grassland habitats.</p>
<p>We recorded and counted as many butterfly species as we could, allowing us to determine just how important natural grassland habitats are among plantation compartments. The results were clear – butterflies need grassland habitats to outlive human transformation.</p>
<h2>Not that simple</h2>
<p>There is a catch. Conserving only one or a few feature grassland types won’t protect all butterfly species. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320723001775">Our results</a> show that grasslands of similar types vary considerably. Each grassland has a set of characteristics that defines them such as availability of sunlight during the day, resistance to fire outbreaks and richness of flowering plants. These characteristics are important for attracting particular butterfly species that would avoid another type of grassland.</p>
<p>Butterflies are highly mobile insects. Many species rely on small elevation variations to complete their day-to-day tasks. In particular, butterflies move up and down the elevation gradient to avoid, or catch, more sun. This means it’s important for butterflies to have access to habitats at various elevations throughout the day.</p>
<p>Butterfly population levels are also highly variable between seasons and from one year to the next. During times when feeding and breeding resources are scarce, butterfly populations may be more concentrated in areas where resources are more reliable. Resources are often more reliable in nature reserves, meaning that butterflies need to access them. </p>
<p>When grassland patches among plantations are connected to nature reserves at the landscape level, they are more accessible to moving butterflies. This means that butterfly diversity is higher in grasslands that are close to, and connected to, neighbouring protected areas.</p>
<p>All of this is important information because it can help in guiding decisions about where to focus grassland conservation efforts in the region.</p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Our study shows that landscape variety is best and that taking this landscape-scale variety into consideration in conservation practices can greatly counteract human impact on natural systems. </p>
<p>In viewing butterflies as sentinels in conservation, we can use this information to decide which grasslands to conserve, or restore, to better protect all their insect residents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charl Deacon is a post-doctoral researcher affiliated with the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology, Stellenbosch University. His research is funded by the Foundational Biodiversity Information Programme (FBIP) and Mondi Group International.</span></em></p>Butterflies are sentinel species – their interactions with landscapes help scientists understand other insects better.Charl Deacon, Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Entomology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1906022022-10-06T13:43:48Z2022-10-06T13:43:48ZZulu monarchy: how royal women have asserted their agency and power throughout history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484899/original/file-20220915-37506-jywf4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Phill Magakoe/AFP Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The passing away of South Africa’s Zulu king <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/eidos-news/obituary-zulu-king-goodwill-zwelithini-72-died-on-friday-20210312/">Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu</a> in March 2021 refocused attention on the role of royal women in Zulu leadership. After the official mourning period, and to the surprise of many observers, the late king’s will <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/update-queen-mantfombi-madlamini-zulu-to-reign-as-regent-until-installation-of-next-king-20210322/">appointed</a> his senior wife Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu to hold the throne for his successor. </p>
<p>Queen Mantfombi <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/queen-mantfombi-dlamini-zulus-obituary-20210430/?fbclid=IwAR10PkNlTJf5_L6e37tk2NM8BNwk0tD3dRS2HsnwsHWT6iezFvpHK7cpFpI">died</a> six weeks later. Her will named her son <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/new-zulu-king-aims-to-unite-the-royal-family-20210603/">Misuzulu kaZwelithini</a> as the heir.</p>
<p>In response, Zwelithini’s first wife Queen Sibongile Dlamini Zulu and her daughters, Ntombizosuthu kaZwelithini and Ntandokayise kaZwelithini, <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-01-13-legal-tussle-over-zulu-royal-family-succession-could-take-years-to-resolve/">challenged the late king’s will in court</a>. They tried to prevent Misuzulu’s installation.</p>
<p>These contestations are only the latest episodes in a long history of royal women’s agency in the affairs of the Zulu kingdom. </p>
<p>Since 2010, the South African government has formally recognised seven kingdoms in the country. Of these, the Zulu royal house is the best financially supported. As a result of secret <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/">negotiations</a> in the last days of apartheid, the Zulu king is the largest landowner in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the sole trustee of nearly 30% of KwaZulu-Natal’s land. South African taxpayers <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2021/04/the-king-is-dead">support the royal family</a> to the tune of R75 million (over US$4 million) each year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-zulu-kingship-judgment-tells-us-about-the-future-of-south-african-customary-law-178786">What the Zulu kingship judgment tells us about the future of South African customary law</a>
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<p>As scholars of traditional authority in the region that is now KwaZulu-Natal, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02582473.2021.1937300?scroll=top&needAccess=true">we convened</a> a roundtable after Zwelithini’s passing with historian Jabulani Sithole to reflect on how historians have written about the king. As we noted in the roundtable, this necessary attention to Zwelithini and his forefathers has obscured the agency exerted by royal Zulu women in state-building. Historians still have much to explore on this topic. The isiZulu language, <em>izibongo</em> (praises) and place names are among the sources still to be mined in depth. But Zwelithini’s passing provides a starting point for reflection on the role of senior royal women in Zulu history.</p>
<h2>Gender, status and access to power</h2>
<p>In the historical polities of southeastern Africa, gender and generation shaped a person’s status and access to power. Respect for elders was encouraged. Women carried many responsibilities in showing respect for men. Men, too, were required to show deference for senior women – including mothers, mothers-in-law and royal women.</p>
<p>As the historian <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sifiso-Ndlovu">Sifiso Ndlovu</a> has argued, among royals,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the primary principles of social organisation were seniority, defined by lineage and relative age.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This does not mean gender did not come into play. As Ndlovu points out, some of the praises of royal women masculinise them. The <em>izibongo</em> of Queen okaMsweli, who was the mother of King <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dinuzulu">Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo</a>, describe her as “uSomakoyisa”. This praise positions her as “the tough and uncompromising one”. The prefix “so” depicts a male figure (versus “no” to refer to a female). </p>
<h2>Reinforcing customs, fighting succession battles</h2>
<p>Perhaps most famous of the powerful Zulu women are Regent Queen Mkabayi kaJama, regent for Senzangakhona kaJama, and the Queen Mother Nandi. </p>
<p>Regent Queen Mkabayi operated as a senior member of the Zulu kingdom during its height in the early 19th century. She was responsible for enforcing custom and advising kings <a href="https://sahistory.org.za/people/shaka-zulu">Shaka kaSenzangakhona</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dingane-ka-senzangakhona">Dingane kaSenzangakhona</a> as part of a military council. The <em>izibongo</em> of Queen Nandi present her as a strong-willed and protective mother who advocated for her son Shaka’s ascendancy.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-has-a-new-traditional-courts-bill-but-it-doesnt-protect-indigenous-practices-190938">South Africa has a new traditional courts bill. But it doesn't protect indigenous practices</a>
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<p>Royal women defended the Zulu monarchy during times of assault and civil war. For example, Novimbi okaMsweli advised her son Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo in the wake of the Zulu civil war that followed the British annexation of Zululand. While he was exiled to Saint Helena, she kept him updated and cooperated with the prime minister of the Zulu, Mankulumana kaSophunga.</p>
<p>Royal women also defended King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo during his trial after <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/bambatha-rebellion-1906"><em>impi yamakhanda</em></a> (the war of the heads, or Bambatha’s Rebellion) in 1906, collaborating with Anglican missionary <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harriette-emily-colenso">Harriette Colenso</a> to position the leader as protecting Zulu autonomy. </p>
<p>These royal women played important roles in succession disputes. <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Zulu_Woman.html?id=5ZTelqdJKgQC&redir_esc=y">Christina Sibiya</a>, the wife of King Solomon kaDinuzulu, provided her son <a href="https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/23611">Cyprian Nyangayezinzwe Bhekuzulu kaSolomon</a> with the impetus to claim the throne. She also testified in 1945 to the government commission that found her son to be the rightful heir.</p>
<p>In 1969, King Cyprian’s widows and Princess Greta <a href="https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/44558d306?locale=en">manoeuvred</a> to have Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu installed. Princess Nonhlanhla shaped the official account of Zwelithini’s ascendancy and rule through her contribution to his <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/King_of_Goodwill.html?id=ufAwAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">authorised biography</a>.</p>
<p>During King Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu’s long reign, royal women played key roles in sustaining and reestablishing cultural inheritances. The late king’s fourth wife, Queen Buhle kaMathe, revitalised uMkhosi woMhlanga (the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/sights-and-sounds-from-umkhosi-womhlanga-2022/">Reed Dance</a>), a long-standing ceremony to celebrate Zulu womanhood, and held major cultural events at her palace.</p>
<p>Princess Ntandoyenkosi was granted the title of “head of the maidens” in 2005. Mukelile kaThandekile Jane Ndlovu Zulu and Nqobangothando kaNophumelelo MaMchiza Zulu promoted <em>izintombi zomhlanga</em> (virginity testing) revivals and a controversial <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-06-16-virginity-testing-gender-equality-commission-bans-maiden-bursaries/">bursary for “maidens”</a> proposed in 2016.</p>
<p>The claim by Queen Sibongile that she is entitled to half of the <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/zulu-royals-standoff-not-about-throne-but-about-who-gets-what-in-the-will-20210624/">royal estate</a> as Zwelithini’s only legal wife shows new forms of agency for the women of the royal family. It remains to be seen what role King Misuzulu’s new wife, Queen <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/witness/news/kzn/meet-zulu-kings-wife-to-be-ntokozo-mayisela-20210515/">Ntokozo Mayisela</a>, will take in the public sphere.</p>
<h2>Sustaining chiefdoms</h2>
<p>Beyond the inner circle of the Zulu kingdom, there are instances of women sustaining chiefdoms in the early decades of colonial rule in Natal. The scholar Felix Jackson <a href="https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10413/12460/Jackson_Eva_Aletta_2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">shows women members of chiefly elites</a> attempting to reestablish polities in these difficult years.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-goodwill-zwelithini-the-zulu-king-without-a-kingdom-156965">South Africa's Goodwill Zwelithini: the Zulu king without a kingdom</a>
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<p>Zulu women don’t have a single, homogeneous status. Not all women enjoyed access to political power. But there were those who actively engaged in politics and governance. Their influence is yet to get full attention and understanding.</p>
<p>The intrigues of the succession dispute remind us that much more historical research is needed on women’s access to power.</p>
<p><em>Jabulani Sithole, a commissioner in the KwaZulu-Natal Commission for Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, contributed to the research.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and Fulbright.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Timbs has received funding from Fulbright </span></em></p>Royal women play important roles in succession disputes, such as the naming of King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu’s heir.Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist UniversityLiz Timbs, Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina WilmingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813092022-04-14T15:04:35Z2022-04-14T15:04:35ZSouth African floods wreaked havoc because people are forced to live in disaster prone areas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457987/original/file-20220413-26-lc31jt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A structure damaged after a mudslide in Clermont, near Durban, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Phill Magakoe/Contributor Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275118314744">Rapid urbanisation</a> and government failure <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-sa/humansettlements">to deliver adequate housing</a> are among the driving forces behind the proliferation of informal settlements across South African cities and towns. These informal settlements are notorious for their perilous and unhealthy conditions. </p>
<p>This has been sharply illustrated in recent flooding in Ethekwini (Durban), the port city in KwaZulu-Natal province, and its surrounding communities. The catastrophic flooding has claimed <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/everything-is-gone-south-africas-flood-victims-search-for-shelter/eiap9apq8">hundreds of lives</a> and countless families have been displaced from their homes, worsening the dire housing problem many were already in. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to provide adequate housing, primarily because there isn’t enough <a href="https://housingfinanceafrica.org/documents/urban-land-reform-integration-and-housing-delivery-in-south-africa-a-critique-of-the-presidents-panel-on-land-reform/">suitable land</a> in the right places. The unavailability of suitable land for adequate housing is due to stunted progress in urban land reform. This, in turn, is crippling the capacity of local governments to provide adequate housing in areas that are not prone to disaster. </p>
<p>The result is that <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.POP.SLUM.UR.ZS?locations=ZA">a quarter</a> of South Africa’s urban population is living in informal settlements. These are built wherever people find open spaces that are nearer to economic opportunities. They lack basic amenities and infrastructure, including proper roads and storm water drainage systems. This leaves their residents most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and changing weather patterns, such as floods.</p>
<p>Recently, new informal settlement have been developing on risky and environmentally sensitive areas that are prone to flooding and landslides, among other dangers.</p>
<p>Ethekwini is a case in point. The city’s geographic information system shows that some of the vacant land being encroached on by informal settlements falls under the <a href="https://www.chijournal.org/Journals/PDF/R220-25">50- or 100-year flood lines</a>. Flood lines physically demarcate areas that could flood within a certain time interval. The time interval is computed on average qualification and could be 50 or 100 years. Living within areas demarcated as flood lines is not only illegal but also very dangerous. </p>
<p>Flood lines are mainly demarcated along rivers and streams. They cover the river flood plains. In the recent torrential storm, streams were flooded, including their flood plains. Communities that are established in low lying areas and close to streams were the worst affected, along with those established on steep slopes. Areas affected have included Prospecton, Isipingo and Ntuzuma.</p>
<p>Now and again urban planners and researchers have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/jamba.v11i1.537">sounded an alarm</a> about the dangers posed by occupying the flood lines, be it in formal or informal settlements. However, when it comes to controlling the proliferation of informal settlements in disaster prone areas, law enforcement has been piecemeal.</p>
<h2>Lessons that haven’t been learnt</h2>
<p>Ethekwini municipality hasn’t applied lessons from previous incidents of flooding – in the region as well as more broadly across the country – into its planning. The area experienced flooding in <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-cape-town-durban-july-2016">July 2016</a>, May <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-kwazulu-natal-may-2017">2017</a>, October <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/kwazulu-natal-durban-flood-october-2017">2017</a>, March <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-kwazulu-natal-march-2019">2019</a>, April <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-kzn-eastern-cape-april-2019">2019</a> and November <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-durban-november-2019">2019</a>. There has also been flooding in other parts of the country. In November <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-11-22-sa-weather-service-issues-flood-alert-after-havoc-of-cloudburst-in-george/">2021</a> the city of George was hit by floods. In January <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-kzn-north-west-province-january-2022">2022</a> Ladysmith was hit by flooding while Gauteng province was affected in February <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-gauteng-kwazulunatal-february-2022">2022</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Ethekwini is still ill prepared to deal with flooding, especially in poor communities. As if poverty were not enough of a burden, poor people are bearing the heaviest brunt of flooding, worsening their vulnerable position in the city. </p>
<p>Short of relocating communities to safer areas, the city could, and should, have taken other steps by building capacity for low-income and informal communities living in high risk areas.</p>
<p>Steps should have included:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>formal flood warning systems and evacuation programmes</p></li>
<li><p>land use controls on flood-prone sites</p></li>
<li><p>building regulations to prevent incursion of floodwaters and insurance schemes </p></li>
<li><p>educating people, especially in low-lying areas, about the fact that they are prone to flooding</p></li>
<li><p>law enforcement to prevent people from building in flood risk areas. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>These strategies have been in used in a number of <a href="https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/south-asias-tryst-with-floods/">South Asian countries</a>. </p>
<p>But the more sustainable solutions can be found in proper urban planning.</p>
<h2>Climate change and urban planning</h2>
<p>Urban planners have a key role to play in turning the grim situation around. They might not directly solve the root causes of climate change or sea level rise and flooding. But they can contribute a great deal to urban resilience and fortification measures to mitigate the impacts of flooding.</p>
<p>Well-designed urban spaces and interventions that are evidence-based can improve social, economic and environmental resilience. </p>
<p>Building resilience also involves having real mitigation measures in place. </p>
<p>Addressing complex urban challenges in an integrated way means developing solutions not only for one challenge, but also for urban poverty, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19850-3">inequality</a>, climate change and urban ecosystems. The goal is to build livelihoods that are both sustainable and resilient. </p>
<p>This requires an approach that includes looking at all the hazards that could face an urban area, which sectors need to be involved and which stakeholders need to be roped in to ensure a solid foundation is put in place for building resilience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181309/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hope Magidimisha-Chipungu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A quarter of South Africans in cities are living in informal settlements.Hope Magidimisha-Chipungu, Associate Professor, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813602022-04-14T15:04:09Z2022-04-14T15:04:09ZFloods in South Africa: protecting people must include a focus on women and girls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458179/original/file-20220414-18-c45s0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A general view of the damage in an informal settlement heavy rains, mudslides and winds in Durban, on April 13, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is one of the main factors contributing to recurring floods experienced in many parts of the world over the <a href="https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch3s3-4-3.html#:%7E:text=Floods%20depend%20on%20precipitation%20intensity,%2C%20dams%2C%20or%20reservoirs">past years</a>. In 2021, the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/about/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> reported that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities contributed approximately <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/">1.1°C</a> of global warming between 1850 and 1900. Unless drastic measures are taken to <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2021/08/09/ar6-wg1-20210809-pr/">curb emissions</a> over the next 20 years, the global temperature is expected to warm by more than 1.5°C. This implies that if extreme measures are not taken, floods will continue to wreak havoc on many regions around the world.</p>
<p>The Durban (eThekwini) area of South Africa has experienced many floods over the recent years. They have wreaked havoc. For instance, in April 2019, <a href="https://floodlist.com/africa/south-africa-floods-kzn-eastern-cape-april-2019">a deadly flood and landslides hit the area</a>. The region is currently reeling from what is seen as the worst flood in the history of South Africa. More than 300 people have <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/04/13/death-toll-due-to-kwazulu-natal-s-devastating-floods-hits-253">lost their lives</a>. There is also excessive damage to infrastructure and homes.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The worst flood in the history of South Africa.</span></figcaption>
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<p>When disastrous events like floods are combined with social inequities, their effects are much greater. Impoverished communities, which in South Africa are predominantly black communities, are more likely to face even worse effects. Owing to historical spatial and housing arrangements which were based on “race”, many black communities still occupy flood-prone informal settlements, exposing them to a higher risk of disaster. </p>
<p>After the floods in 2019 we undertook <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00219096211069646">research</a> to explore the vulnerability and adaptation experiences of black women in eThekwini. We selected four local areas that had been severely affected by the flood, including Umlazi, Ntuzuma, Inanda and Kwamashu, for the case study. </p>
<p>The study explored the factors that shaped the vulnerability and adaptation experiences of women. We conducted face-to-face interviews and focused group discussions with a sample community of black African women who had experienced flood effects in the selected localities.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00219096211069646">research</a> showed that gender interacts with other social factors to expose black women in particular to the effects of floods.</p>
<p>The recent downpours in eThekwini are a stark reminder that the South African government must invest significantly in flood resilience and adaptation mechanisms. Extra attention must be given to vulnerable communities and individuals to ensure equity and justice in the steps to mitigate the impact of climate change.</p>
<h2>Poverty and vulnerability</h2>
<p>Our research showed, in empirical terms, that women and girls living in poverty face many forms of discrimination and pressure during flood disasters. Severe flood wipes away people’s sources of livelihood, plunging them into more extreme poverty conditions. The interviews showed that the burden of providing food and other essentials to the family fell to the women in these localities. We also found that the vulnerability of women was shaped by intersectional gendered power relations. This, in turn, entrenched abusive behaviour from some of the men in the family. </p>
<p>Our study also showed that some interventions exposed women and girls to possible abuse. For example, one response to flooding from the eThekwini municipality has been to open up community halls for victims. This forces men, women and girls to cohabit in the refuge halls, exposing women to potential abuse while in these supposedly “safe” spaces.</p>
<p>This is not to say that the women were always victims. Many said they were aware that they had to shoulder much of the responsibility for the family’s welfare. This gave them agency and strength, which in turn made them more adaptive. </p>
<p>For many women, especially single parents, the fear that any impending flood events would affect their children gave them the ability to find proactive ways of adapting.</p>
<p>We also found that the women had knowledge arising from their experience that could be useful in complementing municipal <a href="https://theconversation.com/local-knowledge-adds-value-to-mapping-flood-risk-in-south-africas-informal-settlements-181304">management interventions</a>. Women were open to being trained in simple flood management skills, such as how to divert running water away from the house. Training of this kind could be organised in small groups across different wards.</p>
<h2>The implications</h2>
<p>To address gender equity in climate adaptation, we recommend a shift in addressing black women’s vulnerability. Adaptation planners need to take the different dimensions of vulnerability into consideration when putting together plans. Experience shows that adaptation planners focus on improving infrastructures. But this isn’t enough. A wider perspective is needed that addresses both the vulnerability of the built environment (physical vulnerability) as well as social aspects, such as the vulnerability of women and girls. Even here, a nuanced approach needs to be taken given that women face different challenges based on where they live and their social, racial and economic identities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women and girls living in poverty face many forms of discrimination and pressure during events like flood disasters.Fidelis Udo, Researcher, University of KwaZulu-NatalMaheshvari Naidu, Full Professor in Anthropology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1813042022-04-13T18:21:32Z2022-04-13T18:21:32ZLocal knowledge adds value to mapping flood risk in South Africa’s informal settlements<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457988/original/file-20220413-28-h6yyqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man is seen searching through debris at the Blue Lagoon beach following heavy rains and winds in Durban, on April 12, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rajesh Jantilal/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The current flooding in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban is dire and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/everything-is-gone-south-africas-flood-victims-search-for-shelter/eiap9apq8">reports</a> indicate that hundreds of people have died and thousands directly affected. Several months’ worth of rainfall have fallen in a day or so, and the effects have been catastrophic. </p>
<p>The problem of floods in Durban is not new. Between 1980 and 2010, there were <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/jamba/v11n2/04.pdf">over 77</a> disastrous flood events in KwaZulu-Natal province and others. The flood events can be categorised as disastrous when lives are lost, people are displaced and property is destroyed.</p>
<p>Floods have over the years become increasingly problematic, especially in the global south, because of high population density, land-use change, increased impervious surfaces, poor solid waste management and settlement of people in flood plains and wetlands. The advent of climate change has also led to an increase in the intensity and frequency of rainfall and flooding in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02626667.2013.857411">many cities</a>. </p>
<p>Flooding is arguably even more problematic in informal settlements because of the lack of planning. Historically, the apartheid regime legally compelled people classified as black Africans to live in marginalised settlements and restricted their movements. Because housing wasn’t planned or provided, informal settlements emerged. </p>
<p>Rural-urban migration has also contributed to the increase of informal settlements in South Africa. There were 1,176 informal settlements in 2004. By May 2020, there were well over 3,200 <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.2021.1973907?journalCode=rsag20">such settlememts</a>.</p>
<p>Floods usually destroy infrastructure, houses and property, cause displacements and loss of life, and pose risks to the health and livelihoods of people. This, in turn, increases poverty. </p>
<p>Since floods are not usually predicted well in advance in South Africa, resources meant for other important city services such as healthcare and sanitation tend to be channelled to provide relief to flood victims as well as rescue operations. This in turn affects overall service provision and development in the city.</p>
<p>There is therefore a need to look at the complex problem of floods in South Africa from a more holistic and context-specific angle, particularly by integrating local people’s indigenous knowledge. </p>
<p>As part of our research we conducted a critical <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03736245.2021.1973907?casa_token=6tIkWQrrqAwAAAAA:mu7wkb73BJpqt7YkTdsCMwM1JmmxTh7SojkQgmJCo61ArrMivlnPfkQWIAwXUBa_E21AMtNitI33BA">literature review</a> to see how flood vulnerability was understood in South Africa. We found that the use of indigenous knowledge and geographical information systems in mapping flood vulnerability was highly fragmented. </p>
<p>There is limited use of indigenous knowledge and inadequate community participation in the mapping of flood vulnerability in informal settlements. We showed that, in the context of informal settlements, the “picture” of places where floods could cause disaster would be more detailed and complete if local communities were consulted and their knowledge was integrated.</p>
<h2>Why local knowledge makes a difference</h2>
<p>A geographical information system creates, analyses and maps all types of data. This includes data on floods and areas vulnerable to flooding. It can be drawn on when engaging stakeholders and educating the public about how human and environmental systems interact. But a geographical information system on its own is not able to explain the human factors that cause flood vulnerability. </p>
<p>Hence the need for local or indigenous knowledge.</p>
<p>Indigenous knowledge is strongly linked to <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Indigenous-Knowledge-System-and-Local-Adaptation-to-Fabiyi-Oloukoi/442e8611e2a150bf7baa548ffa27ec4e49a12b2a">local culture and past experiences</a>, and therefore it can be a source of resilience to flooding and other natural disasters.</p>
<p>South Africa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/disaster-management-act">laws</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/disaster-management-act-policy-framework-disaster-risk-management-south-africa">regulations</a> make provision for using indigenous knowledge in reducing flood disaster. But the use of this approach is still relatively low. In many cases it is nonexistent, especially in urban areas. </p>
<h2>Precarious living</h2>
<p>As in other sub-Saharan cities, the poorer communities in Durban mainly live in informal settlements. This is because the local planning authorities are unable to keep up with the increasing demand for accommodation as people move to the city. According to <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/pdfs/Durban.pdf">city reports</a>, between 2016 and 2019, the local authority managed to build only an average of 4,000 houses a year. This means the city has a backlog of more than 440,000 houses. It could take decades to clear.</p>
<p>The informal settlements are unfortunately often located in environmentally fragile areas like steep slopes, wetlands and flood plains. This is land that is available precisely because it is unsuitable for building. </p>
<p>People living in these informal settlements are adversely affected by floods because their homes have poor drainage infrastructure and are built with poor materials. The residents also arguably have low coping and adaptive capacity. They tend not to receive flood early warning information in time and in ways that would be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354594604_Integrating_Indigenous_Knowledge_and_Geographical_Information_System_in_mapping_flood_vulnerability_in_informal_settlements_in_a_South_African_context_a_critical_review">helpful</a>.</p>
<p>This points to the need for bottom-up approaches in dealing with potential flood disaster management in informal settlement areas. Knowledge based on familiarity with the place offers a number of advantages:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>it provides a culturally appropriate response</p></li>
<li><p>is socially inclusive </p></li>
<li><p>is cost-effective</p></li>
<li><p>is a participatory way of reducing flood vulnerability, especially in informal settlements </p></li>
<li><p>promotes community members’ participation in finding solutions that work where they live </p></li>
<li><p>provides city planners with information on the spatial pattern as well as locally specific factors that cause flooding and damage in particular geographical areas. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Mapping or spatially visualising the patterns with the use of geographic information systems and levels of flood vulnerability can identify the people who need the most help. This can assist local government and other stakeholders to formulate policies and strategies that reduce the impact of floods on people.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the reality is that flooding <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2013.857411">will increase</a> in many parts of the world due to climate change. There is thus a need for stakeholders at various levels to come up with ways of reducing people’s vulnerability. Increasing people’s coping and adaptive capacity is one of the key ways of promoting resilience. </p>
<p>The mapping of floods by integrating the indigenous knowledge of local communities is an approach that potentially has much to offer flood disaster management.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Flooding is arguably even more problematic in informal settlements because of the lack of planning.Garikai Martin Membele, PhD researcher at University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of KwaZulu-NatalMaheshvari Naidu, Full Professor in Anthropology, University of KwaZulu-NatalOnisimo Mutanga, Full Professor and SARChI Chair on Land use Planning., University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1789242022-04-07T14:10:22Z2022-04-07T14:10:22ZThe 100-year-old story of South Africa’s first history book in the isiZulu language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454206/original/file-20220324-15-r57pc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the cover of the book Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UKZN Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year marks the centenary of the publication in 1922 of <em>Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona</em> (The Black People and Whence They Came), the first book-length history of black people written in isiZulu. Part of the Nguni language group, there are an estimated 12 million isiZulu speakers in South Africa.</p>
<p>Its author was Magema Fuze, now seen as a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02590123.2005.11964129">major figure</a> in the body of writings produced in African languages in South Africa, but one who remains too little known outside narrow scholarly circles. </p>
<p>The significance of the book is that he was the sole author and the first native speaker of isiZulu to publish a book; previous isiZulu books had been written and published by missionaries and colonial officials. The book was a radical act of publishing; it contained local histories of chiefdoms and kingdoms – from the Zulu to the Ngcobo – as well as theories about the Egyptian/Nubian origins of all black Africans. </p>
<h2>Magema Fuze</h2>
<p>Fuze was born in the mid-1840s in the newly formed British colony of Natal (today KwaZulu-Natal). In 1856 his father sent him to be educated at Ekukhanyeni, the mission station set up at Bishopstowe near Pietermaritzburg by the first Anglican Bishop of Natal, John Colenso. The young Magema learnt to read and write, and also trained as a printer.</p>
<p>Fuze later became a firm supporter of Bishop Colenso in the difficult times that the Bishop faced. In the early 1860s Colenso became the central figure in a fierce dispute over religious beliefs in the Anglican Church. Then in 1874 he became involved in an ugly political battle when he took up the defence of Chief Langalibalele ka Mthimkhulu of the Hlubi people in Natal. The chief had quarrelled with the colonial authorities, and had been exiled to the Cape. </p>
<p>Colenso was one of the very few colonists who thought that he had been unjustly treated. </p>
<p>Throughout these events, Fuze was one of Colenso’s main sources of information on African opinion in the colony. In the Langalibalele affair, he played a key role in helping the bishop to find witnesses that he could use in the chief’s defence.</p>
<p>Fuze was further drawn into assisting Bishop Colenso after the British invaded the Zulu kingdom and defeated Cetshwayo’s armies in 1879. The bishop saw the invasion as another monstrous case of injustice, and was determined to expose the actions of British officials before and after the war. </p>
<h2>Prolific</h2>
<p>Over the next four years, he published a stream of articles and books in which he commented critically on reports on local affairs that appeared in official documents and in newspaper articles. Through this period, Fuze was kept busy in discussions with the bishop and with putting his written comments into print.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-moral-shadows-cast-by-south-africas-colonial-history-127123">The long moral shadows cast by South Africa's colonial history</a>
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<p>Bishop Colenso died in 1883. His daughter Harriette took up his work, but in 1884 disaster struck at Bishopstowe when the house burnt down and the printing press was destroyed. By the late 1880s Fuze found that there was no more work for him to do at Bishopstowe. </p>
<p>He went to St Albans College, run by the Anglican Church in Pietermaritzburg, where he taught typesetting to the students. This was the time when Fuze’s career as a writer of newspaper articles began to take off. He wrote numerous letters and articles on public affairs for <em>Inkanyiso</em>, a paper founded by the Anglican Church.</p>
<p>In 1896 Fuze travelled to the island of St Helena where Dinuzulu, the senior figure in the Zulu royal house, had been exiled after rebelling against British colonial rule in 1888. Fuze spent more than a year at St Helena, teaching Dinuzulu and also his children to read and write. He eventually travelled back to Natal when Dinuzulu was allowed to return early in 1898.</p>
<h2>Amakholwa</h2>
<p>After his return from St Helena, Fuze wrote numerous letters to <em>Ipepa lo Hlanga</em>, the earliest known African-owned newspaper in Natal. He commented on public affairs and on African customs, and, as was common in the newspapers of the time, expressed his opinions about what other letter-writers had to say. This practice made for lively debates among <em>amakholwa</em> (African Christian converts) intellectuals in Natal. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover showing an illustration of a photo of an elderly man in a suit, with a beard and cane and a bright red banner across the middle wit the words 'Magma Fuze'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454210/original/file-20220324-17-1sajzoa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UKZN Press</span></span>
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<p>We know very little of Fuze’s life in the early years of the 1900s. He comes back into view from 1915 onwards, living in a state of poverty in Pietermaritzburg. At this time, in his old age, he began writing a long series of articles on history and public affairs for the bilingual newspaper <em>Ilanga lase Natal</em>. This had been established in 1903 by John Dube, a leading political and intellectual figure in Natal who in 1912 became the first president of the South African Native National Congress (later the African National Congress, the country’s ruling party since the first democratic elections of 1994).</p>
<p>Fuze’s articles, together with letters that he wrote to the editor of <em>Ilanga</em>, often called forth opposing views from his readers. The newspaper, like others of the time, served as a forum for lively discussions among amakholwa in Natal about their history and identity. This was a period of growing political resistance to oppressive white rule among black people all over South Africa. IsiZulu-speaking intellectuals and political figures were actively discussing what it meant to be ‘Zulu’. In this context, Fuze found firm support from some of his readers for putting his ideas about the past into a book.</p>
<h2>The book</h2>
<p>Fuze seems to have had the idea of publishing a book on his researches into the history of Africans in Natal by at least 1902. But for many years he was unable to find the money that he needed for the purpose. He was eventually able to find assistance from a landowner, Nicholas Masuku, his son N.J.N. Masuku, and his old patron and co-worker from the Bishopstowe years, Harriette Colenso. His book was privately published in Pietermaritzburg in 1922 under the title <em>Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona</em>.</p>
<p>Much of the book was based on articles that Fuze had published in <em>Ilanga lase Natal</em> after 1915. It was not a conventional history book. Fuze did not call himself a historian in the sense of someone who is trained to use evidence to write an authoritative account of the past. In many ways he was writing to open up discussion of affairs of the day among amakholwa intellectuals.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-zulu-radio-dramas-subverted-apartheids-grand-design-126786">How Zulu radio dramas subverted apartheid's grand design</a>
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</em>
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<p><em>Abantu Abamnyama</em> was published in the first few months of 1922. Fuze died in September of that year at the age of about 78. He would probably have been disappointed with the way his book was received by the public. It cost five shillings (more than R200 or US$13 in today’s money), so very few people could afford to buy it. It was read by a few specialists in education and in Zulu literature, but does not seem to have had a popular readership. </p>
<p>Today, though, Fuze’s book is coming to be seen as a very important text in the archive of how black intellectuals thought about the past in the often troubled times when “modern” South Africa was coming into being. One of the obvious topics of discussion was the rise of the Zulu kingdom under the reign of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/shaka-zulu">Shaka kaSenzangakhona</a>. Less obvious topics included debates about whether the Bible should be read literally by the newly converted.</p>
<p>In 2011 I published a book on Fuze. When I first began research on him, I was uncomfortable with the idea of being his biographer. Writing about someone else’s life is not an easy thing to do: it puts a heavy responsibility on the writer. But in more recent years I have become comfortable with the idea. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Book cover that shows a collage of photos of various ancient manuscripts, rock art, archaeological digs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/454325/original/file-20220325-21-yp13yf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p>As more and more scholars search for and rediscover the lost treasures of African intellectual history, I am pleased that I found Fuze at the beginning of my academic career. His writing continues to influence my thinking on how best to recapture the ideas of the past and make them come alive for contemporary readers. I think Fuze himself would be excited by the thought that he is now once again an influential author.</p>
<p><em>This edited extract is from a chapter in the book <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/archives-of-times-past/">Archives of Times Past</a>: Conversations about South Africa’s Deep History (Wits University Press). Mokoena is the author of <a href="https://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=369">Magema Fuze</a>: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual (UKZN Press)</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178924/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hlonipha Mokoena does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Magema Fuze’s book was a radical act of publishing. It contained histories of chiefdoms and kingdoms - from the Zulu to the Ngcobo.Hlonipha Mokoena, Associate Professor at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1787862022-03-09T14:28:02Z2022-03-09T14:28:02ZWhat the Zulu kingship judgment tells us about the future of South African customary law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450639/original/file-20220308-19-tf7odp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prince Misuzulu, second from the left, attends the provincial memorial service for his mother, the late Mantfombi Dlamini, at the Khangelakamankegane Royal Palace in Nongoma, in May 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the death of AmaZulu King Goodwill Zwelithini on <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/zulu-king-goodwill-zwelithini-has-died-20210312">12 March 2021</a> in South Africa, the royal family convened on 24 March 2021 and <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2021-03-24-queen-mantfombi-appointed-regent-of-zulu-nation-3-months-of-mourning-declared/">appointed Queen Mantfombi Dlamini Zulu</a> as regent. Although the king’s third wife, she was his great wife – a royal consort who, by Zulu law, births the king’s successor. The king had five other wives. </p>
<p>Before her regency was gazetted by the premier of the KwaZulu-Natal province, as required by <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/cgta_2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/TLGFA-Traditional-Leadership-and-Governance-Framework-Act-2003-Act-No-41-of-2003.pdf">South African statutory law</a>, the queen <a href="https://www.news24.com/witness/news/just-in-zulu-queen-has-died-20210429">died on 29 April 2021</a>. On 14 May 2021, the royal family unanimously <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57035157">nominated her firstborn son, Prince Misuzulu</a>, as the successor to the Zulu throne. Later that month, various members of the royal family, notably Queen Sibongile Dlamini, the late king’s first wife, <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/amazulu-nation-does-not-have-a-king-prince-thokozani-zulu/">challenged</a> his will, and the validity of Prince Misuzulu’s nomination as his successor. </p>
<p>On 2 March 2022, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZPHC/2022/6.html">found</a> that Prince Misuzulu was appropriately identified and nominated as the undisputed successor to the Zulu throne. By dismissing objections to his nomination, the court paved the way for his coronation as the king – if the matter is not successfully appealed. </p>
<p>There are 10,7 million isiZulu speakers in South Africa, about 22% of the population, according to the <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/SAStatistics/SAStatistics2012.pdf#page=38">2012 census</a>.</p>
<p>Obviously, this dispute has <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-03-03-the-court-has-spoken-all-hail-king-misuzulu-ka-zwelithini/">political undertones</a>. I will, however, not discuss them. Rather, I focus on the significance of two questions concerning the royal family’s resort to the courts and the subsequent ruling.</p>
<p>Why was this dispute adjudicated with “the white man’s law”, thereby questioning the authority of the AmaZulu Royal Council, whose dispute resolution mechanisms ought to be respected by all Zulus? What is the significance of the ruling for matrimonial property rights under customary law?</p>
<p>Customary law, or indigenous law, is recognised by the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf#page=113">constitution</a> and put on an <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-courts-and-lawmakers-have-failed-the-ideal-of-cultural-diversity-91508">equal footing with common law</a>. This implies that its development ought to be undertaken by its adherents in a bottom-up manner, rather than by the courts. </p>
<h2>An uncomfortable truth</h2>
<p>Firstly, the royal family’s resort to the courts confirms an uncomfortable truth: African customs and traditions are subject to state courts. Importantly, these courts – both procedurally and content-wise – are replicas of the colonial justice system <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3511914">bequeathed by the Dutch and the British</a>.</p>
<p>Lest we forget, although European colonialists allowed Africans to continue observing their indigenous customs, they smartly subjected the validity of these customs to European standards and procedures.</p>
<p>Moreover, colonial schools, churches, and work systems were configured to reflect European culture. So, in essence, African elites, especially judges, are <a href="https://www.academia.edu/62788757/LEGAL_PLURALISM_AND_THE_FUTURE_OF_PERSONAL_FAMILY_LAWS_IN_AFRICA">philosophical clones of Europeans</a> because they carried on from where their colonial masters left off.</p>
<p>Secondly, the High Court ruling recognised that the late king’s first wife married him in community of property. A <a href="https://www.news24.com/truelove/archive/in-or-out-of-community-of-property-20200414">marriage in community of property</a> is one of profit and loss. The property is divided equally in the event of marriage dissolution, unless the parties opted otherwise through a pre-marital agreement.</p>
<p>Specifically, paragraph 28 of the ruling relied on the 2021 Constitutional Court judgment in <a href="https://collections.concourt.org.za/bitstream/handle/20.500.12144/36642/Judgment%20-CCT%2023-20%20Sithole%20and%20Another%20v%20Sithole%20and%20Another.pdf?sequence=20&isAllowed=y">Sithole vs Sithole</a>. This case declared that all marriages of black people under section 22(6) of the colonial era <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/black-administration-act-5-jul-1927-0000">Black Administration Act of 1927</a> are in community of property. This is irrespective of whether they occurred before the commencement of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1984-088.pdf">Matrimonial Property Act</a> of 1984, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/marriage-act-21-apr-1961-0000">Marriage Act</a> of 1961, the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/civil-union-act">Civil Union Act</a> of 2006, and the <a href="https://justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/1998-120.pdf">Recognition of Customary Marriages Act</a> of 1998. </p>
<p>But parliament is yet to reflect the Sithole judgment in legislation. This raises an interesting question: when the Constitutional Court declares a law retrospectively invalid, does it constitute enforceable law even before it reflects in legislation? The ruling says yes. Traditional communities may say differently.</p>
<p>The Sithole declaration is radical because indigenous African laws lacked binary notions of equality in <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/journals/SPECJU/2018/14.pdf">marital property division</a>. Due to the agrarian nature of precolonial societies, income was generated by the family as a group through farming, hunting, and artwork. Individual rights were muted, while group welfare was paramount. </p>
<p>Thus, women’s property rights were confined to items of adornment. In rare cases of divorce, they were reabsorbed into the welfare system of their parents. Thus, their matrimonial property rights were unproblematic. This is no longer the case with urbanisation, independent income, and modern notions of equality.</p>
<h2>Loss of identity</h2>
<p>Finally, the Zulu kingship ruling shows how the courts mould indigenous conduct into the image of state values. A cursory glance at the ruling gives the impression that tradition guides the resolution of succession disputes. This is because the High Court <a href="https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZPHC/2022/6.html">acknowledged that</a> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Royal Family is the fabric of traditional leadership (and) is responsible for the identification of traditional leaders.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Accordingly, the Queen Regent’s nomination of Prince Misuzulu was not binding on the royal family. But the court added that the family’s nomination was still subject to approval by the premier or the president. Thus, although the state recognises that a monarch is identified and nominated in terms of customary law, it regulates the process tightly, specifically through section 8(1) and (3) of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/traditional-leadership-and-governance-framework-act">Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act</a> of 2003 and section 17(3) of the <a href="https://www.greengazette.co.za/notices/kwazulu-natal-traditional-leadership-and-governance-act-2005-act-no-5-of-2005-setting-a-date-for-the-election-of-traditional-councils-in-kwazulu-natal_20191003-KZN-02125-00136">KwaZulu-Natal Traditional Leadership and Governance Act of 2005</a>. </p>
<p>Informed by South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>, these laws and others like them infuse European ideas of equality, dignity, and non-discrimination into indigenous African laws. If state laws continue to regulate indigenous conduct and disputes in this manner, indigenous laws will eventually be eradicated.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=JgVz0yUAAAAJ&hl=en">My research</a> on the interaction of legal orders in Africa uses the theory of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/62788757/LEGAL_PLURALISM_AND_THE_FUTURE_OF_PERSONAL_FAMILY_LAWS_IN_AFRICA">adaptive legal pluralism</a> to explain the status and destination of indigenous laws. This theory regards the interaction of legal orders in sub-Saharan Africa as coercively imitative. </p>
<p>This is because state laws compel indigenous laws to become like them. The judges and the legislators who compel these adaptations in indigenous laws rarely address the dissonance between the communal nature of indigenous norms and the individualistic nature of state laws. Why is this neglect significant?</p>
<p>When judges, legislators, and policymakers like the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/salrc/">South African Law Reform Commission</a> neglect the foundational dynamics of indigenous customs, they worsen conflict between indigenous laws and state laws. Judgments such as the Zulu kingship dispute, therefore, show how colonised people lose their cultural identity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Diala is leading field research on indigenous African values in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape with funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Matrimonial Property (Project 100E) of the South African Law Reform Commission.</span></em></p>When judges, legislators, and policymakers neglect the foundational dynamics of indigenous customs, they worsen conflict between indigenous laws and state laws.Anthony Diala, Director, Centre for Legal Integration in Africa, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1726962021-12-06T13:54:51Z2021-12-06T13:54:51ZPost-election pact failure: echoes of fraught history between South Africa’s ANC and Inkatha<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434197/original/file-20211126-25-exc37x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa (L) is congratulated by leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party Mangosuthu Buthelezi (R) after being elected president of South Africa during the swearing in of new members of the National Assembly.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s governing party and the minority Inkatha Freedom Party with a stronghold in KwaZulu-Natal agreed to form governing coalitions <a href="https://mg.co.za/politics/2021-11-17-ifp-anc-agreement-breaks-deadlock-in-21-hung-kwazulu-natal-councils/">in hung municipalities</a> in the KwaZulu-Natal Province following the 1 November local government elections.</p>
<p>The two parties had agreed that where one had the majority of seats, the other would support it to form the municipal government.</p>
<p>This deal failed. The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2021-11-24-ifp-blames-anc-for-collapse-of-coalition-agreement-in-kzn/">IFP blamed the ANC</a> for fielding candidates in isiNquthu (Nqutu), Jozini in northern KwaZulu-Natal and other places where the IFP had the majority of seats. Similarly, the ANC accused the IFP of fielding candidates in uMhlathuze District in northern KwaZulu-Natal, eThekwini – the economic hub in coastal KwaZulu-Natal and other municipalities. </p>
<p>This fallout negatively affected the ANC more than the IFP as it won more seats in many hung municipalities. After this fallout, the IFP led coalitions in many of these municipalities.</p>
<p>Had the deal succeeded, it would have seen the ANC increase the number of municipalities under its control. It would have also helped in mending relations between the two parties. Its failure will increase mistrust between them.</p>
<p>The failure of the pact brings to mind the history of <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2017/12/the-rise-fall-and-retirement-of-mangosuthu-buthelezi">fraught relations</a> and “<a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/i-grew-up-in-the-anc-youth-league--mangosuthu-buth">unfinished business</a>” between the two parties. </p>
<h2>History of fraught relations</h2>
<p>Before establishing Inkatha Freedom Party <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/inkatha-freedom-party-ifp">in 1975</a>, <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/person-details/24">Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi</a> <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi-timeline/">received the blessings</a> of the ANC through its leader, <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-anc-is-celebrating-the-year-of-or-tambo-who-was-he-85838">Oliver Tambo</a>. This was made possible by two reasons.</p>
<p>Firstly, Buthelezi had been a member of the ANC Youth League while a student at the University of Fort Hare from 1948 – 1950. He joined the League <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/how-the-anc-and-inkatha-fell-out--mangosuthu-buthe">in 1949</a>. </p>
<p>Secondly, the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">ANC</a> and the Pan Africanist Congress (<a href="https://pac.org.za/">PAC</a>), the historical liberation movements, had been banned by the apartheid government <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pan-Africanist-Congress-of-Azania">since 1960</a>.</p>
<p>The ban left a political vacuum which Buthelezi decided to fill. Because he and the ANC were determined to defeat the apartheid government, it made logical sense that he should take the baton of sustaining the liberation struggle. He revived Inkatha ka Zulu (the coil of the Zulu nation), a movement which had been established by <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dinuzulu">Zulu King Dinizulu</a> in 1922. </p>
<p>Once Inkatha was established, Buthelezi used to travel to the exiled ANC’s headquarters in Zambia to report on progress. Gradually, some within the ANC <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-05-31-buthelezi-it-cuts-me-to-the-heart-to-be-unjustly-labelled-an-enemy-of-my-people/">became sceptical of his intentions</a>. They associated him with the Bantustan establishment which saw a number of political leaders becoming puppets of the apartheid regime.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustans</a> were “self-governing” and “independent” states established by the apartheid regime with the intention to weaken black people by dividing them into little compartments called “states”. Leaders who accepted this “independence” became presidents in those states but remained financially dependent on South Africa.</p>
<p>In 1979 Buthelezi led a delegation to London <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/finalreport/Volume%203.pdf">to meet the ANC</a> to discuss differences of opinion between the ANC and Buthelezi regarding protest politics, economic sanctions and the armed struggle. </p>
<p>Tambo promised to meet Buthelezi again. However, this turned out to be the last formal meeting between the two parties. There are divergent views regarding this development. One version is that the ANC accused Buthelezi of <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/how-the-anc-and-inkatha-fell-out--mangosuthu-buthe">leaking details of the meeting to the media</a>. The other version is that Tambo was advised by the ANC to cut ties with Buthelezi because he could not be trusted.</p>
<p>The 1980s were turbulent moments in South Africa. The formation of the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03188/06lv03222.htm">United Democratic Front </a>(UDF) in August 1983 further soured relations between the ANC and Inkatha. Buthelezi blamed the UDF, which was allied to the ANC, for tarnishing his name and labelling him a traitor who <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA02562804_232">colluded with the apartheid government</a>. </p>
<p>Buthelezi argued that by agreeing to lead KwaZulu Government but not taking full “independence” <a href="https://theconversation.com/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi-a-reappraisal-of-his-fight-against-apartheid-144212">as other leaders had done</a>, he had opted to <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi-timeline/">fight the system from within</a>.</p>
<p>The ascendance to power of President FW De Klerk <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/frederik-willem-de-klerk">in 1989</a> marked a new political epoch in South Africa. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/fw-de-klerk-made-a-speech-31-years-ago-that-ended-apartheid-why-he-did-it-130803">February 1990</a> he lifted the ban on liberation movements, set their leaders free and opened the door for negotiations that would lead to a new political dispensation. </p>
<h2>The 1990s and South Africa’s road to democracy</h2>
<p>The 1990s marked a critical juncture in relations between the ANC and the IFP. By now, Buthelezi had established himself as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721987">force to be reckoned with</a>. As <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02039/04lv02103/05lv02104/06lv02106.htm">negotiations to end apartheid</a> began <a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/ZA_900806_The%20Pretoria%20Minute.pdf">in 1990</a>, it became impossible to sideline him and Inkatha.</p>
<p>Violent skirmishes between the two parties – which were fuelled by apartheid operatives – further soured relations between the two parties. At least <a href="https://theconversation.com/archive-documents-reveal-the-us-and-uks-role-in-the-dying-days-of-apartheid-120507">20 000 people are estimated to have died</a> between 1984 and 1994.</p>
<p>As the negotiations began, Inkatha initially showed no interest in them – arguing that the deal was between the ANC and the apartheid government. After joining the discussion, Buthelezi halted the process midstream. Firstly, he wanted South Africa to be a <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/">federal state</a>. He later settled for there being six provinces, which <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-sa/south-africas-provinces">later became nine</a>. </p>
<p>Secondly, Buthelezi wanted <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Govern_Political/ANC_18598.html">a place for the Zulu King</a> and the Zulu Kingdom. He managed to secure <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll/">Ingonyama Trust </a>, which reserved land for the Zulu King to control. In his view, the ANC was not honest with him and undermined Inkatha and the Zulu nation thus forcing him to boycott the negotiations. </p>
<p>Through intense negotiations, the ANC and the IFP eventually found each other. <a href="https://theconversation.com/archive-documents-reveal-the-us-and-uks-role-in-the-dying-days-of-apartheid-120507">Professor Washington Okumu</a> from Kenya successfully appealed to Buthelezi to contest the first democratic election on 27 April 1994. By then, the ballot papers had already been printed and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/04/20/buthelezi-ends-boycott-of-s-african-vote/ec9c8d56-5eb9-4a35-8f50-03fcb595e731/">IFP’s name was pasted</a> at the bottom of the ballot paper.</p>
<p>The ANC disputed election results <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a84aa.html">in KwaZulu-Natal</a>. Later, the two parties found each other and even formed a coalition through a “grand alliance”. </p>
<p>To mend the wall between the ANC and the IFP, President Nelson Mandela appointed Buthelezi into his <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/south-african-government-national-unity-gnu-1994-1999">Government of National Unity</a> cabinet, which existed from April 1994 to February 1997. Buthelezi was Minister of Home Affairs until 1999 under Mandela and continued in this portfolio <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/person-details/24">from 1999 to 2004</a> under President Thabo Mbeki. </p>
<p>Buthelezi <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/buthelezi-to-act-as-president-again-14903">served as the Acting President</a> more than any of his cabinet colleagues. This was significant, not only because he had enough administrative experience from leading the KwaZulu Government, but also in terms of improving relations between the ANC and the IFP.</p>
<p>Since then, relations between the ANC and the IFP have been relatively stable but not without moments of mistrust as evidenced in the aftermath of the 2021 local elections.</p>
<h2>Lost opportunity</h2>
<p>The initial announcement that both parties had agreed to support each other to form municipal governments in hung municipalities brought a glimmer of hope that they were amenable to working together. </p>
<p>When the IFP <a href="https://www.news24.com/witness/politics/kznprovincial/high-drama-as-ifp-snubs-anc-in-kzn-hung-councils-20211122">announced </a> that it was no longer going to work with the ANC, this raised concerns about potential renewal of the historic feud.</p>
<p>For me, three issues could have saved this agreement. Firstly, the parties should have agreed to divide the four KwaZulu Natal economic hubs (eThekwini, uMsunduzi, uMhlathuze and Newcastle), between themselves. Secondly, the ANC should have agreed to change the Umlazi road from Griffiths Mxenge back to Mangosuthu Highway as the IFP had demanded outside of the formal discussions. </p>
<p>Thirdly, the IFP should have agreed to let the ANC keep the name of one of its regions as Mzala Nxumalo region - named after <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/jabulani-nobleman-nxumalo-1955-1991">Jabulani Nobleman “Mzala” Nxumalo</a>, an ANC and SA Communist Party stalwart. This failed deal serves as a reminder about fraught relations between the ANC and the IFP.</p>
<p>However, on many occasions, these two parties have been able to find each other, albeit temporarily. The failure of the 2021 post-election deal was a missed opportunity for them to work together.</p>
<p>Despite other political parties having made inroads in KwaZulu-Natal, such as the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, they are ideologically miles apart from the ANC and the IFP, who remain the key players. Thus, the future of KwaZulu-Natal depends in large part to close relations between the ANC and the IFP.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bheki Mngomezulu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The failure of the 2021 post-election deal is a missed opportunity for the African National Congress and Inkatha to work together.Bheki Mngomezulu, Professor of Political Science, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647172021-07-26T15:24:04Z2021-07-26T15:24:04ZMilitary not a magic bullet: South Africa needs to do more for long term peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413119/original/file-20210726-26-vb3azi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African Defence Force troops on patrol in Alexandra, Johannesburg, following recent violence and looting. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a show of force unprecedented since South Africa became a democracy in 1994, the South African National Defence Force has <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sandf-forces-continue-to-arrive-in-kzn-following-a-week-of-violence-faae84c3-64b0-474b-9716-f5147c86fcb6">commissioned 25,000</a> soldiers for deployment across KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the two provinces most affected by <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/22/south-africa-unrest-death-toll-jumps-to-more-than-300">recent riots and large scale looting</a>. </p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the deployment of the troops to <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/address-president-cyril-ramaphosa-acts-violence-and-destruction-property">support the country’s police</a>, who had been overwhelmed by the scale of the violence.</p>
<p>Governments usually deploy the military as the last line of defence when they face an insurrection or <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/qaanitah_hunter/qaanitah-hunter-an-insurrection-or-not-why-governments-confusion-doesnt-solve-sas-crises-20210721">revolt</a>. The threat of or use of military force is the ultimate arbiter to quell unrest that threatens state stability or the safety of citizens, as seen in Nigeria, where the deployment of the army on internal security operations <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-use-of-nigerian-soldiers-in-civil-unrest-whats-in-place-and-whats-missing-149283">has increased dramatically since 1999</a>.</p>
<p>In South Africa, the military has recently been deployed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">counter gang violence</a> on the Cape Flats and during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-military-is-not-suited-for-the-fight-against-covid-19-heres-why-138560">COVID-19 pandemic</a>. In all these instances, there are concerns about how effective it is in these roles. </p>
<p>In South Africa, for now, the deployment of the army troops to assist the police has brought about an <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2021/07/21/explainer-what-caused-south-africa-s-week-of-rioting//">uneasy calm</a>. But what South Africans are seeing is a negative peace – where a degree of normality returns, but in which the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/422690?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents">underlying causes of the conflict remain</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">The army is being used to fight Cape Town's gangs. Why it's a bad idea</a>
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<p>The military may help create a more stable and secure environment, curb violence and unrest in the short term, but this is unlikely to result in a <a href="https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/4135/413546002004.pdf">sustainable and lasting peace</a>. The cultural and structural issues underlying the violence need to be <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-15-whats-behind-violence-in-south-africa-a-sociologists-perspective/">addressed</a>. These relate to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-underscores-gross-inequalities-in-south-africa-and-the-need-to-fix-them-135070">inequalities</a> and injustices embedded in the structure of society. </p>
<p>The military is no magic bullet.</p>
<h2>Concerns about army deployment</h2>
<p>There are many concerns around the use of the military internally in domestic operations within the borders of one’s own country.</p>
<p>The first concerns the government’s use of the military <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2019.1650787">against its own citizens</a>. As seen in both Nigeria and South Africa, the military is typically not trained or equipped to deal with civil unrest and has limited experience in riot control.</p>
<p>One risk is that communities might deliberately act out in ways that <a href="http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/news/general/SANDF-covid-19">provoke the soldiers</a>, which could result in excessive use of force. This can affect trust in the military, affecting the legitimacy of the state. The South African government has already faced criticism for its heavy handed and highly militarised approach during the <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/un-human-rights-office-highlights-toxic-lockdown-culture-in-sa-20200428">early phase of lockdown in 2020</a>. However, in general the population has a far higher level of trust in the military <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ab_r6_dispatchno90_south_africa_trust_in_officials.pdf">than in other state institutions</a>.</p>
<p>The second risk pertains to prominence given to the military when faced with situations of civil unrest. Giving the military a prominent role in political decision-making in dealing with civil unrest can <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-army-is-being-used-to-fight-cape-towns-gangs-why-its-a-bad-idea-120455">lead to a culture of militarism and militarisation</a>. This results in the increased political reliance and economic investment in the military to assist with solving societal problems.</p>
<p>This can undermine attempts at finding more constructive approaches at conflict resolution. </p>
<h2>Achilles’ heel</h2>
<p>The army will inevitably be called in again to support the police. Whether the soldiers can provide this support given their <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-south-africas-neglected-military-faces-mission-impossible-133250">limited capacity</a> is the big question. Those deployed are predominantly from the infantry, of which there are only 14 battalions, not all of which can deploy internally. Then there are the commitments to peacekeeping operations and the border, and now to Mozambique. </p>
<p>In its present form, the military cannot adequately respond to the threats facing the country internally and externally, due to the way it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-mulls-future-of-its-military-to-make-it-fit-for-purpose-146423">structured, funded and trained</a>. The military is structured for <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/war-and-terrorism/">conventional warfare</a>. This requires expensive equipment and training and does not allow sufficient flexibility to perform the functions it actually does.</p>
<p>South Africa needs a military that is more capable of responding to all the challenges facing the country. These include <a href="https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/DCAF_BG_15_Gendarmeries%20and%20constabulary-type%20police_0.pdf">a mix of military and policing functions</a>. This would mean restructuring the military to be able to put more boots on the ground. What is needed is more infantry troops, trained and equipped for the tasks they are required to do. This is less costly than preparing for conventional warfare, and using the army in collateral roles as it does now.</p>
<p>These changes would ensure that it could meet roles like peacekeeping, border control, support for the police and countering terrorism more effectively. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-mulls-future-of-its-military-to-make-it-fit-for-purpose-146423">South Africa mulls future of its military to make it fit-for-purpose</a>
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<p>Beyond this is the need to address the current <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-14-south-africas-tipping-point-how-the-intelligence-community-failed-the-country/">inefficiencies in the state security cluster</a>. Clearly there is a lack of visionary leadership, accountability and oversight, to enable these sectors to function more effectively.</p>
<p>The lack of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/unrestsa-ministers-cele-and-dlodlo-at-odds-over-intelligence-report-20210720">effective intelligence</a> has meant that both the military and police were unable to put preemptive defensive measures in place to tackle the recent violence and looting, which has left <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/22/south-africa-unrest-death-toll-jumps-to-more-than-300">more than 330 people dead</a>.</p>
<h2>Comprehensive approach</h2>
<p>A more comprehensive approach to security is required. As indicated by soldier-scholar Laetitia Olivier in relation to gang violence, what is needed is a coordinated and comprehensive plan to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-soldiers-wont-end-gang-violence-a-co-ordinated-plan-might-120775">address the twin challenges of security and economic development</a>. </p>
<p>Security and economic development are intertwined; the <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/%EF%BF%BCthe-security-development-nexus-and-the-imperative-of-peacebuilding-with-special-reference-to-the-african-context/">one cannot be achieved without the other</a>. To date, the government has failed on both accounts, which has led to the current crisis.</p>
<p>What is needed is a clear national security framework to repurpose the military in terms of its most likely <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/south-africas-security-sector-is-in-crisis-reform-must-start-now">future roles, missions and goals</a>. These are the roles which the military is currently performing, but it doesn’t have the force design and structure best suited for the tasks.</p>
<p>Tough decisions have to be made in terms of personnel, rejuvenation and equipping the military for its future roles and functions, given the current security threats facing the citizens of South Africa. This does not imply more investment in defence, but better use of the resources available.</p>
<p>More than ever before, decisive leadership is needed from politicians, military leadership and civil society to march the South African National Defence Force in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindy Heinecken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The army may help create a more stable and secure environment in the short term, but this is unlikely to result in sustainable and lasting peace.Lindy Heinecken, Chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1649682021-07-22T14:54:44Z2021-07-22T14:54:44ZViolence in South Africa: an uprising of elites, not of the people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412684/original/file-20210722-13-1conxh7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trucks and business were looted and burnt during recent riots in South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From time to time, South Africa is rudely reminded that its past continues to make its present and future difficult. It does not always recognise this reality when it sees it.</p>
<p>The latest – and most shocking – reminder is the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/7/13/violence-and-looting-escalates-in-south-africa-as-zuma-jailed">violence</a> which followed the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma. The mayhem devastated KwaZulu-Natal, the home of Zuma and his faction of the governing African National Congress (ANC), and damaged Gauteng, the economic heartland which also houses <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1021-14972020000100001">hostels</a> in which working migrants from KwaZulu-Natal live. </p>
<p>The violence was seen as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/unrest-is-being-used-to-subvert-south-africas-democracy-giving-in-is-not-an-option-164499">new threat to the democracy established in 1994</a>. But, while it was severe, it was a symptom of a past the country has yet to face, not a future it did not see coming. Even the one aspect which was new – the scale of violence in KwaZulu-Natal – was a product of realities which have been evident for years.</p>
<p>Destructive violence is frightening. In South Africa, it is even more alarming because its middle class, which <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/prisoners-of-the-past/">monopolises the debate</a>, assumes that it is only a matter of time before the country is engulfed in conflict. This makes it important to point out that, as severe as the violence was, it does not mean that the country’s democracy is in deep danger.</p>
<p>The South African mainstream, which expected democracy to usher in a perfect country and is repeatedly angered that it didn’t, ignores a core reality – that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338545954_Power_in_Action_democracy_citizenship_and_social_justice_by_Steven_Friedman">democracies are tested all the time</a>. For people who like power – who exist in all societies and at all times – there is nothing natural or necessary about democracy. It forces them to obey rules they would rather ignore, listen to voices they would rather not hear, and allow others to take decisions they would prefer to take. </p>
<p>This means that there is nothing fatal about democracy being tested – it always is. The question is whether it passes the test. The violence did test democracy. Whether President Cyril Ramaphosa is right that it was a <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/president-ramaphosa-attempted-insurrection-failed-gain-popular-support">failed insurrection</a> is open to debate. But the violence was aimed at ensuring that democracy did not work. Democracy survived the assault. Whether this test strengthens it depends on whether the issues which caused the violence are addressed. And that depends on understanding what the test was.</p>
<h2>Elite uprising</h2>
<p>The violence has been widely seen as an expression of anger and frustration by people living in poverty, which has been much worsened in South Africa by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-pandemic-has-triggered-a-rise-in-hunger-in-south-africa-164581">impact of COVID-19</a>. But there was no revolt of the poor – it was an assault on democracy by elites. </p>
<p>The KwaZulu-Natal violence was frighteningly new because much of it did not follow the familiar pattern of conflict in South Africa and other countries. While there was looting, a common response to conflict by people living in poverty, there was also an assault on infrastructure, destruction of businesses and the “disappearance” of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/unrestsa-more-than-a-million-bullets-stolen-from-container-in-durban-most-still-missing-20210716">large stocks of bullets</a>. None of this squares with what we might expect people fighting poverty to do during a conflict.</p>
<p>Nor was the violence a popular uprising. There were no large public demonstrations. The scale of the KwaZulu-Natal violence was huge but you don’t need many people to set fire to electricity installations or factories. The damage could have been done with minimal public support and almost certainly was. This was an uprising of elites, not of the people, although some joined the looting as we would expect people in poverty to do. </p>
<p>Ironically, the claims that this was about poverty or the COVID-19 lockdown blame the people for something the elites did.</p>
<p>But which elites? It will take a while before we know exactly what happened. But there are two elements in reports of the violence which suggest that it was a product of realities which have been evident to researchers for years.</p>
<p>First, although South Africa’s democracy is the product of a <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/The_Small_Miracle.html?id=GSMvAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">negotiated settlement</a>, it followed armed conflict between the minority government and the forces fighting for majority rule. This makes the country another example of what some academics call “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4146925">war transitions</a>”: change from one political system to another where there are armed people on both sides of the divide.</p>
<p>In these cases, the textbook idea that <a href="https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190679545.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190679545-e-13">only the state uses violence</a> and does this within rules which are clear to all does not apply. Some people still have weapons and armed networks, whether they are inside or outside the government, and are not necessarily bound by the rules.</p>
<h2>Unsettling reality</h2>
<p>This has been a South African reality since 1994. It shows in constant factional battles between state intelligence operatives, in divisions between ex-combatants <a href="https://www.news24.com/witness/news/mkmva-defies-anc-call-to-disband-20210706">in the fight against apartheid</a>, in security companies and criminal gangs whose members bore arms before 1994. </p>
<p>Their political loyalties may lie with members of the faction, not the governing party, let alone the state. Their networks may be devoted not only to a common political goal but also to gaining wealth and economic influence. This has made keeping order far more difficult. It can also make creating disorder easier.</p>
<p>The second is that local councillors allegedly played an important role in the violence. This too would reflect a long-standing reality. Attention to corruption in South Africa focuses on national government, but local and regional networks devoted to getting richer at public expense are far more deep-rooted. There is a <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-17-this-is-us-those-trying-to-tear-south-africa-apart/">clear link</a> between them and violence – KwaZulu-Natal in particular has seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-fails-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-killings-in-kwazulu-natal-128167">repeated killings of councillors or local officials</a> who tried to resist corruption.</p>
<p>Both the people under arms and the local networks had ample reason to mobilise their power for harm – Zuma’s imprisonment may well have signalled that power had shifted in ways which threatened the survival of the networks. They may not have been trying an insurrection, which means they were trying to seize power. But they were doing whatever they could to ensure that their networks survived.</p>
<h2>Unfinished business</h2>
<p>So, while the scale of the violence may have been new, its origins are not. They are deeply embedded in South Africa’s unfinished business, its inability to create a single source of public order or to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-corruption-in-south-africa-isnt-simply-about-zuma-and-the-guptas-113056">change an economic balance of power</a> which ensures that ambitious people with the means to destroy see their networks as the only route to wealth.</p>
<p>The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye and find ways to change it before it can be confident about avoiding more of what happened in KwaZulu-Natal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Friedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The violence wreaked its damage because South Africa’s journey to democracy remains incomplete. It sends a sharp message that the country must look its past far more squarely in the eye.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1645712021-07-15T14:28:54Z2021-07-15T14:28:54ZWhy have South Africans been on a looting rampage? Research offers insights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411501/original/file-20210715-32667-1h8s8sm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police enter a flooded mall that had been ransacked .</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The looting of businesses, shopping centres and warehouses in South Africa over the past week, particularly in the KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, has taken place <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57818215">at an unprecedented scale</a>. It has affected both poor and middle-class areas. Private as well as government property has been damaged and destroyed. People have been injured and lives have been lost. </p>
<p>A variety of narratives have emerged in an effort to explain the looting frenzy. Some have accused die-hard <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d712a9ac-4a8e-43a8-9ebc-29ee5824fb88">supporters of former president Jacob Zuma</a> of fuelling the unrest. Others have intimated that the looting is a consequence of <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/opinions/editorial/editorial-cry-the-beloved-country-20210712">state capture and the high level of criminality</a> in South Africa. </p>
<p>There have been suggestions that the current disorder is akin to a rebellion of the poor brought about by acute <a href="https://www.newframe.com/durban-food-riots-turn-the-wheel-of-history/">food insecurity</a>. </p>
<p>Research findings on looting, nonetheless, suggest that such phenomena are rarely caused by one thing. Rather, it’s often the outcome of various factors. </p>
<p>Looting in South Africa has taken place intermittently for decades in the context of an ongoing crisis of poverty, inequality and unemployment. It occurred under apartheid and continued to take place after democracy 1994. But it has traditionally been largely confined to marginalised urban and peri-urban areas. </p>
<p>Incidents of looting have often been synonymous with outbreaks of <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/17/they-have-robbed-me-my-life/xenophobic-violence-against-non-nationals-south">xenophobic violence</a> and service delivery protests. These have overwhelmingly happened in townships and informal settlements in which shops and businesses owned by foreign nationals have been plundered. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://3bc3d90b-3b34-48f1-82d2-3fed86731588.filesusr.com/ugd/ae1dfd_2f802284b8484630a633d8394b882fdd.pdf">study</a> on xenophobic violence and the spaza shop sector by myself and researchers from the <a href="http://www.savi.uct.ac.za/">Safety and Violence Initiative</a> showed that looting was often a highly localised phenomenon. That is, foreign-owned spaza shops (small, informal retail outlets) were vulnerable to looting in communities where a combination of factors were at play. Among them were intense xenophobic attitudes, ineffective measures to regulate competition among shop owners, dysfunctional community leadership and the alienation of foreign shop owners. </p>
<p>We noted in our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353262761_Xenophobic_Violence_and_the_Spaza_Shop_Sector_Situational_Analysis_Synthesis_Report_People_to_People_Dialogues_Fostering_Social_Cohesion_in_South_Africa_through_Conversation_Implementing_Organisations">study</a> the uncomfortable reality that a key driver of looting was that it was perceived by the looters to be socially acceptable. And it was often encouraged and endorsed within social and community networks. </p>
<p>Our findings echo those in a number of publications on looting in the <a href="https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/2347">US</a> and <a href="https://www.youthandpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cooper_riots_2011.pdf">England</a>. </p>
<p>However, as underscored in our report, looting does not spontaneously emerge. It usually comes about due to instigation by influential individuals or groups who actively articulate that looting against specific targets is permissible and justifiable.</p>
<h2>The drivers</h2>
<p>In political violence literature, the process of active encouragement is often referred to as <a href="https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/The-Politics-of-Collective-Violence-Charles-Tilly.pdf">brokerage</a>. A good example was during the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/12/us/capitol-mob-timeline.html">storming of the Capitol building</a> in Washington DC. Trump supporters were actively encouraged to engage in acts of sedition by leaders of extremist groups. </p>
<p>Brokerage has been a central feature of the current looting spree in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-14-under-investigation-twelve-masterminds-planned-and-executed-insurrection-on-social-media-then-lost-control-after-looting-spree/">Supporters of Jacob Zuma</a> have been actively encouraging South Africans to engage in acts of violence and civil disobedience. </p>
<p>Individuals who are more prone to violence and criminal offending tend to initiate the looting. Ordinary people may then join. Acts of looting are often contagious and develop a life of their own. This is due to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-20332-002">group dynamics</a> where acts of looting by some may encourage others. </p>
<p>In addition, collective disorder offers a degree of camouflage and impunity for criminal actions. </p>
<p>The absence of <a href="https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/16063/1/THESIS%20FV_DPF.pdf">capable guardians</a>, such as police and private security, can also contribute to looting by ordinary people. </p>
<p>Another important observation from the xenophobic violence <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353262761_Xenophobic_Violence_and_the_Spaza_Shop_Sector_Situational_Analysis_Synthesis_Report_People_to_People_Dialogues_Fostering_Social_Cohesion_in_South_Africa_through_Conversation_Implementing_Organisations">study</a> was that the looting of spaza shops tended to be more widespread in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. This was due to the greater prevalence of groups and networks willing to engage in various forms of collective violence. Action taken included protests, extortion, political assassinations, taxi conflicts and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32692461">hostel violence</a>. This mainly entails violence between groups of residents over control of hostels, which are often badly maintained.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/505840/looters-gangsters-and-the-third-force-the-disturbing-root-of-south-africas-violent-riots/">reports</a> have suggested that groups and networks like this have contributed to igniting and accelerating the present spate of looting. </p>
<p>The intensity of the ongoing looting in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng signifies a convergence of brokerage, an upsurge in attitudes that looting is socially allowable, and a willingness of certain pro-violence groups and networks to actively facilitate looting across the two provinces. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/unrest-is-being-used-to-subvert-south-africas-democracy-giving-in-is-not-an-option-164499">Unrest is being used to subvert South Africa's democracy: giving in is not an option</a>
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<p>But these factors don’t adequately account for the significant shift of the looting into middle class retail areas and commercial properties. </p>
<p>The grand scale and bold nature of suggests well-resourced “<a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/hidden-hand">hidden hands</a>” that have expertise in provoking and instigating civil disorder. </p>
<h2>Poor state of security</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201903/high-level-review-panel-state-security-agency.pdf">A report</a> published in December 2018 revealed deeply troubling findings about state security in South Africa. The report was drawn up by the high-level review panel on the country’s State Security Agency.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-in-flames-spontaneous-outbreak-or-insurrection-164466">South Africa in flames: spontaneous outbreak or insurrection?</a>
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<p>In particular, it showed that elements within the intelligence services at the time had access to large sums of money and had not only fuelled political factionalism but had engaged in sophisticated “<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dirty-tricks">dirty tricks</a>” operations against governing party factions aligned to President Cyril Ramaphosa. </p>
<p>The police minister announced on Wednesday that former <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/exclusive-zumas-private-spy-thulani-dlomo-a-prime-suspect-for-instigating-unrest-20210714">intelligence operatives</a> and Zuma loyalists, some of whom may still be on the State Security Agency payroll, were under investigation for possibly instigating the looting and disorder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An uncomfortable reality is that looting is perceived by the looters to be socially acceptable and is often encouraged and endorsed within social and community networks.Guy Lamb, Criminologist / Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1629692021-06-22T13:13:11Z2021-06-22T13:13:11ZWhat landmark Kwazulu-Natal court ruling means for land reform in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407432/original/file-20210621-30-10pn4h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C47%2C528%2C342&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rural homestead in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Collart Hervé/Sygma via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a landmark <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/media/uploads/documents/itb_judgment_11_june_2021.pdf">judgment</a> a South African high court has declared that people living on customary land in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, notionally held in trust by the Ingonyama (king) of the Zulu people, are the “true and beneficial owners” of that land. </p>
<p>It confirms that the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/110/ingonyama-trust-board">Ingonyama Trust Board</a> is not the real owner of this land. It, therefore, cannot convert the customary land rights of occupiers to rent-paying leases as it has been doing.</p>
<p>The Trust is in fact only a notional owner of this land. It is mandated to administer the land “for the benefit, material welfare and social well-being” of members of the affected rural communities. It administers around 2.8 million hectares, amounting to about one third of the whole of the province. </p>
<p>The court also found that the minister in charge of land reform has breached her duty to respect, protect and promote these informal land rights, as required by law. She is responsible for overseeing the operations of the Trust, and ensuring that the land rights of communities are not infringed upon.</p>
<p>The judgement has massive implications for the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform">land reform programme</a>. Tenure reform policy has yet to deliver legislation to secure the land rights of people in communal areas. The fact that the legislation required by the <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">Constitution</a> is still absent, after 27 years of freedom, is a major blemish on the record of the governing African National Congress. </p>
<p>The reasons for the lacuna are primarily political, centred on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/unease-reigns-as-culture-and-the-constitution-collide-in-south-africa-41795">contested roles and powers of traditional leaders</a> in a democratic South Africa. In turn, this issue connects to the wider politics of <a href="https://pari.org.za/betrayal-promise-report/">“state capture”</a> - the refashioning of state institutions during the presidency of Jacob Zuma, (<a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2009-February 2018</a>), to serve the interests of politically-connected elites.</p>
<p>The judgment lends support to efforts by President Cyril Ramaphosa to turn the tide on both <a href="https://www.sastatecapture.org.za/">state capture</a> in the narrow sense, and on <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2018-state-nation-address-16-feb-2018-0000">corruption</a> more generally.</p>
<p>The judgment also sheds light on the marginal role of parliament in overseeing land affairs, the lack of transparency and accountability of bodies such as land trusts, and the absence of state capacity to deal with questions of land administration. It also highlights the lack of interest by successive ministers in curtailing the self interested actions of rural elites.</p>
<p>All these problems have been in evidence over many years. This is clear from even a cursory review of <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2018-04-05-why-giving-sas-chiefs-more-power-adds-to-land-dispossession/">government support for corrupt traditional leaders</a> in areas with large deposits of platinum, coal or titanium.</p>
<h2>Ingonyama Trust Board</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ingonyamatrust.org.za/">Ingonyama Trust Board</a> was founded by the apartheid government <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/FactsheetIngonyama_Final_Feb2015.pdf">in 1994</a>, just before the first democratic election. This is widely believed to have been a sop for the <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a> to participate in that election, which it was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/ifp-agrees-participate-1994-elections">threatening to boycott</a>.</p>
<p>The democratic government amended the Trust’s founding act <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/legis/num_act/kitaa1997435.pdf">in 1997</a>, establishing a board for the Trust. It also made it subject to the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201505/act-57-1988_0.pdf">Trust Act of 1988</a>. As with other customary land held in trust by national government, “ownership” by the Trust is nominal. Administration of the land must be for the benefit of those occupiers.</p>
<p>In communal areas, most daily land administration tasks, such as approving applications for allocations of land, are carried out by traditional leaders (amakhosi) and village-based headmen (izinduna). Customary land rights derive from locally accepted membership of rural communities, mostly through descent but also of newcomers. They are protected by the Interim <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act31of1996.pdf">Protection of Informal Land Rights Act</a>, 1996.</p>
<p>Some 12 years ago the Trust began to convert rights of customary ownership to rent-paying leases. It planned to escalate rental by 10% a year, to increase its own income. Residents who did not pay could in theory be evicted - although none have been to date. The court found that the land rights holders did not give consent to these “conversions”. It also <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/media/uploads/documents/itb_judgment_11_june_2021.pdf">provides details</a> of how they were intimidated and deceived into signing leases. Both Trust officials and local traditional leaders were involved in the dispossession.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cogta.gov.za/">portfolio committee of parliament for traditional affairs</a> and its panel on post-apartheid legislation, chaired by former president <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/former-president-kgalema-motlanthe">Kgalema Motlanthe</a>, have <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/HLP_Report/HLP_report.pdf">called attention to these problems</a>, but to no avail. Now, litigation against this abuse has succeeded, with the court ordering the Trust to repay the funds it extorted.</p>
<h2>Tenure reform and customary land rights</h2>
<p>What does this judgement mean for land rights in communal areas, home to the largest proportion of rural South Africans, who form <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/530481521735906534/pdf/124521-REV-OUO-South-Africa-Poverty-and-Inequality-Assessment-Report-2018-FINAL-WEB.pdf">one third of the population</a>?</p>
<p>These areas provide essential resources, services and livelihoods to the poorest sections of South African society. They are a crucial cushion against <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1856&PPN=P0211&SCH=72943">rampant unemployment</a> and the insecurities inherent in capitalist economies today.</p>
<p>The court characterises these land rights in the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/media/uploads/documents/itb_judgment_11_june_2021.pdf">following terms</a>: land is allotted to a family head as residential and arable plots and access to communal pasture; no financial payments are involved, and land rights are inheritable. Land becomes the property of the family, and nothing may be done with such land without the involvement and consent of the owner.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Land rights are closely tied to social and cultural relationships, and tenure security is derived in large part from locally legitimate landholding.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The challenge for tenure reform policy is to express these principles in law in a way that provides certainty, and ensures the protection of land rights holders. This will lay a firm foundation for administrative systems focused on both support for rights holders (for example, in resolving disputes over land), and to facilitate development planning and service provision.</p>
<p>A further challenge is to clearly define and delimit the powers and functions of traditional leaders in relation to land. Policy has to promote full transparency and accountability in all aspects of land administration. This requirement can be met by the vesting of rights to land in families and not in institutions. Traditional leaders, trusts or other bodies with administrative roles would then have to be accountable to land rights holders.</p>
<p>The parameters suggested by the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/media/uploads/documents/itb_judgment_11_june_2021.pdf">judgment</a> should frame tenure reform. Worryingly, current drafts of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201707/40965gen510.pdf">Communal Land Tenure Bill</a> are based on the same paradigm as the 2004 law that <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Commisioned_Report_on_Tenure_Reform_LARC.pdf">was struck down in 2010</a> by the Constitutional Court, in which traditional leaders were empowered to act as if they are owners of the land. Any law informed by this paradigm is sure to be challenged again.</p>
<h2>Need for pressure from below</h2>
<p>If land reform is to return to a strong focus on the rights, opportunities and needs of ordinary black South Africans, as was the case <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201411/whitepaperlandreform.pdf">in the 1990s</a>, building the capacity of institutions responsible for both implementation and oversight of policies is vital. But, national policies also need clear political direction. </p>
<p>Here the main obstacle is the lack of mobilisation of rural dwellers, as well as those living in informal settlements, to push for pro-poor, structural change within a democratic political framework.</p>
<p>Although litigation using human rights lawyers is essential for preventing abuse, it is expensive and time consuming. This constrains wider impact. Often only the bravest of rural people are willing to stand up and make their voices heard as applicants and witnesses, as in this case. </p>
<p>But their courage shows what is possible. In greater numbers, and applying more sustained pressure from below, ordinary South Africans can ensure that the state begins to deliver the promises enshrined in the Constitution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Cousins has in the past received funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p>The judgment highlights the lack of interest by successive government ministers in curtailing the self-interested actions of rural elites.Ben Cousins, Emeritus Professor, Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1527862021-01-20T13:59:19Z2021-01-20T13:59:19ZSouth African internal migrants fare better in the job market in two regions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377990/original/file-20210111-21-mke2w3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Johannesburg is the most preferred destination for jobseekers from other provinces, followed by Cape Town. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labour migration is an essential – and potentially beneficial – part of all economies, regions and countries in the 21st century. One of the main reasons for migration is to enjoy better employment and earnings prospects.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-3915">usual flow of people</a> is from developing to developed countries at the international level, and domestically from rural to urban areas or from poorer areas to richer ones.</p>
<p>In South Africa two provinces – Gauteng and Western Cape – stand out among the full complement of nine – as the most attractive destinations for labour migrants. They contribute most to the economic success of the country, accounting for 49% of the gross domestic product in <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0441/P04414thQuarter2019.pdf">2019</a>. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://sihma.org.za/journals/02%20The%20Impact%20of%20Inter-provincial%20Migration%20on%20the%20Labor%20Market.pdf">study</a> used the South African Census 2011 data to examine the impact of inter-provincial migration on the labour market in the Western Cape and Gauteng. Our specific focus was on whether the inter-provincial migrants fared relatively better in the labour market in the destination provinces. </p>
<p>Our key finding was that migrants from other provinces were more likely to be employed than the permanent residents of Gauteng and the Western Cape. But, the intra-provincial migrants – people who moved from one area to another within the same province in search of better job prospects – remained the best-performing group with the lowest unemployment rates, especially in the formal sector.</p>
<p>As not all inter-provincial migrants find work in the destination provinces, the provincial unemployment statistics should be interpreted with great caution, as they can be distorted by these migrants.</p>
<h2>The study</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://sihma.org.za/journals/02%20The%20Impact%20of%20Inter-provincial%20Migration%20on%20the%20Labor%20Market.pdf">study</a>, we used the <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=3839">Census 2011 data</a> – the most recent – to examine the personal, socioeconomic status and labour market characteristics of eight groups of people aged 15 to 64 years.</p>
<p>The categories were, in the case of the Western Cape:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>permanent residents, </p></li>
<li><p>intra-provincial migrants, </p></li>
<li><p>long-term migrants from other provinces,</p></li>
<li><p>short-term migrants from other provinces.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the case of Gauteng:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>permanent residents,</p></li>
<li><p>intra-provincial migrants,</p></li>
<li><p>long-term migrants from other provinces,</p></li>
<li><p>short-term migrants from other provinces.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Short-term and long-term migrants were distinguished from each other based on the time periods before and after 2006. The short term refers to those who migrated within the last five years. Long-term means they migrated more than 5-10 years earlier.</p>
<p>The findings point to the need for the national government to consider inter-provincial migration when allocating the national budget to provinces, districts and municipalities. More of the budget should go to the Western Cape and Gauteng, given their ever-growing populations because of migration from other provinces.</p>
<h2>Key findings</h2>
<p>The majority of migrants into the Western Cape came from the Eastern Cape (53.64%) and Gauteng (20.95%). In contrast, migrants into Gauteng were more evenly spread. They came mostly from Limpopo (30.92%), KwaZulu-Natal (19.30%), the Eastern Cape (14.22%) and Mpumalanga (11.15%) provinces.</p>
<p><em>Inter-provincial migrants’ previous province of residence and current province of residence</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=237&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377367/original/file-20210106-15-pxsxoz.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=297&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Note: intra-provincial migrants and immigrants from overseas are excluded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sipplied by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The statistics also indicated that the majority of migrants from other provinces into the Western Cape settled in the City of Cape Town (over 70%). On the other hand, nearly 90% of migrants into Gauteng resided in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni districts. </p>
<p>The results suggest that these popular destination districts are most likely associated with better living conditions and labour market prospects.</p>
<p>Furthermore, both short and long-term migrants into Gauteng and the Western Cape were likely to be young, aged 15-34 years. They were mostly unmarried <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/race-and-ethnicity-south-africa">African</a> urban residents with 11 to 12 years of education on average.</p>
<p>These migrants into Gauteng and the Western Cape enjoyed lower unemployment rates than the permanent residents. One interesting finding was that the intra-provincial migrants had the lowest unemployment rate, compared with the inter-provincial migrants and permanent residents.</p>
<p><em>Labour force participation rates and unemployment rates of the eight groups of individuals</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377735/original/file-20210108-21-1jmozkk.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The figure below shows that the proportion of workers involved in skilled occupations was the highest for the intra-provincial migrants. More short-term and long-term inter-provincial migrants were in skilled work compared to the permanent residents.</p>
<p><em>Percentage share of employed in each skills level by migration status</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377736/original/file-20210108-19-zvtneq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lastly, after controlling for differences in other personal and household characteristics, the econometric analysis found that, compared to the permanent residents, both short and long-term inter-provincial migrants into the Gauteng and the Western Cape enjoyed a significantly greater probability (of 3%) of finding work. Migrants within a province enjoy the lowest unemployment rate and probability of engaging in skilled occupations.</p>
<h2>Policy implications</h2>
<p>Job-seeking migration into Gauteng and the Western Cape will certainly continue for as long as these two provinces are associated with better economic conditions and job prospects than the migrants’ home provinces. In particular, these migrants are most likely to cluster in certain districts with more lucrative job opportunities; namely Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane.</p>
<p>Gauteng and Western Cape provincial governments will continue to face important challenges in addressing the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10800379.2010.12097213">increased burden</a> on providing basic services, housing, health, education and social service systems because of the flow of migrants.</p>
<p>The findings indicate that not all the inter-provincial migrants eventually find work. This adds to the unemployment burden for Gauteng and the Western Cape. This has implications for the provinces’ job creation and entrepreneurship development strategies. </p>
<p><em>Joseph Kleinhans, an Economics Masters graduate at the University of the Western Cape, collaborated on the research on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Yu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labour migrants from other provinces into Gauteng and the Western Cape are more likely to be employed than the two provinces’ permanent residents.Derek Yu, Professor, Economics, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453472020-09-03T15:51:14Z2020-09-03T15:51:14ZGrass on ash: uncovering 200,000 year old beds from South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356042/original/file-20200902-22-5vf76h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A: Border Cave's 200,000 year old fossilised grass fragments. B: The profile section of desiccated grass bedding dating to around 43,000 years ago.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Both images copyright Lyn Wadley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a fair amount of archaeological evidence that indicates complex behaviour among our ancestors. For instance, there are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JAS.2007.11.006">bone tools</a> that were used as hunting projectiles, for working leather or for processing plants. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.1067575">Ochre</a> remnants were used for body and rock painting. But plants and their products have rarely been reported to embody this type of complex behaviour. </p>
<p>Now a multidisciplinary, international team of archaeologists has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc7239">presented evidence</a> that more than 200,000 years ago, at the dawn of our species (<em>Homo sapiens sapiens</em>) groups of humans inhabiting a cave in South Africa used grasses to create comfortable areas for sleeping and working. They also, our research suggests, understood the benefits of using ash underneath the grass to repel insects and pests.</p>
<p>Before this there was tentative evidence of bedding being constructed using tree leaves some 185,000 years ago at <a href="https://doi.org/10.4207/PA.2012.ART75">Misliya Cave in Israel</a>. Groups of Neanderthals from the Iberian Middle Paleolithic also used grasses to build their beds and rest areas about 40,000 years ago at <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.07.010">Esquilleu Cave</a> (Cantabria, Spain). In South Africa, plant bedding has been observed at several sites but never studied or published in detail. Until now, the oldest bedding in South Africa <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1213317">came from Sibudu Cave</a> in the KwaZulu-Natal province, where modern humans used sedges (Cyperaceae) to build sleeping beds about 70,000 years ago.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc7239">Our research</a>, led by Professor Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, now shows that before 200,000 years ago – close to the origin of our species – people preferred the use of broad-leaved grasses to build their beds and resting areas. They also used fire, ash, and medicinal plants to maintain clean, pest-free camps. </p>
<p>The construction of this bedding itself comes as no surprise: many animals such as chimpanzees or birds construct their beds and nests with plants. At our study site, it is the presence of ash layers underneath the bedding that demonstrates a more elaborate behaviour.</p>
<p>These findings are important because they show that our ancestors were able to organise the space and the capacity of these early societies to develop strategies that would have had health benefits, improving their daily living conditions. This helps us to understand them better, and to develop our understanding of where we’ve come from in terms of cognition and spatial awareness.</p>
<h2>Plants, people and the archaeological record</h2>
<p>Plants are the most common resource exploited by hunter-gatherers. They provide a source of food and water, beverages, medicines, poison and firewood, tools for hunting, fishing, storage and transport of food and goods, shelter and protection. Plants can also be used for numerous other purposes related to social beliefs and rituals, such as making ornaments from seeds; to make musical instruments; statuary and other decorative and symbolic objects.</p>
<p>There is little archaeological data on the types of plants and the different uses that were given to them by hunter-gatherer populations during prehistory. Globally, this is probably related to bad preservation of plant remains in the archaeological record. In South Africa, interest <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3888947">in studying</a> botanical remains peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s; few archaeobotanical studies have been conducted since then. There is a need for a better understanding of prehistoric plant use in South Africa. </p>
<p>Our research was conducted in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2018.1504544">Border Cave</a>, located on a cliff between eSwatini and KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. It is a Middle Stone Age site that preserves human occupation dating from between 38,000 years and about 250,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355549/original/file-20200831-17-d112hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clockwise from top: a panoramic photograph of Border Cave (copyright: Ashley Kruger); the view from the cave (copyright: Paloma de la Peña) and excavations at Border Cave (copyright: Paloma de la Peña).</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some parts of the site have exceptional organic preservation: desiccated grass bedding, wood charcoal and charred rhizomes (rootstalks) from fires occur in different layers. The botanical remains we recovered in our research were preserved as ephemeral traces of silicified grass in the cave’s oldest deposits, dating back to around 200,000 years.</p>
<p>These siliceous remains are known as <a href="https://phytoliths.org/">phytoliths</a>, taken from the Greek (<em>phyto</em>, plant; <em>litho</em>, stone) – microscopic remains of silica that reproduce the cellular structure of certain plants. We discovered that Border Cave is home to the highest concentration of phytoliths documented to date in the archaeological record. This high phytolith concentration is due to their good state of preservation and an intentional and intensive accumulation of grasses for bedding construction. These phytoliths tell us about the bedding our ancestors used in the cave.</p>
<h2>Ancient bedding</h2>
<p>The beds we identified at Border Cave were constructed with broad-leaved grasses from the <em>Panicoideae</em> subfamily, and were used both for resting and to prepare daily workspaces. We know that people worked as well as slept on the grass mats because we identified debris from stone tool manufacture and red and orange ochre microfragments mixed with the grass remains that could well have been used for body decoration or on worn objects.</p>
<p>Using archaeobotanical, microscopic and infrared techniques, we identified sequences of burning and grass bedding indicating that people used this space repeatedly. We know the beds were periodically burned through the presence of ash, as well as burnt grass, wood and bone. Some of that burned wood came from the broad-leaved camphor bush (<em>Tarchonanthus</em>), a species still used as an insect repellent in parts of East Africa.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/356038/original/file-20200902-14-7cdqcj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plant composition of the 200,000 year old bedding. A, Microphotograph of Panicoideae grass phytoliths; Copyright, Irene Esteban. B, Scanning electron microscope image of Panicoideae grass fragment; Copyright, Lyn Wadley. C, Photograph of modern Panicum maximum grass; Copyright, Lyn Wadley.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is likely that most of these plants were infested by ticks, among other insects and pests, as is the case today. Ticks carry many diseases, and it is probable that our human ancestors would suffer from their bites. We speculate that laying grass bedding on ash was a deliberate strategy not only to create a dirt-free, insulated base for the bedding, but perhaps also to repel crawling insects. </p>
<p>Sometimes the ashy layer underneath the bedding was a remnant of older grass bedding that had been burned to clean the cave and destroy pests. In more recent occupations, wood ash from fireplaces was probably used as the clean surface for a new bedding layer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irene Esteban receives funding from the University of the Witwatersrand, The Palaeontological Scientific Trust, DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences and the USA National Science Foundation.
She is also an affiliated member of the African Centre of Coastal Palaeosciences.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paloma de la Peña Alonso receives funding from the DSI/NRFCenter of Excellence of Paleosciences and the Paleontological Scientific Trust. </span></em></p>Before 200,000 years ago, close to the origin of our species, people preferred the use of broad-leaved grasses to build their beds and resting areas using ash layers underneath.Irene Esteban, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University of the WitwatersrandPaloma de la Peña Alonso, Senior Researcher in African Quaternary Archaeology and Hominin Palaeoecology (University of Cambridge and University of the Witwatersrand), University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1439082020-08-10T13:00:21Z2020-08-10T13:00:21ZWhy political killings have taken hold – again – in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351106/original/file-20200804-14-1jqvvdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Political killings in the country are linked to the fierce competition for control of state resources within the governing ANC. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Jon Hrusha</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A kind of civil war erupted in South Africa in the 1980s, and ran into the first half of the 1990s. The country was going through convulsions as the fight against apartheid gathered steam and the state reacted with increasing vehemence and violence.</p>
<p>The violence spread into many corners of South Africa. It also manifested itself in rivalries between organisation such as the Inkatha Freedom Party, then a Zulu-nationalist party that had reached accommodation with the apartheid military, with its base in what was then known as Natal, now KwaZulu-Natal, and the then banned African National Congress (ANC), and its internal wing, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/united-democratic-front-udf">United Democratic Front</a>.</p>
<p>The violence between the Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC started in Kwa-Zulu Natal and then spread through to the black residential areas of Johannesburg and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Vereeniging">Vereeniging</a>, which lies about 60 km south of Johannesburg. It also spread to other parts of the country.</p>
<p>Within a decade an estimated <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2017.1422012?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rsaj20">20,000</a> people had been murdered in this battle for supremacy, most in the four years between <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02264/05lv02335/06lv02357/07lv02372/08lv02379.htm">1990 and 1994</a>. </p>
<p>The arrival of democracy <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/timeline-20-years-democracy-1994-2014">in 1994</a> marked the beginning of the end of this era. The political killings tailed off and by the close of the millennium they had fizzled out, with the ANC taking over from Inkatha as the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304755258_The_Inkatha_Freedom_Party_Between_the_Impossible_and_the_Ineffective">dominant party in the KwaZulu-Natal</a>, drawing Inkatha strongmen into its fold, including some of its <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/greg-arde-war-party/jtfn-6893-g840">most notorious killers</a>. </p>
<p>But this political peace was short-lived. A new form of political violence broke out, again centred in KwaZulu-Natal, getting into its stride after Jacob Zuma became president in 2009. </p>
<p>This time it was not between parties and their warlords, and it had nothing to do with ideology and policy. Instead, it had everything to do with money.</p>
<p>According to researcher Mary De Haas’, around 90 municipal councillors, political party officials and senior municipal officials, have been murdered in KwaZulu-Natal <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-fails-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-killings-in-kwazulu-natal-128167">since 2015</a>. Most of the deceased were affiliated to the ANC, the party that governs both the province and the country. </p>
<p>The South African investigative journalist Greg Arde provides an impressively researched and well-written account of scores of political assassinations in the province in his <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/greg-arde-war-party/jtfn-6893-g840">book</a>, <em>War Party: How the ANC’s Political Killings are Breaking South Africa</em>.</p>
<p>Some of the victims of the killings were honest councillors and officials who had sought to expose corruption over tenders, kickbacks, budgets and fund allocation. Others were rivals, competing for access to power and the goodies it could buy.</p>
<h2>Political assassinations</h2>
<p>Arde shows how a culture of settling problems by physically eliminating the source has emerged from a toxic brew. This includes the history of political violence in the area with politicians accustomed to killing, and a ready source of assassins from within the violent minibus taxi industry, often emerging from hostels that house black migrant workers. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351065/original/file-20200804-22-e1t494.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Regions and municipalities all over the country are plagued by corruption, at huge cost to the residents they are supposed to serve. Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape, for example, has become a <a href="https://jamba.org.za/index.php/jamba/article/view/830/1667">basket case</a>, and is not immune to political killings. But none can match the continual spree of assassinations that characterise local and regional politics in KZN, which escalated during Jacob Zuma’s years in power.</p>
<p>Zuma replaced Thabo Mbeki as leader of the governing ANC in December 2007, and went on to become the president of the country <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">in May 2009</a>. The eThekwini Municipality, the biggest in Kwa-Zulu Natal, served as the key political base for Zuma’s rise to <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/koers/v73n4/03.pdf">the presidency of the ANC</a>. </p>
<p>His reign was characterised by <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-democracy-or-a-kleptocracy-how-south-africa-stacks-up-111101">high levels of corruption</a>, ending in February 2018 when he was recalled by the ANC. </p>
<p>It is tempting to blame the violence on the grand corruption programme. In other words, to see the culture of corruption as something that starts at the top and filters down. But Arde’s book offers a different perspective, suggesting corruption also percolates from the bottom up.</p>
<h2>No action</h2>
<p>In 2016, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government appointed the advocate MTK Moerane to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-09-27-moerane-omission-political-expediency-trumps-justice-once-again/">investigate killings in the province</a> from 2011. He concluded in a report delivered to the government in 2018 that corruption was the backbone of South African politics, “and that’s the cause of the violence”.</p>
<p>No action was taken on the <a href="http://www.kznonline.gov.za/images/Downloads/Publications/MOERANE%20COMMISSION%20OF%20INQUIRY%20REPORT.pdf">report</a> which has simply gathered dust, as Arde shows. And the killings continued.</p>
<p>One of those who gave evidence to the inquiry was Professor Paulus Zulu. His explanation started with the contentious point that some local councillors wouldn’t qualify for jobs as labourers based on skill levels. Once elected they adjusted their lifestyles and clung to their jobs, ensuring, without scruple, that nothing would prejudice their new livelihoods. This often meant eliminating opposition, with competition most fierce at the bottom of the pyramid. He said (quoted in Arde’s book, page 70)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One either has the job or nothing at all. In the absence of qualifications, negative competition in the form of violence is the perfect recipe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Arde is not afraid to go where the evidence leads. For example, he names the former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede who is on trial for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-03-11-ethekwini-municipal-manager-to-join-zandile-gumede-in-court/">massive corruption</a>. </p>
<p>He shows how ANC branches and the councils they run have been taken over by criminal groups. This is often closely tied to the lawless taxi industry, which is the subject of several chapters. Again, Arde is not shy to name names.</p>
<p>What Arde does so well is to use the narrative from case studies framed around short biographies of the killers and their victims. In this way he reveals how the corruption and violence play out. Patterns emerge as he pieces these accounts together.</p>
<p>His prose is eloquent and exciting, and the stories he tells are based on exhaustive research. The result is a well-structured book that is never less than shocking. The horror it exposes makes for uncomfortable reading.</p>
<p>There are some gaps. For example, an account of how Zuma’s state capture project both encouraged and drew from the local level corruption in Kwa-Zulu Natal is missing. Also, the author makes no attempt to give a statistical breakdown of the violence, or to offer clear political prescriptions for solving it.</p>
<h2>Pessimistic outlook</h2>
<p>The picture Arde presents so compellingly does not invite an optimistic prognosis. There is an obvious danger of the current corruption-based violence spreading to other provinces.</p>
<p>Arde notes at the end of the book that the ANC has become a “war party”, one that helped liberate South Africa from the tyranny of apartheid but is now consumed by avarice. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every day some of its members in power surely get up inspired to improve the lives of the poor and to commit themselves to such honest endeavour… But evidence shows that others, arguably a growing number, are getting up with murderous intent, prepared to kill one another in their quest for power or to satisfy their greed.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gavin Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Author shows how politicians intent on settling problems by physically eliminating opponents tap into a ready source of assassins from within the taxi industry.Gavin Evans, Lecturer, Culture and Media department, Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1352292020-04-06T14:18:06Z2020-04-06T14:18:06ZA South African theatre project explores collective solutions to saving the ocean<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325701/original/file-20200406-104477-a42tb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Lalela uLwandle</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The earth’s oceans are under grave threat. Scientists in many fields have pointed to the large-scale negative shifts brought about by <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X17301650">human-made pollutants</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/issj.12159?casa_token=yo1hu6jL9h4AAAAA%3AnsdpJweEdPal13QVMb1RBN-jnfJR10c-yU12iCoDEtfaYHHF0kXGv65aIEIPV2KMuRnwjr7Qdzk1tedw">mining</a> and <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/sajs/v112n9-10/04.pdf">overfishing</a>.</p>
<p>How people now choose to behave, make collective decisions and build solidarity around the health of oceans has an impact not just on our own species but on all life on earth.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.empatheatre.com/lalela-ulwandle">Lalela uLwandle</a> (Listen to the Sea) is a theatre production in South Africa that was developed by the <a href="https://www.empatheatre.com/about">Empatheatre</a> group after listening to the voices of coastal dwellers that care for or live off the ocean. The Lalela uLwandle research and engagement project was implemented along the KwaZulu-Natal coastline in 2019. </p>
<p>The production was first staged at home but has now embarked on an international tour. On 7 June it was <a href="https://www.jozigist.co.za/empatheatre-at-united-nations-world-oceans-week-in-new-york-why-storytelling-is-the-sacred-medicine-ocean-governance-needs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=empatheatre-at-united-nations-world-oceans-week-in-new-york-why-storytelling-is-the-sacred-medicine-ocean-governance-needs">performed</a> at the United Nations in New York for World Oceans Week. Lead actress and co-director of Empatheatre, Mpume Mthombeni also gave a speech at the UN headquarters on 8 June, World Oceans Day.</p>
<h2>A chorus of voices</h2>
<p>The idea for the play emerged from a <a href="https://risingsunchatsworth.co.za/123628/community-oil-gas-mining-kzn-coast/">public consultation meeting</a>. It was between community representatives from small towns along the coastline, and the <a href="https://www.sapia.org.za">Petroleum Association of South Africa</a>. Many felt they had not been adequately consulted in an environmental impact assessment for permits to drill for oil and gas along the coastline. </p>
<p>The association, a regulatory body meant to consider public needs when granting or denying such licences, was sympathetic to some of the arguments. But the consultation process failed to make room for the different perspectives and concerns in the room.</p>
<p>In response, a team of researchers working in ocean governance from Rhodes University and the Durban University of Technology began the Lalela project. It set out to explore how different coastal people, in and around the coastal city of Durban, make sense of their relationship with the ocean. </p>
<p>The research participants included a broad spectrum. They were small-scale and subsistence fishers, marine scientists, activists, church followers, marine educators at the aquarium and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sangoma">sangomas</a> (traditional healers). </p>
<p>The opening question was simple: What are your first memories of the sea? It’s important because the symbolic, scientific and spiritual meanings of the oceans are key to understanding <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40152-020-00163-5">humans’ relationship with the oceans</a>. Memories, belief systems, stories and myths are powerful ways in which we make sense of our world and choose to act on and in it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325696/original/file-20200406-103690-1c7nil7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Faye (Allison Cassels) recounts the wonder of baby cuttlefish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Casey Pratt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The research team partnered with <a href="http://www.uncannyjustness.org/empatheatre.html">Empatheatre</a>, a collective who use research-based theatre as a participatory decision-making tool for social justice. They have tackled issues related to street-level drug use (<em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jguiaUniBbE">Ulwembu</a></em>), gender and migration (<em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg4P38dbBao">The Last Country</a></em>), and mining (<em><a href="https://soilandash.weebly.com/">Soil&Ash</a></em>). They wove these incredible everyday stories of the sea, together with archival material, into the production <em>Lalela uLwandle</em>. </p>
<h2>On stage among the audience</h2>
<p><em>Lalela uLwandle</em> draws on the stories of three people. Nolwandle is a marine educator whose mother is a Zionist and grandmother a sangoma. Niren is a young environmental activist whose family has a long history of seine-net fishing. Faye is a retired marine biologist reflecting on life as a scientist and activist. </p>
<p>Audience members sit in a circle with the actors and witness these intergenerational stories. They recount how the ocean is linked to, among other things, livelihoods, medicine and healing, and scientific study. Included is the site of the sea for spiritual connections with ancestors.</p>
<p>The play deals with acts of past and present power and exclusion in South Africa. It performs the painful experiences of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/forced-removals-south-africa">forced removals</a> under <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>, which robbed many of a life on the coast. It explores how extractive mining on land and sea, and industrial fishing, continue to create forms of oppression and exclusion. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325707/original/file-20200406-151304-1hujff8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nolwandle (Mpume Mthombeni) performs the symbolic destruction of homes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kelly Daniels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also performs the tensions between environmental justice and environmental conservation. These are frequently played out <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0964569117304015">in real life</a> when local people are restricted from accessing sites of heritage and livelihood in <a href="http://mpaforum.org.za/marine-protected-areas/">Marine Protected Areas</a>.</p>
<p>Last year the play toured six small towns on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, with a final week’s <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/mercury/goodlife/listen-to-the-sea-33807711">run</a> in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Durban">Durban</a>. The general public came to watch along with guests invited from government, civil society, small-scale fisher associations, marine science and conservation. </p>
<p>Each performance was followed by a facilitated discussion. In many, audience members grappled with what it means to think collectively in a time of ocean degradation. They asked of themselves and fellow audience members how the hurt and inequalities in our past, and in the present, should shape thinking on ocean governance. </p>
<h2>If we listened carefully</h2>
<p>South Africa remains deeply divided by racial injustices and <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/01/29/na012820six-charts-on-south-africas-persistent-and-multi-faceted-inequality">economic inequalities</a>. Rather than skirt over these divides <em>Lalela uLwandle</em> told different stories of power and vulnerability. What arose from the research, performances and discussions was how cultural connections offer valuable contributions towards conservation and environmental efforts. </p>
<p>The play offered an invitation to an alternative conversation. One in which culture, science and conservation may, if people learn to listen to each other carefully, find strategic alignment.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325708/original/file-20200406-196131-1utf8hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niren (Rory Booth) sends a prayer into the ocean for his grandfather.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Val Adamson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The public discussions showed an encouraging move away from various trade-offs that normally play out. Where big business gains at the expense of poor communities, or conservation wins at the expense of marginal groups, or where marginal groups are awarded socio-economic resources at the expense of environmental conservation. </p>
<p>To find solutions the world desperately needs to become better equipped at more equitable collective decision making. To do that we need to find translation devices between scientific, conservation, cultural and spiritual canons. We need them to spark an imagination for working in solidarity across difference, with and for the oceans that sustain us all. </p>
<p><em>Lalela uLwandle is led by Dylan McGarry and Taryn Pereira at the <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/elrc/">Environmental Learning Research Centre</a>, Rhodes University, with Neil Coppen and Mpume Mthombeni from <a href="http://www.uncannyjustness.org/empatheatre.html">Empatheatre</a>, and Kira Erwin at the <a href="https://www.dut.ac.za/faculty/engineering/urban_futures/">Urban Futures Centre</a>, Durban University of Technology. Lalela uLwandle forms part of the <a href="https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/strathclydecentreenvironmentallawgovernance/oneoceanhub/">One Ocean Hub</a>, a global action research network led by Strathclyde University and funded by the <a href="https://www.ukri.org/research/global-challenges-research-fund/">UKRI Global Challenge Research Fund</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>This article was updated to include developments around international performances of the play.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kira Erwin has received funding from the National Research Foundation, as well as other external funders for research projects at the Urban Futures Centre. Her work on Lalela uLwandle is done in-kind with no direct funding.</span></em></p>Empatheatre’s latest production is more than a play about three characters who live near the sea. It’s a model for collective consultation on how to save the ocean.Kira Erwin, Senior researcher, Durban University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1319392020-02-18T11:22:35Z2020-02-18T11:22:35ZDance softly and carry a big voice: understanding Joseph Shabalala<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315738/original/file-20200217-10985-1x43trs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lars Baron/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Joseph Bekhizizwe Shabalala <a href="https://theconversation.com/of-strong-winds-heavy-hearts-and-joseph-shabalala-telling-the-south-african-story-131848">passed away</a> I stopped in my tracks and just let the sadness pull me down. And then inspiration from his beacon of a life lifted me back up. </p>
<p>Shabalala’s own response to the devastating murder of his wife <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/may/29/guardianobituaries.robindenselow">Nellie</a> in 2002 was the transcendently uplifting album by his ensemble <a href="https://mambazo.com/">Ladysmith Black Mambazo</a> called <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/may/02/popandrock.shopping1">Raise Your Spirit Higher</a>. It won a Grammy in 2003. </p>
<p>What is our response to the great artistic and spiritual hole his loss has left in South Africa? The journalistic tributes have poured in from all over, both at home and abroad. This saves me the labour of reviewing the innumerable highlights of Shabalala’s extraordinary shooting star of a life and career. What does remain for us academic tortoises waddling after the journalist hares is to meditate on the quality and character of his unique personhood and achievement, and their meaning for South Africa and indeed the world. </p>
<h2>Directed by dreams</h2>
<p>To begin at the beginning, Shabalala’s parents were not simply tenant farmers in the district of Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, but more significantly <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sangoma">Zulu spiritual diviners</a> and herbal doctors. The religious approach of physical and psychological healing as a single unified medical system was inculcated from birth, along with the intense outpouring of singing, drumming, and dancing such treatment requires.</p>
<p>This is important when we consider the role of dreams in Shabalala’s creative autobiography. Dreams are a vital source of inspiration and communication from the netherworld in indigenous southern African religion. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315756/original/file-20200217-10980-1qoupb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform at Carnegie Hall in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Their power carries over into African Christianity, which Shabalala took up devoutly after the early success of Ladysmith Black Mambazo in the 1970s. “The Church of Christ the Dreamer” as playwright and author <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harold-athol-fugard">Athol Fugard</a> called it in his novel Tsotsi. </p>
<p>Shabalala’s dream of a choir of children singing “in perfect harmony” proved formative in his ensemble’s career. For the rest of his life he dreamt of new songs, new arrangements, techniques, and disciplines that the group developed and performed on stage. Directed by dreams, he was a formidable, uncompromising taskmaster in rehearsal. </p>
<p>This submission to the spirit of musical harmony in dreams helps to explain the secret of Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s success. Regardless of their highly localised genre, they were just so good, and the global audience was absolutely enchanted. I recall listening to them at New York’s cavernous Carnegie Hall in 1988. For three uninterrupted hours, using only their voices and synchronous choreography, they kept the audience spellbound at the edge of their seats in awed, worshipful silence.</p>
<h2>A bridge with the West</h2>
<p>The Africanisation of Christianity, audible in the group’s <a href="https://ums.org/2010/01/14/what-is-isicathamiya/">isicathamiya</a> genre, produced a blend of Christian hymnody and isiZulu male polyphonic vocal traditions. This deep synthesis provided a bridge between Zulu and Western music that Shabalala crossed and re-crossed repeatedly by a variety of routes. </p>
<p>This explains in part the naturalness of his ability to collaborate with an astonishing range of American vocalists and composers, from Paul Simon to Stevie Wonder to Dolly Parton. Another part of the explanation was Shabalala’s overwhelming humanism and dedication to social as well as musical harmony, that touched everyone he encountered.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gYq4gA7r49I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Dolly Parton famously collaborated with Ladysmith Black Mambazo.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Shaped by migration</h2>
<p>A second foundational theme in the life and work of Shabalala was the necessity of labour migration, which he was forced to undertake at a young age following the early death of his father. The hardships of the migrant labour system, which formed the economic foundation of racial capitalism and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>, later became a staple of his lyrical composition and landscape of feeling. </p>
<p>The title song of the group’s album <em>Isitimela</em> (Train) thus laments:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here is the train; it has gone, 0h father it is going to Pietermaritzburg They will weep, they will remain behind, sorrowful over us …
The heavens are trembling.
If you marry a lady, she will remain behind weeping
They will remain behind, sad over us ….</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These hymns of the hardships of migrant labour – like the rock/maskanda of Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-07-19-00-johnny-clegg-in-retrospect-it-all-began-with-juluka/">Juluka</a> who appeared with them on Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s first overseas tour in 1981 – mounted an implicit political challenge to the white minority government. It transgressed the boundaries of apartheid cultural ideology. </p>
<h2>The face of black South Africa</h2>
<p>Just as importantly, Ladysmith Black Mambazo helped to humanise oppressed black South Africans to a mass audience overseas. The success of Paul Simon’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/19/paul-simon-graceland-acclaim-outrage"><em>Graceland</em></a> album and tours in the mid-1980s led to a successful international touring and recording career for Ladysmith Black Mambazo in their own right. </p>
<p>American audiences who enjoyed the stunning beauty and exotic perfection of Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s intricate vocal harmonies could hardly believe that these were the same sort of people as the unarmed protesters that brutal South African police were shown beating, shooting and teargassing on the evening news. </p>
<p>Suddenly, as their song <em>Homeless</em> from the Graceland album prayerfully intimated, every black life in South Africa’s struggle was a real, human life, one whose loss ought to be prevented. </p>
<p>Of course, in reply to those English-speaking critics who believed they looked in vain for political consciousness in Ladysmith’s songs, Shabalala rightly pointed out that in isiZulu there are subtleties of reference that do not survive translation. And that during the struggle virtually all popular music was held to have a political valence in black communities because politics had become the implicit ground of social discourse. </p>
<p>Finally, Ladysmith’s appropriations of African-American hymnody and gospel are part of a tradition of ‘<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076068">Black Atlantic</a>’ political cross-fertilisation and aspiration. This receives perhaps its most notable expression in <a href="https://youtu.be/288r0Mo1bFw">Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika</a>, the anthem of the African National Congress that has become the first verse of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/about-sa/national-symbols/national-anthem">national anthem</a> of South Africa.</p>
<h2>A musical Mandela</h2>
<p>Finally, we should pause to consider Shabalala as a kind of musical Nelson Mandela, at once a great talent and a great soul, who humanised South Africans, their troubles and their aspirations, for the world. </p>
<p>Yet he was above all a perfectionist, setting a standard by which our performing artists will continue to be judged by the world audience for a very long time. <em>Phumula ngokuthula, lala ngoxolo mfowethu Bekhizizwe</em> (Rest in peace Bhekizizwe). Because of you, the rest of us have work to do.</p>
<p><em>Some passages are adapted from David B. Coplan’s book <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo5867457.html">In Township Tonight!</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Coplan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Joseph Shabalala would grow world famous for his music. But it is shaped by the spiritual aspects of his life as much as it is by the hardships of black life - and by his dreams.David Coplan, Professor Emeritus, Social Anthropology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1281672020-01-21T14:14:40Z2020-01-21T14:14:40ZSouth Africa fails to get to the bottom of killings in KwaZulu-Natal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310477/original/file-20200116-181603-hq7rke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African police minister Bheki Cele (left) claims success in the investigation of political killings in KwaZulu-Natal. With him is the head of the police, Khehla Sithole.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The assassination of political figures in South Africa has a long and horrible history. That the practice has continued since the country became a democracy is deeply disturbing.</p>
<p><a href="https://globalinitiative.net/the-rule-of-the-gun-hits-and-assassinations-in-south-africa-2000-2017/">Research</a> by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime between 2000 and 2017 ranked one province in South Africa – KwaZulu-Natal – well ahead of the other eight provinces in killings of people in the political sphere and the taxi industry. </p>
<p>I have conducted <a href="https://www.violencemonitor.com">anthropological research</a> on political violence in the province since 1983. My work has been of a qualitative nature, using information obtained from my own research networks, interventionist work with the police, and media reports. </p>
<p>My work, among other things, confirms the close links between political and taxi violence in the province, with taxi hitmen often deployed in political attacks. It is a cause for great concern that despite the availability of information about such activities, little progress has been made in bringing perpetrators to justice.</p>
<p>In May 2018 President Cyril Ramaphosa formed a national <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/ministerial-committee-to-look-into-kzn-political-killings/">inter-ministerial investigative team</a> drawn from different parts of the country to investigate the killings. Its work has stirred controversy, amid allegations it has been <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-28-cele-defends-political-killings-probe/">selective</a> when making arrests. Questions have been raised about <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/task-team-probing-political-killings-in-kzn-slammed-as-incompetent=34518425">the quality of its investigations</a>, which have had little impact on exposing those behind the violence. </p>
<h2>The nature of political killings</h2>
<p>According to my statistics, around 90 people with some official standing have been killed in KwaZulu-Natal since 2015. They were either municipal councillors, political party officials or, in a few cases, senior municipal officials. Most of the deceased were affiliated to the African National Congress (ANC), the party that governs both the province and the country. </p>
<p>This figure is bound to be an under representation of the situation as not all such deaths are reported. Also, the figure does not include over 100 murders in Durban’s Glebelands hostel, which was built during the apartheid era to house male migrant workers, but is now home to <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-07-23-glebelands-part-one-durbans-hostel-dwellers-the-collateral-damage-as-public-protector-fights-battles-on-all-fronts/">22,000 people</a>, including families.</p>
<p>Prominent municipal employees are included in the deaths because of links between corruption and killings confirmed by a <a href="http://www.kznonline.gov.za/images/Downloads/Publications/MOERANE%20COMMISSION%20OF%20INQUIRY%20REPORT.pdf">commission</a> set up in 2016 to investigate political violence in KwaZulu-Natal.</p>
<p>Many of the deaths have been linked to intra-ANC politics. But the motive may not necessarily be political. For example, a death could be linked to the taxi business, known for its high levels of <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/taxi-violence-on-the-up-in-kzn-north-coast-after-murders-33637750">violence and assassinations</a>. The violence, as my own research confirms, is usually linked to fierce competition over routes. </p>
<p>What’s common to all the deaths is that the violence is motivated by a battle over scarce resources. For example, prior to elections, competition over candidature might have been a motive, as seen in the spike in killings <a href="http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/sacq/n57/06.pdf">ahead of the 2016 local government elections</a>. Becoming a councillor guarantees a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-governing-party-celebrates-with-eye-on-tough-year-ahead-52989">lucrative salary in all working class wards</a>. </p>
<h2>No transparency</h2>
<p>The inter-ministerial task team investigating the political killings started work on over 100 dockets in mid-2018. Over a year later, the only known high profile conviction for any of the 90 murders I documented was secured by KwaZulu-Natal detectives in March 2019 for a 2016 murder. </p>
<p>There may well have been convictions for the murders of less well known victims in regional courts which have not been reported. But none have been reported for the many prominent victims during this period. </p>
<p>This hasn’t stopped the police minister, Bheki Cele, from <a href="https://www.politicalanalysis.co.za/cele-says-the-imc-has-made-progress-in-addressing-political-violence/">claiming</a> that the task team has had many successes and secured several life sentences. He has failed to provide full details of these convictions. </p>
<p>From my personal experience, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain information from the South African Police Service about progress in criminal investigations.</p>
<p>I have also experienced a lack of transparency relating to the structure of the task team itself, including who commands it. </p>
<p>I have been able to establish that many people have been arrested. Some have been released without being charged while others have had charges withdrawn after appearing in court. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305647/original/file-20191206-90588-10i9unp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sindiso Magaqa, a municipal councillor in Umzimkhulu, KwaZulu-Natal, paid the price for opposing tender fraud.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">African News Agency Archive.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A number of examples of high profile cases – some of which were included in the dockets taken by the task team – show how the justice system is failing to conclude cases. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The assassination in May 2018 of prominent ANC activist Musawenkosi “Maqatha” Mchunu <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-witness/20191008/281539407705788">in Pietermaritzburg</a>. Six people were arrested for the crime, including Gift Zungu and Nkosinathi Gambu, the son and the nephew of the former deputy mayor of the district municipality under which the city falls. Almost a year after their arrests, murder charges were withdrawn against all the accused. Zungu and Gambu still face lesser charges.</p></li>
<li><p>Earlier last year the mayor of the KwaZulu-Natal town of Newcastle, Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba, was arrested and charged for the 2016 murder of local ANC Youth League leader Wandile Ngubeni. Five months later <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-08-15-murder-charges-dropped-against-kzn-mayor-as-witnesses-wont-testify/">charges were withdrawn</a>. In May a local ANC activist, Martin Sithole, who was believed to be a witness in the Ngubeni matter, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-05-13-witness-in-kzn-political-murder-gunned-down-in-apparent-hit/">was gunned down</a>. He was with a friend who was also killed.</p></li>
<li><p>Three ANC councillors from the town of Umzimkhulu were shot and badly injured in July 2017. One of them, Sindiso Magaqa, died in hospital months later. He had been working to expose corruption in the award of tenders for <a href="https://www.violencemonitor.com/2018/08/19/why-the-callous-disregard-for-the-safety-of-corruption-busters/">repairs to a hall in the area</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>In March 2019 the task team arrested the mayor of the district municipality, Mluleki Ndobe, a very senior ANC politician, together with the local municipality manager and three other men. Charges against Ndobe and the municipal manager were withdrawn 10 days later, but murder charges against the other three accused, including two former policemen, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-25-charges-provisionally-withdrawn-against-ndobe/">remain</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Evaluating task team performance</h2>
<p>These high profile arrests, followed by subsequent withdrawal of charges, have led to charges by the provincial ANC and the South African Communist Party of political partisanship and <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/task-team-probing-political-killings-in-kzn-slammed-as-incompetent-34518425">shoddy work by the task team</a>. </p>
<p>In the absence of empirical evidence to substantiate claims by the minister of police about convictions secured by this team, the inevitable conclusion is that their deployment is a waste of scarce criminal justice resources.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Natal Monitor Research Project Mary de Haas was part of at the University of Natal received funding from Norwegian People’s Aid between 1995 and 2005. She is affiliated with MeRAN, a small self-funded voluntary non-profit organisation of bioethicists working on medical rights.
</span></em></p>The task team established to investigate political killings in KwaZulu-Natal has had little impact on exposing those behind the violence.Mary de Haas, Honorary Research Associate in the School of Law, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1278482020-01-16T13:40:07Z2020-01-16T13:40:07ZViolence against women in poor settings: randomised trial shows mixed outcomes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305144/original/file-20191204-70133-nj4pd5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A typical informal settlement in South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Violence against women and girls in South Africa is now recognised as a <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/11/18/ramaphosa-our-gender-based-violence-plans-are-well-on-their-way">national crisis</a>. Far too many women and girls experience violence, primarily from their intimate partners. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-FR337-DHS-Final-Reports.cfm">latest</a> Demographic and Health Survey, a nationally representative survey across South Africa, led by the South African Medical Research Council in 2016, suggests that 1 in 10 women experienced intimate partner violence in the previous year. However, in our studies we found rates of physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence was as <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204956">high as 65%</a> among some women living in urban informal settlements. </p>
<p>Activists have been developing and implementing interventions over many years to prevent intimate partner violence. Evaluations of these interventions has shown great promise, with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673606697444">some studies</a> suggesting that interventions can reduce women’s experiences of violence by their partners by 55%. </p>
<p>We conducted <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X19304847">research </a> in 34 clusters in <a href="https://wp.wpi.edu/capetown/projects/p2014/wash-up-business/background-research/informal-settlements-in-south-africa/">urban informal settlements</a> near the urban metropole of eThekwini on the east coast of the country. </p>
<p>We applied two interventions – Stepping Stones and Creating Futures. Stepping Stones was first developed in Uganda in the 1990s, and was then <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a506.full.pdf+html">evaluated</a> in South Africa in the early 2000s. Creating Futures was developed by the project team for use in South Africa.</p>
<p>Over two years we assessed what effect they had had on reducing intimate partner violence, and whether they helped people gain a firmer footing in terms of a livelihoods.</p>
<p>We found the two were effective in reducing men’s self-reported perpetration of partner violence as well as reducing men’s alcohol intake. It also strengthened men’s livelihoods. When it came to women, they reported much stronger livelihoods, but there was no evidence that they influenced women’s experiences of violence from their partners.</p>
<p>This is the first evaluation of Stepping Stones and Creating Futures. It shows that the intervention could support young people living in very challenging contexts. </p>
<h2>The intervention</h2>
<p>Urban informal settlements are growing rapidly globally, including in South Africa, and are characterised by informal building structures and a lack of access to services. In 2016, it was estimated <a href="http://spii.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Right-to-Housing_2017.pdf">that 1 in 7 households</a> in South Africa lived in these settings. Informal settlements have high rates of intimate partner violence and HIV. </p>
<p>In our research we adapted two well-known interventions. The one, called “Stepping Stones”, focused on relationships, communication, violence prevention and sexual health.</p>
<p>We combined this with an intervention called Creating Futures which is designed to strengthen people’s ability to support themselves. It involved supporting young people to reflect on the opportunities available to them rather than providing them with cash or specific specific skills training.</p>
<p>We delivered the combined interventions to single sex groups of about 20 women or men, in 21 sessions, over about 12 weeks. They ranged between the ages of 18 and 30.</p>
<p>We then evaluated whether those who had received the intervention had lower rates of intimate partner violence, improved livelihoods and more gender equitable attitudes.</p>
<p>We did this with a randomised controlled trial with 677 women and 674 men. A randomised controlled trial allocates participants randomly to either receive the intervention immediately, or after the study has been completed. This reduced the chances that changes participants reported were because of wider changes in society – such as a general improvement in the economy – and allowed us to assess whether the intervention had an independent impact, or not. </p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>We found that, after two years, men who had been through Stepping Stones and Creating Futures reported significantly reduced rates of perpetrating violence. The men involved in the trial reported: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>That they used violence a lot less against their partners, and there was less sexual violence perpetration against non-partners too. </p></li>
<li><p>Significantly reduced alcohol intake. Men’s overall drinking reduced over the trial period. </p></li>
<li><p>Improved livelihoods. A number said they had saved more money in the past month, and were more engaged at work.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The responses from women were different. The key points were:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Much improved livelihoods after two years. They reported more earnings and savings in the past month, and more engagement in work. </p></li>
<li><p>Most said they had not experienced a reduction in partner violence over the previous year.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The positive finding about men’s behaviour around violence and reduced alcohol use, mirrors an earlier trial of Stepping Stones in the Eastern Cape with younger school-going men and women. In that trial, men reported a significant reduction in intimate partner violence after two years, and there was a reduction in alcohol use after one year. </p>
<p>This gives us great confidence that this intervention can benefit young men.</p>
<p>Understanding the lack of impact for young women is a critical next step, as is developing more effective approaches to preventing intimate partner violence for women.</p>
<h2>Preventing violence</h2>
<p>The combined Stepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention is the first intervention seeking to strengthen young people’s livelihoods, and to tackle gender-based violence. </p>
<p>Our research found that, among men, they did indeed reduce self-reported acts of intimate partner violence as well as overall alcohol use. They also helped young men improve their savings. </p>
<p>When it came to women, we demonstrated that the interventions enabled them to increase their earnings and savings. But, they had no impact on their experience of intimate partner violence. </p>
<p>Based on our findings we concluded that Stepping Stones and Creating Futures should be scaled up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Gibbs receives funding from the UK Department for International Development's What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Global Programme, which funded this research. He is employed by the South African Medical Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Jewkes receives funding from the UK Department for International Development's What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls Global Programme, which funded this research. </span></em></p>Two interventions proved effective in reducing men’s perpetration, but not women’s experiences of violence.Andrew Gibbs, Senior specialist scientist: Gender and Health Research Unit, Medical Research Council, South African Medical Research CouncilRachel Jewkes, Executive scientist: Research strategy, South African Medical Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217712019-08-20T13:04:43Z2019-08-20T13:04:43ZHow a chief defied apartheid and upheld democracy for the good of his people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288184/original/file-20190815-136222-34o1j9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, right, with Dali Mpofu and Winnie Mandela in 1989. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thobekile Maphumulo Family Papers, Author provided (No reuse)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released report of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-advisory-panel-land-reform">advisory panel</a> on land reform, and the latest efforts to force through <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-settle-traditional-leadership-challenges-119009">two controversial traditional authority bills</a>, point to the continued legacies of changes to the relationship between traditional leaders, their followers, and land in South Africa’s history. </p>
<p>The panel calls for a resolution to the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/final-report-presidential-advisory-panel-land-reform-and-agriculture-28-jul-2019-0000">contending philosophies around land tenure</a>” — those of individual rights and those of communalism. But as traditional leaders <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/contralesa-back-zulu-king-ingonyama-issue">fight to continue their control</a> over communally held land, there also needs to be a recognition that there are contending philosophies of traditional leadership. At times, these overlap.</p>
<p>This was evident at the meeting between a delegation from the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) and the then exiled African National Congress (ANC) in Lusaka, Zambia 30 years ago – on 18 August 1989.</p>
<p>The meeting released a joint memorandum. In it the parties called upon traditional leaders in South Africa to refuse to implement apartheid. The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110427125959/http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3843">document</a> recognised the profound effects of apartheid on South Africa’s traditional leaders: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From leaders responsible and responsive to the people, you are being forced by the regime to become its paid agents. From being a force for unity and prosperity you are turned into perpetrators of division, poverty and want among the oppressed. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland system</a>, land deprivation, forced removals and the denial of basic political rights – all these and more are the anti-people policies that the white ruling clique forces the chiefs to implement on its behalf.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Contending views of chieftancy</h2>
<p>The ANC and the Contralesa delegation called on a historical understanding of traditional authority in which a leader’s authority came from their followers. This understanding is embodied by the isiZulu proverb <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> (a chief is a chief by the people who <em>khonza</em> him, or pay allegiance to him). <em>Ukukhonza</em> is a practice of political affiliation. It is one that binds chiefs and their subjects and allows for accountability.</p>
<p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land. Historian Percy Ngonyama called this <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> (a chief is a chief by territory). Doing so effected territorial segregation. It also allowed white officials to govern through a mimicry of pre-existing political structures.</p>
<p>Colonial officials came to interpret <em>ukukhonza</em> as a practice of subservience. But in fact, historically, this was a reciprocal practice. Paying allegiance to a chief came with expectations of physical and social security.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My recent <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=552">book</a>, To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence and Belonging in South Africa, 1800 - 1996, is a history of <em>ukukhonza</em>. It shows how even as colonialism and apartheid sought to break down personal bonds of <em>ukukhonza</em>, people used knowledge about the practice to make claims on land and on their leaders. </p>
<p>In the case of Inkosi Maphumulo, the claims were for physical security in times of violence.</p>
<h2>Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mhlabunzima-joseph-maphumulo">Inkosi (Chief) Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</a> (1949-1991) led the Contralesa delegation to Lusaka. He governed in the Table Mountain region, an area just outside of Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal. His life, tragically cut short by an apartheid hit squad, provides insight on these overlapping concepts of chiefly authority – <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> and <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em>. </p>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo was the fourth chief of a colonially created chiefdom that from its genesis in 1905 was tied to land south of the <a href="http://www.dwaf.gov.za/iwqs/rhp/state_of_rivers/state_of_umngeni_02/history.html">Umngeni River</a> at <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&q=table+mountain+pietermaritzburg&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNz9T18f_jAhVKJVAKHbBzCQUQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1261&bih=636">Table Mountain</a>. The existence of two types of chiefdoms served to “divide and rule”. It pitted leaders who saw themselves as having historical authority against those with new authority from the colonial regime. </p>
<p>From his installation in 1973, he carried out the duties of the chieftaincy within the structures of the nascent KwaZulu bantustan. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“bantustans” or “homelands”</a> were the ultimate level of the three tiered system of governance designed to ensure segregation in South Africa – not only on racial, but also ethnic lines. The bantustans built on so-called <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/24222/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">tribal authorities</a> such as that of the region Maphumulo governed. </p>
<p>One of Inkosi Maphumulo’s priorities was to provide land to his subjects during a time when territorial segregation constrained black South Africans’ access to land. He tirelessly pursued a contested strip of land that bisected his territory but, according to apartheid-defined boundaries, fell neither under his control nor that of a neighbouring chief.</p>
<p>The government gazette that outlined the boundaries of the Inkosi Maphumulo Tribal Authority in 1957 made its leaders chiefs by land. Colonial officials had been putting down boundaries in Natal for over 100 years. But apartheid’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/bantu-authorities-act%2C-act-no-68-of-1951">Bantu Authorities</a> finalised this process and fully bounded chiefdoms. </p>
<p>But Inkosi Maphumulo was a leader who did not forget the responsibilities of chief by the people, even as he pursued land to allocate to his followers. By the time he flew to Lusaka, he had become known as the “peace chief”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maphumulo the peace maker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New African, April 17, 1989</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As violence spread across the Natal Midlands from 1985 in a state-sponsored civil war, Inkosi Maphumulo organised peace initiatives. And, through Contralesa, he set up a commission of inquiry into the causes of the conflict. </p>
<p>He spoke out against police partiality and cooperation with Inkatha, which was engaged in a deadly conflict with the ANC and the broader liberation movement. He also welcomed refugees of all political affiliations from war torn townships onto land at Table Mountain. He described the process by which this happened to the press:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People are not made to pay money to live in the area, but in our tradition they are expected to pay ‘khonza’—a tribute to the chief… A goat is sufficient for ‘khonza’ but if a person does not have one, then a small amount of money, depending on the person’s circumstances, is expected.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Land and belonging</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo spoke of rights to land as tied to belonging in a chiefdom, a process facilitated by <em>ukukhonza</em>. There was a slight hitch. The neighbouring Nyavu chiefdom, who claimed precedence in the region – to the time of King Shaka, if not before – believed the land onto which Maphumulo located refugees belonged to them. </p>
<p>While Inkosi Maphumulo sought to provide expected security to his followers, both old and those who newly paid allegiance to him, his neighbours and some among his followers who contested his chieftaincy saw the newcomers as interlopers. Peace would <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/aff00000000.043.027.pdf">not remain</a> at Table Mountain.</p>
<p>As the violence spread to the area, people used the cultural inheritance of <em>ukukhonza</em> to define who had access to the contested land, and who could expect security from their chief. Inkosi Maphumulo believed himself responsible for the new residents because they had paid allegiance to him. As the conflict raged, he reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had done all I could to ensure peaceful coexistence in my area. What had I done wrong?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He sought to expand his territory, but respected the demands of <em>ukukhonza</em> with his attempts to promote political tolerance, provide a safe haven, and end the violence.</p>
<h2>Chiefaincy and land reform</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo did not live to see the dawning of democracy in South Africa. But these overlapping concepts of chief by the people and chief by land embodied in his leadership need to be brought to the forefront in current discussions about traditional authority and land reform. </p>
<p>Even after the territorial rule of colonialism and apartheid took hold among chiefs, Inkosi Maphumulo’s belief in the concept of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> spurred him to pursue peace and promote political tolerance.</p>
<p>Enshrining the control of land by traditional leaders in <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll?fbclid=IwAR1crtWUQX3RseTPGSua0-0FRZhRv7niLms6KJQBe0tv5bIg8tcNF4TWCkc">recent</a> and newly proposed laws gives precedence to the <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> of colonial and apartheid rule at the expense of the people of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (2015) and Fulbright (2010-2011, 2018-2019). </span></em></p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land.Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1182772019-06-05T12:53:13Z2019-06-05T12:53:13ZFinancial incentives could spur cities and land owners to protect wetlands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278107/original/file-20190605-40731-taejm8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New York City processes about <a href="https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Environment/Water-Consumption-In-The-New-York-City/ia2d-e54m">1 billion gallons</a> of water every day. To do so, it doesn’t rely on water filtration plants alone. It also depends on the natural filtration capacity of the upstream <a href="http://smapp.rand.org/ise/ourfuture/NaturesServices/sec1_watershed.html">Catskill Catchment</a>. </p>
<p>The catchment’s soils and wetlands act like carbon filters and kidneys. They purify water, providing a sustainable supply of clean water to the city’s residents. </p>
<p>This happens because water managers in New York realised that water quality and security wasn’t purely dependant on built infrastructure. <a href="http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2013_Ecological-infrastructure-factsheet.pdf">Valuable ecological infrastructure</a> like ecosystems are crucial too. </p>
<p>Years ago they set about ensuring protection of this ecological infrastructure in the Catskill Catchment, through sustainable management, planning and land acquisition. </p>
<p>Most importantly, the city partnered with landowners. Landowners received financial assistance to adopt more sustainable land-use practises and to place portions of their land into conservation easements. </p>
<p>As a result, New York was able to fend off the need to spend significant capital (<a href="http://smapp.rand.org/ise/ourfuture/NaturesServices/sec1_watershed.html">US$ 6 billion dollars</a>) on a new water treatment plant by investing upfront in nature. </p>
<p>This approach is known as <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/black_sea_basin/danube_carpathian/our_solutions/green_economy/pes/">Payments for Ecosystem Services</a>. These are market-based incentives offered to landowners in exchange for sustainably managing their land and providing <a href="https://www.iucn.org/commissions/commission-ecosystem-management/our-work/cems-thematic-groups/ecosystem-services">ecosystem services</a> to downstream beneficiaries, such as landowners, cities and businesses. </p>
<p>In addition to its water-related benefits, this investment into ecological infrastructure also reduces risks to disasters such as floods and fires, and has biodiversity benefits. In South Africa, there is at least one possible type of ecological infrastructure that a market-based incentive could be applied to: wetlands. </p>
<h2>Wetlands as ecological infrastructure</h2>
<p>Wetlands are often referred to as the Earth’s kidneys. That’s because they provide the same vital functions as these organs. This includes <a href="https://sciencing.com/do-wetlands-purify-water-7585568.html">water purification</a> and <a href="https://dec.vermont.gov/watershed/wetlands/functions/water-quality">water flow regulation</a>. </p>
<p>Despite their value, wetlands are being destroyed by <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/scientists-argue-human-activity-threatens-vital-ecosystems/">human threats</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Cowling/publication/236841333_Are_We_Destroying_Our_Insurance_Policy_The_Effects_of_Alien_Invasion_and_Subsequent_Restoration/links/545f569f0cf295b561619f78.pdf">invasive species</a>. <a href="http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NBA2011_TechnicalReport_Vol2Freshwater.pdf">The National Biodiversity Assessment 2011</a> found that over 65% of South Africa’s wetlands and river systems have been damaged and half have been lost. </p>
<p>In light of the rapidly disappearing wetlands, we took a closer look at the <a href="https://journals.co.za/docserver/fulltext/waterb_v17_n4_a4.pdf?expires=1558614578&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=D21A945252C367B3C2ED54148B1C2D2A">ecosystem services</a> provided by one threatened wetland type: South African Palmiet wetlands. Our research found that there is a strong case to strategically set aside Palmiet wetlands for the ecosystem services that they provide. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10019.1/71967/rebelo_ecological_2012.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y">Palmiet wetlands</a> are typically unchannelled <a href="http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/2346-1-17.pdf">peatlands</a>. They occur in the bottom of valleys, dominated by the unique and endemic plant species, Palmiet (<a href="http://pza.sanbi.org/prionium-serratum"><em>Prionium serratum</em></a>). They’re found mostly throughout the southern Cape and southern KwaZulu-Natal. </p>
<p>Palmiet wetlands occur mainly on privately-owned land, where landowners are incentivised to enhance food production. Some of this land falls within <a href="http://www.wrc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/TT%20754-1-18.pdf">South Africa’s Strategic Water Source Areas</a>, which make up only 8% of the country’s area, but accounts for half of its water supply.</p>
<p>The rich soils associated with Palmiet <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124095489007417?via%3Dihub">peat-beds</a> are favourable for agriculture. But many of the valley-bottom areas associated with these wetlands are not suitable for agriculture, as they’re relatively narrow and face high risks of frequent flooding. This risk is likely to be <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcc.295">exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change</a>. </p>
<p>The flip side is that wetlands transformed for agriculture are often <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11273-018-9638-3">degraded</a> by extensive erosion. This results in lower water tables (less water available in the soil to plants) – and that translates to decreased agricultural productivity. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the perception of wetlands as “wastelands” has resulted in Palmiet being mechanically removed, which is widely believed to “improve river flow”. In reality, wetland degradation is neither beneficial to landowners nor to downstream beneficiaries.</p>
<h2>Water or food?</h2>
<p>Ecosystem services are a <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/11139/chapter/2#10">valuable tool</a> to objectively analyse the trade-offs to society presented by different land-use scenarios. </p>
<p>We compared ecosystem services between wetlands used for agriculture and pristine Palmiet wetlands. Wetlands included the Theewaterskloof and Goukou wetlands in the Western Cape, and the Kromme wetland in the Eastern Cape. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X18309762">found</a> that pristine Palmiet wetlands provide a far greater suite of water-related ecosystem services to downstream beneficiaries, and that agriculture in these wetlands is marginal. <a href="https://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/12188">Previous research</a> in the Kromme valley has shown that only about 50% of the landowners are able to make ends meet by farming alone. </p>
<p>Some landowners only derive profit by protecting their crops in the wetlands from floods, by performing illegal mass-reconstruction of the valley-bottom. They channelise and dredge wetlands and build berms. These <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2794053/">unsustainable farming practises</a> have major implications for water quality and security for downstream beneficiaries. </p>
<h2>Farming water</h2>
<p>Two of the Palmiet wetlands studied occur upstream of important water sources for large cities – Churchill Dam for Port Elizabeth; Theewaterskloof Dam for Stellenbosch and Cape Town. Protecting the Palmiet wetlands through a payments for ecosystem services system would be a beneficial strategic move.</p>
<p>There needs to be collaboration between private landowners struggling with marginal agriculture and decision makers in cities threatened by water shortages, failing infrastructure and debt, to ensure the most <a href="https://www.capenature.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Wetlands.pdf">effective</a> use of South Africa’s critical ecological infrastructure.</p>
<p><em>Courtney Morris, MSc in Conservation Ecology & Entomology at Stellenbosch University, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alanna Rebelo is currently working on a project entitled 'The socio-economic benefits of investing in ecological infrastructure', funded by the Danish International Development Agency. She is also a volunteer member of the conservation group: Friends of Tokai Park. </span></em></p>With partnerships between landowners, the government and businesses, South Africa can invest in its wetlands and boost the country’s potable water reserves.Alanna Rebelo, Postdoctoral researcher, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1163182019-05-05T07:36:30Z2019-05-05T07:36:30ZHow cities can approach redesigning informal settlements after disasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458123/original/file-20220414-25-vo9bcz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Durban's Bhambayi township was among the areas wrecked by heavy rains, mudslides and winds that have left more than 300 people dead.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">RAJESH JANTILAL/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province has been battered by torrential rains and catastrophic floods. By Thursday 14 April, the provincial <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/live-rain-flooding-hit-kwazulu-natal-20220412">death toll</a> stood at 306 people; many were still missing – and more rain was expected over the coming Easter weekend. </p>
<p>It’s not the first natural disaster to hit South Africa or its neighbours, among them Mozambique and Zimbabwe, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tropical-cyclone-idai-the-storm-that-knew-no-boundaries-113931">in recent years</a>. And it won’t be the last: <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/sci-tech/2017-10-12-more-extreme-weather-coming-in-the-next-few-years/">research shows</a> that extreme weather events and natural disasters are likely to become increasingly common in southern Africa in the coming years. The increased risk of extreme weather disasters is related to changes in the global climate. Rising air and water temperatures lead to rising sea levels, supercharged storms and higher wind speeds. More intense and prolonged droughts, heavier precipitation and flooding are <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/grow/5-natural-disasters-beg-climate-action">the expected result</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/local-knowledge-adds-value-to-mapping-flood-risk-in-south-africas-informal-settlements-181304">Local knowledge adds value to mapping flood risk in South Africa's informal settlements</a>
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<p>One of the biggest challenges will be how city authorities understand – and respond proactively to – the informal conditions in which millions of urban poor live. </p>
<p>Research in <a href="http://www.democracydisconnected.com">our book</a> <em>Democracy Disconnected</em> shows that disasters like floods present an opportunity for the state to upgrade informal settlements. But there are risks too. Rebuilding informal settlements after a disaster must be done with great care and consultation. If not, people’s lives could be endangered and a city’s authority and reputation damaged.</p>
<p>In addition, cities must be open to learning from the innovations of informal life.</p>
<h2>Choice and proximity</h2>
<p>It is important to address the question of why people live in informal settlements. Urbanisation is one factor: <a href="https://www.plaas.org.za/sites/default/files/publications-landpdf/Without%20the%20blanket%20of%20the%20land%20agrarian%20change%20and%20biopolitics%20in%20post%20Apartheid%20South%20Africa.pdf">rural livelihoods are collapsing</a>, and <a href="https://www.thesouthafrican.com/stats-sa-report-eastern-cape-still-holds-the-record-for-out-migration/">thousands migrate</a> into cities each year.</p>
<p>National estimates suggest that <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=6429">around 13% of people</a> in South Africa live in informal settlements. The figure is likely to be higher in bigger cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. This is not a uniquely South African trend. The number reaches around <a href="https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/urban-governance/key-policy-challenges/informal-settlements/">25%</a> of the urban population in developing countries.</p>
<p>Living in a shack rather than in formal housing is almost always a choice born of desperation. Without a decent job migrants are too poor to rent or buy on the formal market. In reality, they have little choice then but to look for a shack in a backyard or in settlement on the edges of formal housing. But this is not the full story: <a href="http://www.emergentcity.co.za/">research</a> shows that a shack is often more than just a place to sleep. It is also somewhere from which to look for work; settlements close to city centres or near transport hubs are in great demand. </p>
<p>Many also use their shack <a href="http://www.emergentcity.co.za/index5.html">as a place to make a living</a>, whether through cutting hair, retailing a small selection of products, taking care of working neighbours’ children or running a shebeen (informal tavern).</p>
<h2>Cape Town lessons</h2>
<p>When rebuilding starts in KwaZulu-Natal, local officials should take note of mistakes that have been made in other parts of the country. One good example is the situation that unfolded in Cape Town after a massive fire in 2016.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-09-20-from-fire-into-legal-frying-pan-for-imizamo-yethu-residents/">The fire</a> swept through the informal section on the upper slopes of Imizamo Yethu in Cape Town. It destroyed 2194 structures and displaced over 9700 people. </p>
<p>In response, the City of Cape Town tried to upgrade Imizamo Yethu through a “<a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/no-progress-in-reblocking-imizamo-yethu-since-devastating-fire-20171124">super-blocking process</a>”. Essentially this involved building a road and providing proper amenities for water, electricity and sanitation. This was meant to be facilitated through an elected working committee representing 19 stakeholder organisations in Imizamo Yethu. As part of the upgrade process new housing opportunities would be provided for the original residents.</p>
<p>Despite regular consultation there was significant resistance from the potential beneficiaries of new housing opportunities. At one point the local office of the country’s governing African National Congress (ANC), the home of a community development worker and an ANC leader’s home <a href="http://democracydisconnected.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Chapter-6_images.pdf">were burned</a>.</p>
<p>An important reason for the resistance was that the city was approaching upgrading as mostly about providing shelter and giving everyone the same size build on the same size plot. They did not account for how the land had previously been used to earn an income. The one-size-fits-all rebuild would effectively take away the livelihoods of many informal residents who were landlords of large or multi-room shacks. </p>
<p>These informal entrepreneurs would lose income as they would get fewer rooms to rent out. Similarly, another group of entrepreneurs ran shebeens, creating large internal courtyards for socialising and drinking. Super-blocking threatened the possibility of creating the same kind of social and business space.</p>
<p>Six years after the fire, the settlement has not been upgraded as envisaged. Instead, the land devastated by the fire has been resettled by many of the previous inhabitants occupying their original space. Other residents are housed in 3m by 3m shacks, waiting to move back to their original stands. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the community is fractured – perhaps more so than ever in its past. The process of super-blocking has exacerbated community divisions and leadership battles as well as heightened mistrust of state processes.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for learning</h2>
<p>Poor people living in urban areas will no doubt bear the brunt of future storms, cyclones, fires, earthquakes and tornadoes. But these disasters should also be seen as opportunities to include the poor in the city. The question though, is whether cities will be open to learning from the innovations of informal life.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458126/original/file-20220414-13-12s4z4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Natural disasters, like Cyclone Idai in 2019, are becoming more common across southern Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GUILLEM SARTORIO/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>When excluded from formal systems, people take the initiative to meet their needs themselves. And this isn’t necessarily in the same way as a formal city approach. Informality is thus partly a story of precarity and exclusion, but also of self-reliance and sometimes innovation. Cities need to embrace this reality if they want to build more inclusive and resilient systems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116318/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Anciano receives funding from the National Research Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Piper receives funding from the National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Rebuilding informal settlements after a disaster must be done through learning from those who live in the settlements.Fiona Anciano, Associate professor, University of the Western CapeLaurence Piper, Professor of Political Studies, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1134182019-03-25T13:58:56Z2019-03-25T13:58:56ZSouth Africans go to the polls in May: what you need to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265313/original/file-20190322-36264-1d291rg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africans queue to cast their vote in a recent election. The country holds five-yearly national elections on 8 May. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa holds its sixth national election on May 8, coinciding with the country’s celebration of its silver jubilee as a democracy this year. The poll to choose national and provincial legislators is being billed as the most significant since apartheid ended in 1994. The contest might well be a referendum on the performance of the African National Congress (ANC), which has governed the country with a comfortable majority since then. But the party is mired in corruption scandals and the country’s economy is terribly weak. Thabo Leshilo asked Kealeboga Maphunye to provide some background to the poll.</em></p>
<p><strong>How many people are registered to vote, and what are their main demographics?</strong></p>
<p>According to the country’s <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/about-us/what-we-do/">electoral commission</a> almost 27 million people have registered to vote. But this <a href="https://africacheck.org/fbcheck/yes-more-than-9-million-eligible-voters-arent-registered-for-south-africas-2019-elections/">excludes</a> about 9.2 million eligible voters that are not registered for these elections. Moreover, being eligible to vote merely signals intention, and not necessarily that one will cast their vote on election day. </p>
<p>Altogether, <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Over-700-000-new-voters-added-to-the-voters--roll-ahead-of-elections/">703 794 new voters</a> have been added to the voters’ roll ahead of the elections. This is normal by South Africa’s election standards, but worrisome because the number of new voters has not been consistent every five years.</p>
<p>A vast majority of new prospective voters <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Over-700-000-new-voters-added-to-the-voters--roll-ahead-of-elections/">(81%)</a> are younger than 30. In total, <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Voters--Roll-Certified-for-National-and-Provincial-Elections-2019/">55 percent</a> of all registered voters are women.</p>
<p>Gauteng, the country’s economic hub and its most populous province, has the <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Voters--Roll-Certified-for-National-and-Provincial-Elections-2019/">highest number</a> of registered voters according to the electoral commission. </p>
<p>Racial politics will undoubtedly influence voting in this year’s elections, but the electoral commission does not collect voting statistics by race. So, the racial breakdown of past and prospective 2019 voters will never be known.</p>
<p><strong>Who are the main contenders?</strong></p>
<p>Altogether, <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Parties-pledge-commitment-to-the-Electoral-Code-Of-Conduct/">48 parties</a> will be contesting the elections from the initial <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-01-10-84-new-political-parties-hoping-for-your-vote-in-may-elections/">285 parties</a> that had registered for the poll.</p>
<p>The three key contenders are the <a href="https://www.anc1912.org.za/">ANC</a>; the main opposition party, the <a href="https://www.da.org.za/">Democratic Alliance</a>, and the <a href="http://www.effonline.org/Home">Economic Freedom Fighters</a>, the third largest party in the country based on their national parliamentary representation. </p>
<p>Ten other parties are represented in the country’s parliament but currently pose less challenge to the incumbent. They are the <a href="http://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a>, the <a href="http://udm.org.za/">United Democratic Movement</a>, <a href="https://www.acdp.org.za/">African Christian Democratic Party</a>, the <a href="https://www.vfplus.org.za/">Freedom Front Plus</a>, the <a href="http://www.nfpkzn.org.za/">National Freedom Party</a>, the <a href="https://saconstitution.co.za/">Congress of the People</a>, the <a href="http://pac.org.za/">Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania</a>, <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2016-08-05-10-thing-you-need-to-know-about-agang/">Agang</a>, the <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/aic-anc-whats-the-difference-20160813">African Independent Congress</a> and the <a href="http://www.theapc.org.za/">African People’s Convention</a>. </p>
<p><strong>What are the biggest challenges to free and fair elections?</strong></p>
<p>South Africa’s polls adhere to international election best practice. The country holds regular elections with <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-electoral-body-has-its-work-cut-out-to-ensure-legitimate-2019-poll-103643">high levels of integrity</a>. </p>
<p>Since democracy in 1994, its elections have been consistently judged to be legitimate, free and fair. Its electoral commission is praised for its autonomy and for conducting elections that are impartial.</p>
<p>But, there are problems that threaten this record. </p>
<p>The biggest is the prevalence of political <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/kzn-premier-releases-moerane-commission-report-into-political-killings-20180920">killings</a>, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal where there has been a history of violence both between factions of the ANC, as well as between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Some recent incidents of violence and intolerance were also linked to the IFP-National Freedom Party split. </p>
<p>Another threat is sporadic <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/elections/2103989/community-unrest-biggest-threat-to-may-8-polls-saps/">violent community protests</a>, and the fact that there are “no-go areas” for some political parties in some areas. </p>
<p>Ensuring that the credibility of the polls is not compromised could be undermined on election day if members of the South African Democratic Teachers Union are used as election personnel. This has been <a href="http://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/institutionalising-democracy">cited as a problem</a> given the trade union’s alliance with the governing ANC. </p>
<p>The South African Police Service has also flagged <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-03-19-mps-grill-police-on-major-risk-posed-by-load-shedding-on-election-day/">ongoing power cuts</a> as a major potential threat to the elections. The country is experiencing continual and intensive electricity shutdowns, as it tries to get its failing public power utility, Eskom, <a href="http://www.eskom.co.za/news/Pages/2019Feb04.aspx">back on its feet</a>. Unless contingency plans are made, thousands of voting stations might be <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-20-load-shedding-a-concern-for-2019-poll">affected</a> during vote counting.</p>
<p>The election results could be disputed and even challenged in court on the basis that they aren’t free and fair if these problems aren’t resolved. </p>
<p>So it’s imperative that the electoral body and all election stakeholders work to ensure that the elections are credible, and reflect the wishes of the majority of the voters. A good place to start would be for the parties to abide by the letter and spirit of the <a href="http://www.elections.org.za/content/About-Us/News/Parties-pledge-commitment-to-the-Electoral-Code-Of-Conduct/">electoral code of conduct</a> they have signed to promote a free and fair contest.</p>
<p><em>This story was updated to removed incorrect voter registration numbers.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kealeboga J Maphunye receives funding from National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences</span></em></p>South Africa’s polls have been praised for adhering to international election best practice. But, they are not without problems.Kealeboga J Maphunye, Professor and Chair of Department - Political Sciences, University of South Africa (UNISA), University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.