tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/bantustan-50073/articlesBantustan – The Conversation2021-12-06T13:54:51Ztag: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/1445282020-08-28T06:21:36Z2020-08-28T06:21:36ZThe story of a working man who lived through apartheid – and his struggles after it ended<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353179/original/file-20200817-22-cidz4w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black labourers extracting sludge
on a mine near Johannesburg at the height of apartheid in the 1980s. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On 25 June, Mandlenkosi Makhoba, one of the last of a generation of grassroots worker leaders of the Federation of South African Trade Unions (<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/federation-south-african-trade-unions-fosatu">Fosatu</a>), was laid to rest above the majestic Mahlabathini plain in KwaZulu-Natal. He was 78.</p>
<p>Industrial workers such as Makhoba formed the basis of Fosatu, established in 1979 when democratic workers’ organisations forced the apartheid system to <a href="http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/docs/fosatu/fosatu.pdf">recognise their trade unions</a>. This federation went on to win rights for black workers, contributed to a new workplace order and the establishment of national collective bargaining, while challenging racism and inequality in the workplace. It laid the basis for the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in 1985 with organised labour proving decisive in the transition to democracy. </p>
<p>Makhoba was, therefore, one of the “agents of change” who gave birth to South Africa’s modern labour movement. But he was not one of its beneficiaries. His death marks the passing of the era of the ‘labouring man’ – those industrial workers who were involved largely in manual labour, denied much formal education but stood for worker solidarity.</p>
<h2>A working man’s life under apartheid</h2>
<p>Makhoba’s life story illustrates the transition of established organised labour, from the voice of the dispossessed production worker struggling for recognition, to the relatively well protected suburban worker of today. He also represents the losers in the new South Africa, showing how inequality is consistently produced and reproduced. It tells the story of dreams lost and the need to recover the vision of a disappearing generation. </p>
<p>The stories of these working men and women has long been overshadowed by the big men and women of the successful struggle for democracy. Fortunately Makhoba lived to see the republication, in 2018, of his autobiography, <a href="https://www.nihss.ac.za/content/story-one-tells-struggle-all-metalworkers-under-apartheid"><em>The Story of One Tells the Struggle of All: Metalworkers under Apartheid</em></a>. His story prefigures what has happened both locally and globally, namely how organised factory- and mine-based manual labour became sidelined by both advances in technology and the rise of neoliberalism. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353357/original/file-20200818-20-1bvsihu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mandlenkosi Makhoba 40 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by author</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We first met Makhoba, a foundry worker on the East Rand, now Ekhuruleni, nearly 40 years ago while researching the changing world of work in the metal industry. This archetypal, barrel-chested ‘labouring man’ poured molten metal to mould machine parts long before health and safety was taken seriously.</p>
<p>Alongside so many of his compatriots, he had migrated from his rural home in the “<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustan</a>” of KwaZulu to perform the toughest jobs that demanded physical strength and industrial discipline. “Bantustans” were the then mainly rural, undeveloped areas were black people were required to live under apartheid. </p>
<p>Seen as an unskilled “cast boy” under apartheid, Makhoba was paid considerably less than the white “supervisors” he had trained. “That made me angry,” he said at the time. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t get the money he is getting, but I am supposed to be his teacher! How can a clever man be taught by a stupid man like myself?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Throughout his working life Makhoba oscillated between town and countryside. He lived in the sprawling <a href="https://www.csvr.org.za/publications/1794--the-human-face-of-violence-hostel-dwellers-speak">single sex hostel complex</a> for black male migrant workers in Vosloorus, to the east of Johannesburg, a bus drive from his workplace. He was deeply dissatisfied with the filthy conditions in the hostel and the lack of privacy, with 16 men to a room and not much better than the mine compounds and concrete bunks these hostels had replaced. Men had to cook after a long day’s work and travel. Theft was rife and excessive drinking and violent assaults marked the weekends.</p>
<p>Accompanying this sense of deprivation was the resigned acceptance of being unable to live a normal social life. Of greatest concern for Makhoba was going home to Mahlabathini, only to find the decline of parental authority. This affected him deeply.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When a man comes home there is no respect for him anymore, because he has been away from home for such a long time. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The union</h2>
<p>It is not surprising then that in July 1979 Makhoba joined a fledgling metal union at the time, later to become the <a href="https://www.numsa.org.za/">National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa</a>. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I joined the union because workers are not treated like human beings by management, but like animals.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The men who joined the union came from similar districts in KwaZulu and elsewhere and shared the rigours of hostel life. They were, in other words, rooted in networks of mutual support.</p>
<p>Although Makhoba had been working in the city intermittently for 20 years when we first met him, his cultural world was shaped by his rural values: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I work here, but my spirit is in Mahlabathini. My spirit is there because I come from the countryside. I was born there and my father was born there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1983 he was dismissed from the foundry for participating in an illegal strike. Following episodic periods of temporary employment, he returned home permanently. </p>
<h2>Deprivations of rural life</h2>
<p>In 1991 we tracked him down to his homestead on a mountain top in Mahlabathini. He had acquired 15 head of cattle, ten from the <em>ilobolo</em> (bride price) of his two oldest daughters. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353163/original/file-20200817-20-nmgl1i.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&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>Fifteen people – his wife and 14 children – lived with him in the six rondavels of his neatly swept homestead where he had access to land on which he grew maize and some vegetables.</p>
<p>But a closer examination of this household revealed a sad reality: Mandlenkosi’s home was a picturesque version of a rural slum. The children spent their days doing household chores, chopping firewood and collecting water twice daily from the local stream half a kilometre away. Their diet, except on special occasions, was confined to mealie meal and they often faced hunger.</p>
<p>As the children matured and moved away, Makhoba suffered increasingly poor health. Unable to continue working at a local store, the lack of food intensified. As he drifted into the long autumn of his life, suffering with Parkinson’s disease, the family had become too poor to farm their land. The hopes of yesteryear, of a new start and a new, better society, had become “a dream”.</p>
<p>The inequality in life-chances that shaped Mandlenkosi’s life continues as his children are part of the growing millions of marginalised workers eking out an existence in the rural slums and informal settlements of our urban areas.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, today Cosatu is largely a home for relatively privileged public sector workers, a third of whom have post high school qualifications and <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/labour-beyond-cosatu/">40% have professional jobs</a>. Production in the foundry where Makhoba once worked is now largely robotised. </p>
<p>With many of the manual jobs disappearing, it is farewell to the traditional labouring man as the precarious worker of the digital age is ushered in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Webster receives funding from the Ford Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He is affiliated to the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Stewart 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 life story of Mandlenkosi Makhoba represents the losers in the new South Africa, showing how inequality is produced and reproduced generationally.Paul Stewart, Associate Professor in Sociology, University of ZululandEdward Webster, Distinguished Reserach Professor, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1442122020-08-27T10:59:38Z2020-08-27T10:59:38ZMangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi: a reappraisal of his fight against apartheid<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352164/original/file-20200811-13-1n07c84.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Veteran South African politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi addressing parliament in 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s 20th century history is closely associated with the term <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/apartheid">apartheid</a>. The policy of strict racial segregation was the guiding principle of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a>, which represented a predominantly Afrikaans-speaking white minority. The party was voted into government by white South Africans, the only citizens to have the franchise, in 1948. In 1994, the first democratic elections replaced the regime with a government <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/04597239308460952?journalCode=tssu20">based on popular vote</a>. </p>
<p>Since the 1950s, a system of “petty apartheid” which separated the physical day-to-day interaction of racially defined groups was complemented by a policy euphemistically called “separate development”. People were forcibly resettled to scattered reserves for indigenous African communities in ten ethnically defined <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustans or “homelands”</a>. These were KwaZulu, Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, Gazankulu, KaNgwane, KwaNdebele, Lebowa and QwaQwa. </p>
<p>The Transkei (1976), Bophuthatswana (1977), Venda (1979) and Ciskei (1981) were finally declared “independent”. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/KwaZulu">KwaZulu</a>, designed as home to four million Zulu people, was granted “self-government” in December 1977. But Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of the entity since 1976, steadfastly resisted any bogus independence. </p>
<p>Only <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/major-general-bantubonke-bantu-harrington-holomisa">Bantu Holomisa</a> followed a similar trajectory to Buthelezi. In 1988 he ousted the leader of the Transkei. He then turned self-government into an instrument against apartheid. In contrast to Buthelezi, Holomisa closely collaborated with the liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">Buthelezi</a> was the only one from the initial generation of Bantustan leaders who played a significant role in South Africa’s transition to democracy. His subsequent role as Minister of Home Affairs (1994-2004), Member of Parliament and leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party until 2019 testify to his political influence.</p>
<p>Two recent PhD theses provide new insights challenging the notion that Buthelezi could be reduced to a puppet of Pretoria’s minority regime and a sellout. Putting him in the league of some of the most notorious Bantustan leaders, such as the <a href="https://sahistory.org.za/people/kaiser-daliwonga-matanzima">Transkei’s Chief Kaiser Matanzima (1915-2003)</a> or Bophuthatswana’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/lucas-manyane-mangope">Lucas Mangope (1923-2018)</a>, would be wrong. </p>
<h2>Fighting the system from within</h2>
<p>Four years ago Adam Houldsworth <a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11660/4047/HouldsworthA.pdf;jsessionid=B41C2C6F899271C77B98E5FF9FD35E82?sequence=1">presented a PhD thesis</a> on “Inkatha and the National Party, 1980-1989” at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. It explored in detail the engagement of Buthelezi with the National Party’s government politics in the 1980s. He shares instructive and intriguing archival material from inside the government and the National Party. It documents important domestic policy shifts, influenced by Buthelezi’s political manoeuvres. </p>
<p>Mounting pressure forced the apartheid regime in the 1980s to reformulate its strategy and to enter negotiations over a post-apartheid society. Investigating the politics of Buthelezi and Inkatha in this process recognises a neglected dimension. As Houldsworth argues, Buthelezi occupied a “distinctive and paradoxical position”, which “defies straightforward categorisation”.</p>
<p>Additional insights are now added by Aljoscha Tillmanns. His <a href="https://www.uni-due.de/graduiertenkolleg_1919/tillmanns_aljoscha.php">research</a> on “Inkatha during political turmoil” analysed the political action of Buthelezi, Inkatha and associated organisations during the same period. He <a href="https://www.roehrig-verlag.de/shop/item/9783861107545/development-for-liberation-von-aljoscha-tillmanns-gebundenes-buch">presented</a> a PhD thesis this year at the University of Duisburg-Essen on “Development for Liberation. MG Buthelezi’s and Inkatha’s initiatives towards a different South Africa, 1975-1994”.</p>
<p>Based on further archival material, Tillmanns’ focus provides more insights into the internal dynamics and power struggles in Inkatha. He explores the anchoring of cultural-regional Zulu identity as the (re-)invention of tradition for hegemonic purposes in day-to-day politics. For him too, the evidence suggests that Buthelezi’s policy made him anything but a vassal of the apartheid regime.</p>
<p>For both Houldsworth and Tillmanns, Buthelezi was in fundamental opposition to apartheid. This was despite the fact that he was less radical than the ANC. While willing to negotiate with the National Party, he was never prepared to sacrifice certain fundamental convictions. </p>
<p>Houldsworth quotes Gavin Relly, former chairman of Anglo American, from an interview in December 1994, as saying that Buthelezi’s refusal to comply with homeland independence made him</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the anvil on which apartheid was broken.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Reformism as pragmatic opportunism</h2>
<p>Both theses stress that much of the underlying notion in Buthelezi’s position resembles features of the conservative political philosophy of <a href="https://thegreatthinkers.org/burke/">Edmund Burke (1729-1797)</a>. His political ideology was guided by a belief in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/consociationalism-in-south-africa-the-buthelezi-commission-and-beyond/B13976D6FA30234CBE5E5D3C7A33C7D6">consociationalism</a>. This could be seen as an attempt to engineer closer cooperation with liberal and conservative whites in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721987?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">“politics of compromise”</a>. </p>
<p>His political intentions found wide approval and remarkably uncritical support in influential West German liberal and conservative policy circles.</p>
<p>At the same time Buthelezi’s policy was to strengthen his role in competition with the ANC. His confidence and trust in the existing forms of state and economy estranged him from the liberation movement. He disagreed with its partly socialist connotations and the collaboration with the <a href="https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/79140">Communist Party</a>. In his own version, the falling out in 1979 was also over the disagreement about <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/how-the-anc-and-inkatha-fell-out--mangosuthu-buthe">resorting to armed resistance</a>.</p>
<p>Buthelezi’s socio-political visions were rooted in a combination of tradition and modernity for the sake of development. For him, development was rooted in strengthening two notions. The first was of a (partly invented) <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/inkatha-and-its-use-of-the-zulu-past/14E0B3C8A767C4811A3A1AD974A1EA77">Zulu past</a>. The second was the notion of <a href="http://transformationjournal.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/426-379-1-PB.pdf">ubuntu</a> (humanness), which encapsulates the sub-Saharan moral ideals expressed with the maxim, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-archbishop-tutus-ubuntu-credo-teaches-the-world-about-justice-and-harmony-84730">“a person is a person through other persons”</a>.</p>
<p>At the same time, he demanded the release of Nelson Mandela throughout the 1980s as a precondition for negotiations over power sharing options. He believed that Mandela would be a moderating element in a negotiation process including the ANC.</p>
<p>As Houldsworth summarises:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Buthelezi sought to improve Inkatha’s prospects by advocating a long and multi-faceted negotiating process which would allow for the gradual moderation of African politics and the reconciliation of disparate black groups … Inkatha politics were to an extent shaped by considerations of expedience in its efforts to retain or gain influence in South African politics. (p. 210)</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Imprint</h2>
<p>To what extent Buthelezi and Inkatha were responsible for the dramatic escalation of political violence in the late 1980s remains a matter reserved for further discussion. But Tillmanns concludes with a sobering reminder:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ugly side of history should not be forgotten. The change of the 1980s and the uncertainty that came along with it allowed violence in the fight for territory, but also for resources, to spread … Inkatha reacted to the increasing activities of the ANC alliance with countermeasures that led to a spiral of violence in which no side remained innocent. (p. 413)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Buthelezi (92) deserves better than being dismissed as a stooge. But he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties. It seems to be fair to conclude that his own appetite for power was always stronger than his commitment to values. But no matter on which side of history he is placed, he will remain the only first generation leader of a Bantustan who left an imprint on South Africa’s way to democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber has been the external examiner to both the PhD theses presented. </span></em></p>Mangosuthu Buthelezi deserves better than being dismissed as an apartheid stooge. But he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263582019-11-11T14:10:11Z2019-11-11T14:10:11ZParty’s woes signify historical dilemma of South Africa’s liberals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300847/original/file-20191108-194675-amzxe3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Helen Zille's return to the top echelons of the Democratic Alliance has been slammed as an attempt to make the party white again.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-10-20-helen-zille-wins-vote-top-da-job/">return of Helen Zille</a>, the former leader of South Africa’s official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), to active politics as chair of the party’s federal executive led to many allegations that the party is dominated by a shadowy kitchen cabinet of <a href="https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/politics/2195945/maimane-was-an-ethically-upright-man-forced-to-leave-da-because-of-white-people-eff/">white people</a>.</p>
<p>Zille’s election to head the DA’s highest decision-making body in between national congresses was soon followed by the <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/double-whammy-for-da-as-maimane-and-trollip-resign-20191023">resignations</a> of Herman Mashaba, the DA mayor of Johannesburg; Mmusi Maimane, the party’s national leader; and Athol Trollip, its national chairman. Mashaba had charged that Zille’s return set the party on a <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-10-21-joburg-mayor-herman-mashaba-resigns/">rightwing path</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, rather than focusing on personalities to understand the DA’s problems, it is better to return to the dilemmas of liberals in South Africa’s tragic history of the politicisation of race. This tendency persisted even after the country became a democracy in 1994. In essence, liberalism has always been reluctant to grant black people equality unless they achieve certain designated standards.</p>
<h2>Segregation frames the liberal dilemma</h2>
<p>Following the country’s formation in 1910 as a union of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/union-south-africa-1910">four territories </a> (historically, two British colonies and two Boer republics), it was accepted among white people, including those of more liberal persuasions, that people of different “races” should live separately to preserve white people’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">culture and languages</a>.</p>
<p>This was used to justify the grossly unequal division of land which resulted in the black majority being left with just 7% of the land. This was confirmed by the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">1913 Land Act</a>. </p>
<p>The assumption which went with this was that black people were destined to remain in rural areas, and that any movement (such as migration for work on white mines, factories or farms) would be temporary. </p>
<p>But, by the end of the 1920s, liberals were beginning to get uneasy. It was becoming increasingly clear that the fates of black people and white people were irrevocably entangled, economically and politically.</p>
<p>The fundamental dilemma for “liberal segregationists” was that they based their politics on the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/179767?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Cape qualified franchise</a>. Its basic supposition was that black people (and only men) were worthy of the vote – only if they achieved a certain level of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“civilisation”</a>. In practice, this meant ownership of property and or educational qualifications. </p>
<p>But this presented the problem that the few black people who acquired education showed that black people were equal to whites. If black equality was accepted, the white minority would be <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/segregation-fallacy-and-other-papers-disfranchisement-cape-native">“swamped”</a>. </p>
<p>Assuming power in 1948, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> formalised apartheid. It sought to negate this danger by arguing that potential equality between people of different races was irrelevant. It argued that black people and white people were culturally different, cultural mixing would cause cultural conflict. </p>
<p>This led to a number of targeted policies. To avert the dangers of racial mixing, the flow of black people to urban areas should be averted, the entry of black people into the white polity should be blocked off completely, and black politics should be diverted to black <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“homelands”</a>. These were ten mainly rural areas where black people were required to live, along ethnic group lines. </p>
<p>It was only the tiny <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/liberal-party-south-africa-lpsa">Liberal Party</a> which had by now fully accepted the political implications of racial equality, and argued for a universal franchise. The majority liberal response, elaborated by the DA’s forerunners (from the Progressive Party onwards), was to retain the notion of black people having to attain a certain level of “civilisation” to qualify for the vote.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberalism-in-south-africa-isnt-only-for-white-people-or-black-people-who-want-to-be-white-125236">Liberalism in South Africa isn't only for white people -- or black people who want to be white</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One reason was that any attempt to sell the idea of the universal franchise to the white electorate was doomed to failure. When universal franchise eventually arrived, in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-africas-first-democratic-elections">election of 1994</a>, the then Democratic Party, albeit now advocating votes for all, secured a mere 2% of the vote. The National Party – fighting for “group rights” – swept up 20%.</p>
<p>Subsequently, in 1999, under Tony Leon, the DA, then known as the Democratic Party, adopted the ambiguously phrased <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/das-history-of-identity-crises-1611459">“fight back”</a> campaign slogan. It argued that the governing ANC was embarking on implementing apartheid in reverse through affirmative action policies. It captured the major portion of the National Party’s white vote. Thus the party of apartheid was condemned to a deserved, albeit lingering death.</p>
<h2>Maimane’s burden</h2>
<p>Under Zille, the DA embarked on an electoral expansion programme, recognising that if it was going to grow and become a serious competitor for power, it would have to capture a sizeable portion of the overwhelming majority black vote. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300850/original/file-20191108-194661-x12khb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mmusi Maimane grew the DA’s support among the majority black voters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This realisation eventually led to the selection of Maimane as the DA’s national leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-black-leader-breathes-life-into-south-african-opposition-41275">in 2015</a>. He saw his task as rendering the DA’s liberalism more appealing to black voters by taking it in what he saw as a more inclusive direction. This would be through recognising <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/we-believe-race-is-a-proxy-for-disadvantage--mmusi">race as an indicator of disadvantage</a>. </p>
<p>It didn’t go down well with the DA’s established base, which saw it as an assault upon the party’s professedly nonracial values. It was therefore Maimane who, as leader, was to be blamed for the <a href="https://www.biznews.com/leadership/2019/05/09/elections2019-national-vote-da-ff">DA’s loss of votes</a>, for the first time since 1994, in the 2019 election.</p>
<p>The recent internal party inquest, headed by Leon, decided that it was imperative for Maimane to go, arguing that under his watch, in a bid to attract black voters, the DA <a href="https://www.news24.com/Analysis/analysis-leadership-and-race-da-review-panel-a-devastating-blow-for-mmusi-maimane-20191022">had strayed from its liberal principles</a>. </p>
<p>The DA should, therefore, return to its liberal foundations and confirm its attachment to policies which would effect redress of historical racial inequalities without using race as a proxy for disadvantage. Yet South Africa’s black voters are unlikely to dissociate disadvantage from the colour of their skin.</p>
<h2>Difficult choices</h2>
<p>It is unsurprising that this turn of events should lead to Maimane’s resignation. If the party wants to return to growth, then its analysis is almost certainly wrong. Stronger emphasis on a “non-racial liberalism” is unlikely to appeal to rightwing white voters. It is equally unlikely to appeal to black voters, who view forms of racial redress as the only sure route to greater racial equality. </p>
<p>Black aversion to the DA is likely to increase even more if the party replaces its former black leader with someone, however talented and principled, who is white. The DA is having to struggle with South Africa’s toxic history of black oppression. Yet it remains the case that that history has left it with the dilemma that liberals in South Africa have never been able to solve: how to deal with “the native question” if the natives in question doubt the capacity of liberalism to bring about substantive racial equality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Southall has received funding from the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>The Democratic Alliance’s problems can be traced back to the politicisation of race, which has persisted even after the dawn of democracy in 1994.Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1265212019-11-08T08:58:40Z2019-11-08T08:58:40ZHow the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago resonated across Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300670/original/file-20191107-10930-1ozfrfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Berlin Wall symbolised the Cold War divide between the capitalist West and communist Soviet Union.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Omer Messinger</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the Berlin Wall was pierced on 9 November 1989, world attention was on Europe. But the collapse of the Soviet Union that followed resonated across Africa and globally. The <a href="https://www.visitberlin.de/en/events-30th-anniversary-fall-of-the-wall">30th anniversary</a> offers an opportunity to reflect on these forces and their implications for Africa’s politics and foreign relations.</p>
<p>The way forward for Africa in the aftermath of the <a href="https://www2.gwu.edu/%7Eerpapers/teachinger/glossary/cold-war.cfm">Cold War</a> – the decades-long struggle for supremacy between communist Soviet Union and capitalist US – was uncertain. Suddenly there were new opportunities for African agency. Since then the <a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-in-africa-the-ebbs-and-flows-over-six-decades-42011">record has been mixed</a>, but several broad trends are evident and hard to imagine had communism not collapsed. </p>
<p>During the first three decades of post-colonial independence, many countries had settled for the constraints of being allied to either the Soviets and China, or Western states (often their former colonial masters) </p>
<p>By the late 1980s, the increasing likelihood of liberation fuelled South Africa’s black majority’s hopes for freedom. The country became the last in Africa to be freed from <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-end-of-apartheid-101602">white rule in 1994</a>.</p>
<p>Salim Ahmed Salim, then secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), describes his recollection of that time in the <a href="https://www.loot.co.za/product/sifiso-ndlovu-the-thabo-mbeki-i-know/kldf-3588-g520">book</a>, “The Thabo Mbeki I Know” (69-79), thus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The end of the Cold War meant that Africa could assert itself. The mandate of the OAU insofar as liberation was concerned was coming to an end because South Africa was about to become free. In reality, the whole of Africa became free when South Africa attained its liberation. Now that we were free, and our countries no longer had to deal with the question of liberation, what next?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Delineating the impact that the end of the Cold War has had during the ensuing three decades is almost as difficult as speculating where Africa would be today had this not happened. Changes in global alignment affected each of its now 54 diverse nations differently. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-didnt-end-with-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-but-only-now-is-the-new-battleground-clear-125768">History didn’t end with the fall of the Berlin Wall – but only now is the new battleground clear</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But marking the end of the bipolar era does offer the chance to reflect on both the changes and continuities in African politics and global relations since 1989. It’s also opportune to ponder where Africa might be heading.</p>
<h2>South Africa’s dividend</h2>
<p>The first decade of the 1990s now seems unrealistically optimistic. Democratic rhetoric prevailed, and innumerable democratic reforms were tried. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-colonial-rule-predisposed-africa-to-fragile-authoritarianism-126114">legacies of colonialism</a> and the Cold War client dependencies persisted. Weak institutions and ethnic diversity bred strong leaders who, once elected, became entrenched. Many countries succumbed to <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/%7Elwantche/Africa_Dictatorial_and_Democratic_Electoral_Systems_Since_1946">electoral authoritarism</a>.</p>
<p>But the political benefits to South Africa from the end of the Cold War were immediate and critical. The long, hard anti-apartheid struggle had been gaining momentum nationally and globally. But suddenly the global isolation of the white minority regime was sealed. And local resistance solidified as ideological differences and modest Soviet military assistance for the freedom struggle also disappeared. </p>
<p>The time had come to deal with the most basic demand for political rights and equality for all South Africans. Hence the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiated settlement process</a> to end apartheid started in earnest in 1991.</p>
<p>South Africa’s transition was exceptional. Centuries of brutal colonial oppression and decades of apartheid had divided and emasculated communities into so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homelands</a>. These were the ten mainly rural impoverished areas where black South Africans were required to live, along ethnic group lines, with false trappings of sovereignty. </p>
<p>One unintended consequence of this was the emergence of a popular opposition committed to non-sectarian, inclusive self-rule. Proclaimed in the <a href="http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/HIST/freedomchart/freedomch.html">1955 Freedom Charter</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-legacy-of-south-africas-freedom-charter-60-years-later-43647">blueprint</a> for a free and prosperous South Africa, it was finally be institutionalised in the country’s <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">1996 constitution</a>, arguably the world’s most carefully designed and ambitious modern democratic experiment.</p>
<p>Unlike most of the world, South Africa’s nationalism is no longer rooted in the one “race” or ethnic group. It has become a leading example of civic nationalism. Historian James McPherson explains that most countries are variants of ethnic nationalism: people in a defined territory who share common characteristics of language, custom, religion and over time <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/112575/is-blood-thicker-than-water-by-james-mmcpherson/">genetic characteristics</a>.</p>
<p>What defines the civic nationalism of South Africa is not a dominant faction’s common roots, but a diversity of identities that share allegiance to the rule of law. It boasts a government of, by and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln tried to <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm">redefine America in 1863</a>. These words were appropriately repeated in a unanimous 2017 decision by South Africa’s Constitutional Court in a <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2017/21.pdf">case that tested</a> the limits of parliamentary and presidential authorities.</p>
<h2>New pan-African norms</h2>
<p>The second decade after the Cold War marked a flourishing of <a href="https://theconversation.com/sobukwes-pan-africanist-dream-an-elusive-idea-that-refuses-to-die-52601">pan-Africanism</a>. It responded to Salim’s challenge by replacing the OAU with the African Union (AU) in July 2002, in Durban, South Africa. </p>
<p>With the continent liberated but still vulnerable to local conflicts and foreign meddling, several leaders mounted an effective diplomatic offensive to transform the OAU into a more effective regional body for <a href="https://www.eisa.org.za/pdf/eisa2016Stremlau.pdf">preventing and resolving conflicts</a>.</p>
<p>The AU’s Constitutive Act featured stronger commitments to good governance, mutual oversight and shared commitments to <a href="https://au.int/en/constitutive-act">collective security and cooperation</a>.</p>
<p>Complementary instruments, notably the <a href="https://au.int/en/treaties/african-charter-democracy-elections-and-governance">African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance</a>, obliged all AU members to hold periodic elections and to invite the AU to monitor them.</p>
<p>Greater cooperation was also evident within the eight AU affiliated regional economic communities. And there was fruitful experimentation with supplementary bodies, notably the <a href="https://au.int/en/organs/aprm">African Peer Review Mechanism</a> and the <a href="https://au.int/en/nepad">New Partnership for Africa’s Development</a>.</p>
<p>South Africa played a leading role in these efforts to build capacity and advance African agency and self-reliance across the continent and globally, with the <a href="http://www.saqa.org.za/docs/webcontent/2017/Book%20review%20May%202017.pdf">strong support</a> of then President Thabo Mbeki (1999-2008).</p>
<h2>Democracy drift</h2>
<p>The third post-1989 decade has been marked by <a href="https://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/newsite/blog/review-cheeseman-democracy-in-africa/">many democratic setbacks</a>, within and among African countries. Democratic reversals, including in South Africa, have been exacerbated by autocratic behaviours globally and escalating big power rivalries. </p>
<p>There are always risks for Africa when dealing with any major power. Last December, for example, then US national security advisor John Bolton outlined the Trump administration’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-national-security-advisor-ambassador-john-r-bolton-trump-administrations-new-africa-strategy/">“New Africa Strategy”</a> in terms evocative of the Cold War. Its goal is countering Russia’s and China’s growing influence on the continent.</p>
<p>Russia is no exception. Less than a week after the Russia-Africa Summit <a href="https://theconversation.com/russia-steps-up-efforts-to-fill-gaps-left-by-americas-waning-interest-in-africa-125945">attended by dozens of African leaders</a> in Sochi, Russia has been exposed for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/technology/russia-facebook-disinformation-africa.html">targeting African politics and elections</a> using social media. </p>
<p>Internet abuse is a <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-media/freedom-media-2019">global problem</a>. But African countries are especially vulnerable to the negative political impact of new information technologies, <a href="https://saiia.org.za/event/digital-democracy-vs-digital-dictatorship/">especially social media</a>. The dangers of fake news in fuelling greater polarisation, hate speech, government surveillance, and control are well known. </p>
<p>The full impact of the new technologies on Africa’s politics and economics needs much more study and analysis to develop balanced and fair policies as well as safeguards. </p>
<p>These new technologies are vital for Africa’s political, economic and social well-being. But they are also vulnerable to foreign manipulation. By 2029 we could even decide that digitisation lies at the heart of the fourth post-Cold War decade of struggle between democratic and autocratic politics in Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126521/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau 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>Marking the end of the Cold War offers the chance to reflect on the changes and continuities in African politics and international relations since 1989.John J Stremlau, Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed 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/1200072019-07-08T15:09:05Z2019-07-08T15:09:05ZMarxist scholar Harold Wolpe’s ideas still speak to South Africa’s problems<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283097/original/file-20190708-51305-h0uscs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harold Wolpe showed how poor rural areas subsidised low wages of migrant workers' wages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-politics-explainer-the-end-of-apartheid-101602">1948 to 1994</a> – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement. Given the exigencies of the time, it operated underground some of the time. </p>
<p>A key analyst and thinker within this movement was <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/harold-wolpe">Harold Wolpe</a>, the doyen of South African Marxism. Wolpe became active in anti-aparthied activities as a student at Wits University in the forties where he studied law and sociology. He went into exile in 1964 after escaping from prison while awaiting trial for treason with Nelson Mandela and others in the famous <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">Rivonia trial</a>. In exile he developed a formidable reputation as a Marxist theorist of social change. He critically aligned his intellectual work with the democratic movement, with all the possibilities, challenges and tensions such a relationship entailed, according to Robert van Niekerk, a professor in public governance at Wits University. In 1991 Wolpe returned to South Africa to set up the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the recent launch of a <a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">collection of essays</a>, “Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”, on the late Wolpe’s scholarly contribution, I was struck by the continued relevance of his work. </p>
<p>The theme that runs through the collection is a recognition of the changes that have taken place in post- apartheid South Africa, but also the striking continuities with the past.</p>
<p>As the country confronts arguably the deepest economic and social challenges since the creation of the post-apartheid democratic state, South Africans will find it very rewarding to revisit the rich debates on the left in this volume.</p>
<h2>What’s changed, and what hasn’t</h2>
<p>In the opening chapter I revisit, with my colleague <a href="https://asawu.org.za/vice-president-ben-scully/">Ben Scully</a>, Wolpe’s widely cited <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/Wolpe%20Economy%20&%20Society%201972.pdf">1972 article</a> on cheap labour. In this article, he argued that the wages of urban migrants were subsidised by the non-wage activities of the household in the rural areas, the so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homelands or bantustans</a>.</p>
<p>These were the ten mainly rural areas under the previous apartheid system where black South Africans were required to live, along ethnic group lines. They were characterised by extreme underdevelopment and poverty. This forced the men and later women to seek work in the city in areas demarcated “white” or to work on the mines or for white farmers.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283104/original/file-20190708-51273-1afwqzr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harold Wolpe in 1963.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rand Daily Mail/tiso black star</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wolpe argued that the subsidisation of migrant workers by rural areas allowed employers to pay wages below the cost of reproduction. The rural areas performed a social security function by providing welfare for the very old, the sick, and the young.</p>
<p>Migrant labour persists today. But – in some respects – the function of migrant workers has changed. This we tracked through surveys in rural villages.</p>
<p>Interviewing older migrants, they spoke of the low pay and the the danger of work under apartheid but they said they had “work for their whole lives’. Today the career trajectory of a young person is quite different when they migrate to the city. Employment has become more precarious and casual and the rural migrant soon finds herself going back and fourth from urban to rural area as the rural home is a place of secure housing. </p>
<p>While migrant labour persists, it no longer provides a subsidy to capital as rural-urban ties are no longer essential for the reproduction of cheap labour. Instead it provides support for those at the bottom of the wage labour market. But the character of the non-wage activities has changed. The unpaid household labour, especially of rural women, remains essential. But the system of monthly social grant income – to the old, young and the disabled – has emerged as the new non-wage income source, often at the expense of agricultural production. </p>
<p>So Wolpe’s work continues to be relevant in the present as it reminds us of the importance of the interface between the capitalist sector and non-wage activities in the rural areas. </p>
<p>Another theme of Wolpe’s that still resonates today is the state of higher education.</p>
<p>A central preoccupation of Wolpe in his later years was the state of higher education. In a well argued chapter, <a href="https://mellon.org/about/staff/saleem-badat/">Saleem Badat</a> characterises Wolpe’s approach as one in which the tension between equity and development needs to be addressed simultaneously. </p>
<p>But Badat adds, Wolpe felt that there was little appreciation in the democratic movement, that opposed apartheid, of the difficult social and political dilemmas, choices and trade-offs that would be entailed in such an approach. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The student protests of 2015-16 made it clear, be observes, that the HWUs (Historically White Universities) have, largely, lacked the willingness or courage, or failed to forge creative strategies and policies, or both, to transform institutional culture, which is a critical equity as well as development issue (page 276).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Shunned</h2>
<p>In the concluding chapter <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/news/sources/wsg-news/2018/meet-wsgs-chair-in-public-governance-professor-robert-van-niekerk.html">Robbie van Niekerk</a>, one of the editors of the volume, speaks of how Wolpe in his later years</p>
<blockquote>
<p>was shunned from any leading policy-making position and was increasingly isolated politically and personally by the liberation movement to which he had dedicated his life (362). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For the more orthodox, Wolpe’s questioning of the strategies of the national liberation movement was an indulgence and inappropriate.</p>
<p>A gap has emerged in South Africa’s political discourse as the democratic movement – those who fought against apartheid – has moved from state socialism to neoliberalism.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/283100/original/file-20190708-51288-v6x30c.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&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><a href="https://sobeds.ukzn.ac.za/staff-profile/emeritus-professors/vishnu-padayachee/">Vishnu Padayachee</a>, author of one of the chapters in the book, pointed out in a panel discussion at the book launch that in the late 1980s Wolpe was rudely dismissive of what he called "Keynesian compromises” as a developmental model. This was because they took the eye off what he saw as the prize of a truly socialist society.</p>
<p>Padayachee surmised: given the deepening levels of inequality and economic stagnation would Wolpe not have supported a more activist macroeconomic policy, and a central role for the state in industrialisation and development, as an economic policy tool today?</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.ru.ac.za/nalsu/latestnews/raceclassandthepost-apartheiddemocraticstate.html">“Race, Class and the Post-Apartheid Democratic State”</a>, is published by <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/">University of KwaZulu-Natal Press</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies is funded by the Ford Foundation. </span></em></p>During the apartheid period in South Africa – 1948 to 1994 – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement…Edward Webster, Distinguished Reserach Professor, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1066332018-11-19T13:36:25Z2018-11-19T13:36:25ZSouth African court resets power balance between villagers, mines and chiefs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245983/original/file-20181116-194509-31puq6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Communities in South Africa's North West Province are embroiled in battles with chiefs over land. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s Constitutional Court recently passed an important <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2018/41.html">judgment</a> that’s fundamentally challenged the power imbalance between mining companies and local communities in rural parts of the country. </p>
<p>The Court ruled in favour of 13 families from the village of Lesetlheng in the north west against a platinum mine that evicted them from their farming land, as well as banned them from setting foot on it. The Court’s judgment is particularly important because it found that existing customary land rights are protected, even if a mining right has been granted on a piece of land.</p>
<p>In South African law, customary land rights are categorised as “informal” and are protected under the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/interim-protection-informal-land-rights-act">Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act of 1996</a>. Customary land can be <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1c1a/37b02fd5df21ace8e4277132b9171f652a24.pdf">“both communal and individual”</a> in character, depending on the purpose for which a particular piece of land was allocated. For instance, rights to grazing land and rivers are communal, while ploughing fields and residential plots are allocated for private family use. </p>
<p>Lesetlheng farmers base their claim to the land not only on customary rights but also on the grounds of ownership. They argue that their forebearers bought the farm as an independent African syndicate, but were denied ownership by colonial laws that privileged tribal ownership and state custodianship.</p>
<p>Their court victory is no small achievement, not only for the community involved, but also for many impoverished village farmers in South Africa who are forcibly relocated and dispossessed of their land due to mining operations. </p>
<p>The Constitutional Court ruling ushers in a glimmer of light that the dark era of colonial and apartheid land dispossession, and the long history of undermining African systems of landholding is slowly crumbling. </p>
<p>The judgment has also made significant progress towards interrupting the tyranny of looting by chiefs, state officials and mining capital as well as expropriation of the land belonging to the rural poor. These are realities that I’ve seen firsthand during a decade of researching the multiple effects of mining on rural communities in some of South Africa’s former <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland areas</a> - areas to which black people were either moved to or restricted to prevent them living in “white” urban areas under apartheid.</p>
<h2>Grassroots movements</h2>
<p>South Africa has seen a significant rise in levels of <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-02-12-we-will-die-for-our-land-say-angry-xolobeni-villagers-as-dune-mining-looms-1">rural grassroots resistance</a> to the rapid expansion of mining as well as to the collusion between state officials, mining companies and local chiefs. </p>
<p>Since the late 1990s the state has given local chiefs, not only legal recognition as local leaders in rural areas, but de facto representatives of rural residents in business transaction and development endeavours. </p>
<p>On the platinum-rich lands of the North West Province, for instance, chiefs and their traditional councils have assumed custodianship of communal resources. This includes land. They have signed complex business deals with mining companies on behalf of rural communities. </p>
<p>There have been a number of problems with the way in which these deals have been done. Firstly, there are usually done with limited – or no – participation by the people most affected.</p>
<p>Secondly, the benefits that are meant to accrue to communities seldom see the light of day. </p>
<p>Because of this, ordinary villagers have been resisting having chiefs who claim to be acting on their behalf. </p>
<h2>The impact of mining</h2>
<p>Lesetlheng in one of the impoverished villages under the Bakgatla traditional authority that lie scattered all over the north-eastern foothills of the Pilanesberg Mountain range north of Johannesburg. </p>
<p>I have spent considerable amounts of time with local residents <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/media/migration/news-migration/files/SWOP%20%20WP%20%20Bakgatla%20%20Mnwana%20and%20Capps.pdf">researching</a> the impact of mining and local struggles over the distribution of mining revenues and land. Resistance to mining-led dispossession has characterised this once laid back village ever since mining activities began on their farming land - the farm Wilgespruit 2 JQ – in the late 2000s. </p>
<p>The farm Wilgespruit 2 JQ – famously known as “Modimo Mmalo” – has been the only farming land for Lesetleng villagers for generations. It was one of the most productive farms in the Bakgatla area. </p>
<p>The elders in Lesetlheng told how their families used to harvest countless bags of sorghum, maize, beans, and many other crops. Some <a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9127790">literature</a> corroborates the history of agricultural productivity of this land. </p>
<p>Every winter, after harvesting, the farmers at Wilgespruit opened the farm for communal grazing. </p>
<p>Over the years, the Pilanesberg Platinum Mine’s open cast mine – owned by Sedibelo Platinum Mines – has expanded astonishingly. Former pastoral and agricultural land on this farm has been fenced off for new mining projects. </p>
<p>The only evidence left that the farm was once productive agricultural land are the abandoned small mud and corrugated iron structures where people used to live during ploughing season. </p>
<p>Some of the former plots had small dams that various clans dug to water their crops. Most have dried up. Following the Constitutional Court victory one can only hope that the Lesetlheng farmers will get their land back and resume farming.</p>
<h2>Starting point</h2>
<p>The recognition of customary land rights is just a starting point. It’s crucial for the law, courts, the state and mining capital to take into account the history of African land dispossession. This is not only rooted in the non-recognition of African land holding systems, but also perpetuates the continued disposition of poor communities by the new rural frontiers of mining expansion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonwabile Mnwana receives funding from the Open Society Foundation South Africa. </span></em></p>South Africa has made progress towards interrupting the looting of land by chiefs, state officials and mining capital.Sonwabile Mnwana, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Fort HareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022132018-08-29T14:18:06Z2018-08-29T14:18:06ZButhelezi’s retirement won’t end ethnic ‘traditionalism’ in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233886/original/file-20180828-86153-131v534.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mangosutho Buthelezi in parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Mark Wessels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi</a> announced his retirement as president of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/inkatha-freedom-party-ifp">Inkatha Freedom Party</a> (IFP) in late October 2017. The 90-year-old South African politician said he would not stand again for leadership of the organisation he founded in the mid-1970s. </p>
<p>However, the Inkatha Freedom Party congress – where his successor was to be elected – has been <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/ifp-postpones-elective-conference-in-kzn/">postponed</a>. It’s just the latest twist in Buthelezi’s long political life, which provides a fascinating thread through the past 70 years in South Africa’s tumultuous history. </p>
<p>His career as a politician began in 1953 when he was called by his clan to lead it as <em>inkosi</em> (chief). </p>
<p>Subsequently, he came to head the KwaZulu “bantustan”, homeland of the Zulu. The apartheid government divided mainly rural parts of South Africa into 10 ethnically based homelands. This segregationist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">policy</a> aimed to remove black people from urban areas of South Africa, leaving these areas to whites only.</p>
<p>Buthelezi formed and reigned as president of Inkatha, a self-styled “cultural liberation movement”, from 1975. It was renamed the Inkatha Freedom Party in the early 1990s. He served for a decade in the cabinet of the Government of National Unity after Nelson Mandela became president in 1994.</p>
<h2>Actions and consequences</h2>
<p>Probably the most important aspect of his career was a problematic tension which was expressed in his actions and their consequences: between ethnicity and nationalism, between region and country, between Zulu and South African identity. </p>
<p>Historian Sheila Gastrow has <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">written</a> that his “tribal loyalties and focus on ethnic interests over national unity” led to,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a virtual civil war between his Zulu loyalist supporters and ANC members in KwaZulu-Natal.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than 15,000 people died in these conflicts. This horrific period was abetted by the apartheid state – and served it – during the decade leading to 1994. In its final report the Truth and Reconciliation Commission <a href="https://www.news24.com/xArchive/Archive/Buthelezi-to-try-stop-TRC-report-20020629">accused</a> Buthelezi of being a major perpetrator of violence and human rights abuses during the apartheid era.</p>
<p>It said that the Inkatha Freedom Party colluded with the former government’s security forces to carry out mass attacks and kill African National Congress leaders. It claimed that the Inkatha Freedom Party leadership “created a climate of impunity” that allowed this to happen.</p>
<p>Buthelezi vehemently denied this and in 2002 even <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/buthelezi-seeks-interdict-to-stop-trc-report-88875">tried to interdict</a> the Truth Commission from releasing its final report.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233887/original/file-20180828-86147-19wklm2.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Show of force by Inkatha members.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Shayne Robinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Powerful cultural group</h2>
<p>Buthelezi was born on 27 August 1928 to parents who were located firmly within Zulu traditional authority. Belonging to one of the region’s most powerful cultural groups – with assertions to royal blood through his mother, Princess Magogo – Buthelezi grounded his first claims for leadership in the ethnic “camp”.</p>
<p>But he also straddled the nationalist “camp”. In 1950, the then law student was evicted from the University of Fort Hare during anti-government protests. After completing his studies, he chose the position of chief of the Buthelezi clan rather than a route into law.</p>
<p>Buthelezi constructed himself as the heir to Albert Luthuli – a leader who sat easily with both his ethnic role as a Zulu “chief” and a national role as ANC president. </p>
<p>Buthelezi frequently referred to a meeting he had with Luthuli. There, the elder statesman “hung his mantle” on Buthelezi, both as Zulu and as ANC member. But in 1970 Buthelezi was elected to the headship of the Zulu Territorial Authority. That was the first step towards a Zulu “homeland” within the apartheid grand scheme.</p>
<p>Once in power, Buthelezi contested “separate development”, resisting formal bantustan “independence”. His leadership, however, demonstrated the opening fissure between ethnic and national political struggle for the next 25 years.</p>
<h2>Internal ANC</h2>
<p>Buthelezi claimed Inkatha was a revival of the ANC as an internal movement, and adopted the same colours. He alleged it was a strategy of undermining apartheid “from within”; these claims drew the ire of the exiled ANC leadership, which believed, correctly, that Buthelezi had his own aims and distinct power base.</p>
<p>The vicious war between these rival interpretations of nationhood and political expression divided people and families. It opened unexpected opportunities for the apartheid state to drive another wedge into opposition struggles.</p>
<p>Buthelezi’s contestation against apartheid was expressed in another way too. He sought <a href="http://campbell.ukzn.ac.za/?q=taxonomy/term/1304">to replace</a> the bantustan fragmentation with a post-apartheid federal system. </p>
<p>In key ways, Buthelezi anticipated how ANC rule would develop post-democracy. One early indication of this continuity was the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/1995-12-15-zwelithini-accuses-ifp">easy migration</a> of the Zulu king, Goodwill Zwelithini, from a stalwart of Inkatha to the welcoming arms of the ANC government. </p>
<p>The contradictions that formed Buthelezi’s challenges as an anti-apartheid leader have continued in a number of unresolved issues. Chief among them are the Ingonyama Trust debacle and the unresolved status of land, custom and authority. The <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/FactsheetIngonyama_Final_Feb2015.pdf">Ingonyama Trust</a> was the outcome of a deal between apartheid’s last ruling party, the National Party, and the IFP during the dying days of white rule.</p>
<p>The homeland system was about to be dismantled, and the Trust, with King Goodwill Zwelithini as its sole trustee, was established to manage land then falling under the bantustan government of KwaZulu. The Trust, which is now responsible for managing some 2.8 million hectares of land in KwaZulu-Natal, has been criticised for threatening rural people’s rights.</p>
<p>A belligerent Zwelithini <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2018-08-28-leaders-want-to-slip-ingonyama-trusts-leash/">rejected</a> recent calls for the Trust to be dismantled, and called on Zulus to take up arms to defend the land.</p>
<h2>Political claim-making</h2>
<p>The material thread throughout Buthelezi’s life as both an ethnic and a national politician has been land and its relationship to political claim-making. So there is deep irony in the fact that Buthelezi was, in the 1980s, castigated and threatened with death for standing on culture-based land policies. Today many parties use these policies to mobilise public opinion and support.</p>
<p>It seems to be effective, with signs that the Inkatha Freedom Party is regaining support during a time of extreme political contestation in KwaZulu-Natal. </p>
<p>Buthelezi carries extensive accountability for the sectarianism that characterised politics before 1994. But the contradictions and responsibilities go beyond this fascinating figure. His retirement will certainly not bring an end to ethnic “traditionalism”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerhard Maré 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>Mangosuthu Buthelezi carries extensive accountability for the sectarianism that characterised politics in South Africa before 1994.Gerhard Maré, Emeritus Professor of Political Sociology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/966662018-05-15T14:19:31Z2018-05-15T14:19:31ZHow a deal with provincial strongmen is haunting South Africa’s ruling party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219027/original/file-20180515-195315-e0638.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo (centre) before the announcement that his province is being taken over by national government.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> EPA-EFE/STR</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ramaphosas-moment-of-hope-is-built-on-a-fragile-foundation-92043">elected a new leadership</a> which was the result of a hard boiled deal between the party’s factions. South Africans can now see how the deal which produced a new governing party leadership last year is meant to work. It may keep the ANC together and is unlikely to worry people in the major cities much. But it could make an already <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-needs-a-fresh-approach-to-its-stubbornly-high-levels-of-inequality-87215">serious inequality problem</a> worse.</p>
<p>The nature of the deal is revealed by events in North West province where Supra Mahumapelo, an unpopular provincial premier, seems set on remaining in power despite voter <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/live-mahumapelo-addresses-vocal-supporters-trying-to-gatecrash-pec-meeting-20180509">rejection</a> and demonstrations calling for his head. He has so far been able to do this because he controls the provincial ANC structures. </p>
<p>The national leadership has placed the province <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/05/13/report-ramaphosa-takes-over-troubled-nw">under the administration</a> of central government. But that is more an admission of defeat than a solution. It’s an acknowledgement that central government could not solve the problem politically and so it’s been forced to use administrative measures.</p>
<p>To understand these events, we need to go back to the ANC’s December conference at which its current leadership, with Cyril Ramaphosa as President, was elected. The choice of leaders was the product of a <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2018/05/13/report-ramaphosa-takes-over-troubled-nw">deal</a> which saw the leadership group divided equally between supporters and opponents of former president Jacob Zuma. </p>
<p>It was also a compromise between two types of politics – one which uses the state’s resources for enrichment and patronage and one rooted in the market which opposes government behaviour that might weaken its ability to create wealth.</p>
<h2>The deal</h2>
<p>Since the election, the ANC’s national leadership has been behaving largely as if no deal was done and they alone are in charge. It has removed Zuma and has appointed an <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2018-01-25-in-full--state-capture-inquiry-to-probe-guptas-zuma-and-ministers/">inquiry</a> into the “state capture” of which his faction is accused. It has also <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-to-do-list-seven-economic-policy-areas-that-will-shift-the-dial-94352">replaced the boards</a> and senior managers of state owned enterprises which were seen to aid the capture of public resources by connected people. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s first <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ramaphosa-reshuffles-cabinet-20180227">cabinet</a> included members of the Zuma faction, but the key positions are held by his group. </p>
<p>This begged an obvious question: what was the pro-Zuma faction getting out of the deal? Why were they falling in line with the anti-state capture agenda which pulled the rug from under them?</p>
<p>North West provides the answer. At the core of the Zuma faction’s campaign, which relied on electing his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma president, were the so-called <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2017/12/19/the-rise-of-the-premier-league-and-their-failed-bid-to-install-ndz_a_23310554/">Premier League</a>, provincial premiers in three mainly rural provinces. </p>
<p>Mahumapelo was one but he did not ascend to national office. The other two, David Mabuza and Ace Magashule, are now deputy president (of both the ANC and the country) and ANC secretary general respectively. While there are differences between them – Mabuza struck the deal which got Ramaphosa elected – all three are regional strongmen whose power relies on controlling their provinces. </p>
<p>They seem to have decided not to challenge Ramaphosa’s faction on national issues. But all three are set on retaining their power base in their provinces; Mabuza and Magashule have been replaced by premiers who are likely to defer to them and Mahumapelo is <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/live-mahumapelo-addresses-vocal-supporters-trying-to-gatecrash-pec-meeting-20180509">determined</a> to hold onto the North West ANC. They seem to remain strong enough in their provincial ANCs to allow them to do this.</p>
<h2>Back to Bantustans</h2>
<p>If they succeed, people in the cities will be largely unaffected. The battle against national state capture will continue. But those in rural areas, most of which were <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustans</a> under apartheid – rural dumping grounds where local power holders controlled residents on behalf of the apartheid state – will remain firmly in the grip of the patronage politics and state capture from which the cities will be at least partly free.</p>
<p>This will not only entrench inequality. It will keep alive the apartheid patterns which democracy was meant to end because millions of people in the former Bantustans will remain under the control of leaders who are not interested in serving them. They will be at best partly free and will continue to live in poverty.</p>
<p>Whether this is allowed to happen will depend less on ANC politicians, including Ramaphosa, than on citizens. The ANC national leadership is trying to intervene in North West but it has shown no interest in changing the way Free State and Mpumalanga are governed. It seems to understand the deal to mean that they cannot be touched. If Zuma’s ally Sihle Zikalala wins control of KwaZulu-Natal, he too might gain a free pass to govern that province as he pleases.</p>
<p>The only reason the ANC leadership is intervening in the North West is that citizens have made it clear that they want Mahumapelo and his style of governing gone. Besides the damaging street demonstrations, the ANC <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/195876/new-poll-shows-anc-is-losing-support-below-50/">may lose North West</a> to the opposition in next year’s general election. </p>
<p>While it has lost ground at the polls in the other Premier League provinces, the damage is not enough to persuade national leaders that they need to do anything about these areas. That would no doubt change if the ANC vote in those provinces also started dipping under 50%.</p>
<p>The ANC deal seems set to condemn people living where apartheid’s Bantustans once reigned to much the same sort of governance as they endured then. But they have a weapon now which they lacked then: a vote, which might yet bring them the same freedoms people in the cities enjoy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96666/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 chaos visiting South Africa’s North-West province shows that ordinary people in rural areas have got a raw deal from ruling party.Steven Friedman, Professor of Political Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/920662018-02-22T08:42:44Z2018-02-22T08:42:44ZThe Zuma regime is dead. But its consequences will linger for a long time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207085/original/file-20180220-116327-zhwqhx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jacob Zuma</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The flood of obituaries to the Zuma presidency are likely to stream in for some time to come. But how should the nine-year period of President <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jacob-gedleyihlekisa-zuma">Jacob Zuma’s</a> <a href="https://www.news24.com/Analysis/mistake-of-the-nation-the-lost-decade-of-zuma-rule-20180215">rule</a> be understood in its historical and theoretical contexts?</p>
<p>We can answer the question by applying a theoretical lens that distinguishes between state, government and ruling party as three dimensions of politics. The state is the overall machinery of power comprising different institutions and practices. It tends to persist over time even when parties, politicians and cabinets shift. Government is a formal structure of ministries and policies which may change every few years. The ruling party is an actor that plays a role in running the government, depending on circumstances.</p>
<p>The balance between the three dimensions is not fixed. Together they form what is often called “the regime”. This refers not only to structures, policies and practices, but also to a less tangible “ethos” that gives sense of coherence to the entire set of institutional relationships.</p>
<p>The post-apartheid era has seen three terms of rule, dominated by the same party, the <a href="http://www.anc.org.za/">African National Congress</a> (ANC). For most of the post-apartheid period they were led by three very different personalities – <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/">Nelson Mandela</a>, <a href="https://www.mbeki.org/profile-of-former-president-thabo-mbeki/">Thabo Mbeki</a> and Jacob Zuma. Each was governed by a different ethos: reconciliation and nation building under Mandela, and building a technically capable state under Mbeki.</p>
<p>So what was Zuma’s ethos, and how does the period of his rule compare to his predecessors’?</p>
<h2>Different eras</h2>
<p>The primary challenge for the Mandela government was to merge different political institutions and traditions into a coherent whole while maintaining social and political stability. The ethos of reconciliation dominated. This required a reformist approach – keeping the old style of management while gradually changing personnel and policies. An orderly but gradual shift of power was needed to ensure that the volatile environment did not get in the way of a new political order being built. </p>
<p>This approach ensured a peaceful transition. But it was also problematic. Many senior apartheid and Bantustan bureaucrats kept their positions. Even when they were replaced, their ethos and mode of operation prevailed. </p>
<p>With the transition to the Mbeki period, changes in state, government and party became evident. The primary challenge shifted from ensuring stability to enhancing modernity; from racial reconciliation to technical proficiency; from creating a unified state to making it efficient. </p>
<p>The new imperatives were centralising planning and designing and implementing policies. The idea of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/mbekis-dream-of-africas-renaissance-belied-south-africas-schizophrenia-58311">“African Renaissance”</a> served as a unifying ethos. But it had ambiguous effects. On the one hand it presented a vision of unity and development. On the other it led to racially-inspired delusions, as was the case with <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2016-03-03-how-mbekis-character-and-his-aids-denialism-are-intimately-linked">Mbeki’s AIDS denialism</a> and his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2008/jun/23/zimbabwecrisisthabombekisr">support</a> for Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>The biggest problem of the Mbeki period was that its attempts at centralisation excluded voices from the margins of politics and non-state actors. In turn this undermined the quest for policy effectiveness, a failure that was to serve as the background for the Zuma period.</p>
<h2>Man of the people</h2>
<p>Zuma’s appeal was due precisely to his being so unlike his illustrious predecessors. Neither a giant of the struggle like Mandela nor an <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mbekis-character-and-his-aids-denialism-are-intimately-linked-54766">aloof intellectual</a> like Mbeki. Instead, he was seen as a man of the people. Not known for grand policy visions, he was expected to be pragmatic, seeking practical solutions instead of ideological purity. </p>
<p>His lack of commitment to specific policies meant that he was supported by opposing factions that thought him malleable. In short, a man for – almost – all people. Even his ethical transgressions weren’t seen as obstacles. They made him more human instead.</p>
<p>And human, all too human, he proved to be. Dispensing with the need to offer grand visions for the state, or claim competence in government, or manage the party with impartiality, Zuma used power to advance a single goal: self enrichment. The ethos was clear: grab as much and as fast as you can.</p>
<p>The strategy he adopted was to mix and match individuals and structures to serve the one goal. His approach had three components which he pursued systematically. These were to control: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>parts of the state that would help shield him from accountability, in particular the criminal justice system; </p></li>
<li><p>aspects of government that facilitated access to resources: minerals and energy, state-owned enterprises, ultimately the treasury; and </p></li>
<li><p>party institutions to neutralise opponents, particularly those who could undermine him.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The rest he discarded. Areas of government not directly relevant to looting resources received no attention. Left to their own devices, spheres such as education, health, welfare, public safety, housing, agriculture, water, were handled with no interference from the top.</p>
<h2>Corruption and its aftermath</h2>
<p>Corruption on a large scale preceded Zuma and is likely continue for a long time after him. The difference is that he opened the gates for political entrepreneurs to enrich themselves by creating looting opportunities. </p>
<p>The impunity that guided his actions permeated all state institutions. But there was resistance: within the state the court system remained largely intact and, in many cases, fought back as did the Public Protector. Large sections of the media, NGOs, the political opposition, and principled individuals all played a role. Enclaves within government – the Treasury in particular – continued to perform their role as long as they could. </p>
<p>Eventually the tide turned, heralding a new transition of power in the ANC. So, what lessons can we draw from a period that saw the state subordinated to the whims of a small number of people using it to their own ends? </p>
<p>One key takeaway is that free media and civil society voices, independent courts and accountability mechanisms, and honest politicians are all necessary. South Africa came very close to losing the battle against abusive and exploitative state power. The consequences of this will be with the country for a long time to come, which is why continued vigilance is essential.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ran Greenstein 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 obituary of the Zuma administration can be summed up with its ethos: grab as much and as fast as you can.Ran Greenstein, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.