tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/kwazulu-58848/articlesKwaZulu – The Conversation2023-09-09T12:52:24Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1758712023-09-09T12:52:24Z2023-09-09T12:52:24ZMangosuthu Buthelezi: the Zulu nationalist who left his mark on South Africa’s history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444063/original/file-20220202-19-1fky7gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C49%2C575%2C442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi speaks in parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi</a> played a prominent role in South African politics for almost half a century. <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-announces-passing-honourable-prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi%2C-traditional-prime-minister-zulu-nation-and-monarch">He was</a> one of the last of a generation of black South African leaders who influenced the transition from the white minority apartheid regime to a society under a democratically elected government. </p>
<p>Prince Buthelezi (95) was born on 27 August 1928 in Mahlabatini into the Zulu royal family. His mother <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/princess-magogo">Princess Magogo ka Dinuzulu</a> was the daughter of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dinuzulu">King Dinizulu</a>. His grandfather was the prime minister of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-cetshwayo">King Cetshwayo</a>. So, he was the first-born in line to the Buthelezi chieftainship. </p>
<p>His Zulu identity became the decisive compass for his career in politics, and personified the ambiguities between ethnic identity and national policy. He became the only Bantustan leader who played a significant role in South Africa’s transition to democracy and subsequent politics. Under apartheid <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustans or homelands</a> were the ten mainly rural, impoverished areas where black South Africans were required to live and have nominal “self-rule” and “independence”, along ethnic group lines separate from whites under apartheid. </p>
<p>Buthelezi used his power to combine ethnic particularism with a policy aimed at inclusive national governance opposed to segregation under apartheid. </p>
<p>As Minister of Home Affairs (1994-2004) and MP since democracy in 1994, he remained a relevant political figure with considerable political influence. His political role remains a controversial and heavily criticised example of how a quest for power based on a Zulu identity as regional-ethnic particularism can take a huge toll on lives.</p>
<h2>Under apartheid</h2>
<p>In 1948 Buthelezi enrolled to study history and “Bantu administration” <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">at Fort Hare University</a>. In 1949 he briefly joined the African National Congress Youth League. He was expelled from the university in 1950 for his political activism, completing his degree at the University of Natal. In 1953 he became the hereditary chief of the Buthelezi clan. </p>
<p>In 1976 he was appointed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/KwaZulu">chief minister</a> of KwaZulu. The area comprised 11 territorial enclaves in the province of Natal. It was a Bantustan under the apartheid state’s policy euphemistically called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-separate-development-south-africa">“separate development”</a>.</p>
<p>In 1975 <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-election-pact-failure-echoes-of-fraught-history-between-south-africas-anc-and-inkatha-172696">he revived Inkatha ka Zulu</a>, a Zulu cultural movement established by King Dinizulu in 1922. It later became the <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/our-history/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a>. According to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mangosuthu-G-Buthelezi">Encyclopedia Britannica</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He used Inkatha as a personal power base that systematically mobilised Zulu nationalist aspirations, although his narrow regional and ethnic support base would make his ambition of being national leader difficult.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His Zulu stronghold allowed him to throw a spanner in the apartheid government’s “separate development” policy, by preventing a declaration of pseudo-independence for KwaZulu. </p>
<p>As he once <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=NcipiPf0tncC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Mangosuthu+Buthelezi:+We+have+our+own+history,+our+own+language,+our+own+culture.+But+our+destiny+is+also+tied+up+with+the+destinies+of+other+people+-+history+has+made+us+all+South+Africans.&source=bl&ots=SUDJvJwodt&sig=ACfU3U3xcligo5RWHbM_x9pkORPIYtv6Og&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizpKmjwoH2AhXcwAIHHRWLDw4Q6AF6BAgFEAM#v=onepage&q=Mangosuthu%20Buthelezi%3A%20We%20have%20our%20own%20history%2C%20our%20own%20language%2C%20our%20own%20culture.%20But%20our%20destiny%20is%20also%20tied%20up%20with%20the%20destinies%20of%20other%20people%20-%20history%20has%20made%20us%20all%20South%20Africans.&f=false">explained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have our own history, our own language, our own culture. But our destiny is also tied up with the destinies of other people – history has made us all South Africans.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Adam Houldsworth, in his <a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11660/4047/HouldsworthA.pdf;jsessionid=B41C2C6F899271C77B98E5FF9FD35E82?sequence=1">PhD thesis</a> on Inkatha and the National Party, 1980-1989, documents important domestic policy shifts, influenced by Buthelezi’s political manoeuvres. He disputes the view that Buthelezi pursued an opportunistic and unprincipled policy.</p>
<p>Much of the underlying notion in Buthelezi’s position was inspired by the conservative political philosophy of <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/edmund-burke-guide#who-was-edmund-burke">Edmund Burke (1729-1797)</a>. Buthelezi demanded a majoritarian power-sharing system on a national level as opposed to apartheid. He placed his hopes on reformist tendencies emerging from within the National Party.</p>
<p>According to Houldsworth (p. 210): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Buthelezi sought to improve Inkatha’s prospects by advocating a long and multifaceted 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>
</blockquote>
<h2>Reinventing Zulu traditionalism for politics</h2>
<p>Buthelezi turned his local-ethnic agency into a national policy factor by rejecting the Bantustan principle. This contributed to the growing awareness within the ranks of the more enlightened faction in the ruling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> that a post-apartheid scenario needed to be negotiated. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) becoming an increasingly influential factor in any negotiated solution, while at the same time a threat to his own interests, Buthelezi walked a political tightrope. Considering the exiled ANC as ideologically too left, he advocated the <a href="https://www.deseret.com/1988/6/12/18768341/leader-of-zulus-calls-for-the-release-of-mandela-assails-emergency-rule">release from prison</a> of its leader <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>. Mandela had been jailed for life for sabotage aimed at <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">overthrowing the apartheid regime</a>. Buthelezi believed Mandela would be a moderating element, preventing a socialist transformation. </p>
<p>German historian Aljoscha Tillmanns adds further insights to Buthelezi’s political strategy in his <a href="https://www.roehrig-verlag.de/shop/item/9783861107545/development-for-liberation-von-aljoscha-tillmanns-gebundenes-buch">PhD thesis</a>. As he shows, Buthelezi’s political convictions were strongly influenced by a belief in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/consociationalism">consociationalism</a>. As a concept of government by coalition it is a form of political power sharing among competing elites.</p>
<p>As sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/roger-southall-296862">Roger Southall</a> has shown, this included attempts to seek closer cooperation with liberal and conservative whites <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721987">in a politics of compromise</a>. Buthelezi posed as a pragmatic reformer without any specific ideology. </p>
<p>His trust in and reaffirmation of capitalism appealed to the business community, both in and outside South African. Tillmanns (p. 408) quotes him from a meeting with the press, commerce and industry in Frankfurt in February 1986:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dire necessity dictates that the free enterprise system be unshackled from its apartheid shackles (and…) multi-party democracy in which politics and economics are synthesised is prescribed by the need for economic development. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>From civil war to democracy</h2>
<p>Buthelezi personified both black nationalism and Zulu traditionalism. But his ambitions were confronted with and limited by the growing influence of the ANC in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiations for a post-apartheid society</a>. This escalated into massive violent clashes between his <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a> and the ANC. Thousands of people <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161169">were killed</a>. </p>
<p>He was willing to cooperate closely with the apartheid regime in his aim to prevent the ANC from seizing power. This went as far as having Inkatha members receiving <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/1995-12-22-caprivi-200-the-year-of-the-generals/">military training from the apartheid government’s army</a>.</p>
<p>Buthelezi’s determination to prevent the establishment of a new post-apartheid dispensation in which he had no major role ended in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161169">large-scale, deadly violence between IFP and ANC supporters</a> in today’s KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces. This escalated after the ANC and other liberation movements were unbanned in 1990. Thousands were killed ahead of the first democratic elections of 1994. </p>
<p>At the brink of civil war, Buthelezi – who originally <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/ifp-agrees-participate-1994-elections">refused to participate in the elections</a> – decided to add Inkatha to the ballot papers. This paved the way to reducing the violence and allowed President Nelson Mandela to co-opt Buthelezi as minister of home affairs in his cabinet.</p>
<p>Buthelezi kept the portfolio during the first term of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency. He also occasionally served as South Africa’s acting president.</p>
<h2>The last days</h2>
<p>With the decline of Inkatha in the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/pdf/JAE3.2Mottiar.pdf">2014 elections</a>, Buthelezi lost his cabinet post. He remained president of the IFP until 2019 and an MP until his death.</p>
<p>He had an uneasy relationship with <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-goodwill-zwelithini-kabhekuzulu">King Goodwill Zwelithini</a>, the Zulus monarch since 1971. With the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/22/king-goodwill-zwelithini-obituary">king’s death</a> in March 2021, Buthelezi re-engaged more intensively with the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03005/06lv03006/07lv03068/08lv03074.htm">Zulu kingdom</a> and related politics. </p>
<p>Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties. His appetite for power was always stronger. But no matter on which side of history he is placed, he will remain the only leader of a Bantustan who left an imprint on South Africa’s way to democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber 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>Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, 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/1704692021-11-11T14:44:44Z2021-11-11T14:44:44ZSouth Africa’s apartheid regime manipulated borders. Today, the effects linger<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428766/original/file-20211027-23-1mpzjqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elizabeth Dlamini at her curio stall in the Ezulwini Valley near Mbabane, eSwatini. The kingdom's economy is dependent on its larger neightbour, South Africa.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/John Hrusha</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The issue of land, especially its redistribution, remains <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/land-reform-south-africa-election/586900/">contentious</a> in South Africa 27 years after the formal end of apartheid. Land redistribution was promised at the end of apartheid. The failure of the African National Congress (ANC) government to do so is emblematic of its failure to fundamentally transform the country. </p>
<p>Yet, dispossession of land is a historically rooted problem. The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">Land Act of 1913</a> forbade black ownership of land in roughly 93% of the country (amended in 1936 to 87%). In the 1960s and 1970s, the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> regime forcibly removed millions of black South Africans from their homes, dumping them in squalid conditions in the so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">bantustans</a>. </p>
<p>The apartheid-created bantustans, or “homelands”, were 10 undeveloped territories the regime carved out for particular ethnic groups. These territories’ internal borders have disappeared from the map. But, for people living in them, the lack of opportunities that typified their lives during apartheid remains largely the same today.</p>
<p>In addition to the bantustans, two micro-states existed within the borders of South Africa: <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/lesotho">Lesotho</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/eswatini-formerly-swaziland">Swaziland</a> (today called eSwatini). The coexistence of these “legitimate” states – they were <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/growth-in-un-membership">recognised</a> by the United Nations – cheek by jowl with the bantustans challenged the meanings of state recognition and sovereignty.</p>
<p>Today, the governments and residents of both Lesotho and eSwatini still lay claim to some of South Africa’s land. What residents of former “homelands” and the two states have in common are limited government services and few job prospects. This has happened because residents of all these places have historically been denied the freedom to seek employment in South Africa’s best jobs. This was done through <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23271564">job reservation for whites</a>, passport requirements and pass laws that restricted the movement of black people. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2021.1982264?journalCode=cjss20">journal article</a> examined the history of border claims by Lesotho and Swaziland, as well as internal boundary changes the South African apartheid government made as it tried to implement the bantustan system. This showed how policymakers during apartheid attempted to manipulate these borders for strategic gain.</p>
<p>Borders are a socially constructed phenomenon. They are hardly immutable, as the <a href="https://merip.org/2012/03/the-sudan-split/">splitting of Sudan in 2011</a> showed. But, to the residents of what used to be South Africa’s “homelands”, as well as Lesotho and eSwatini, former borders still stand as a barrier. Passports are required for citizens of the two countries. Former homelands residents have built lives and own houses in these distant and under-serviced places. Residents remain trapped: both by decisions taken during apartheid and by the inflexibility of modern states and decision makers.</p>
<p>This research builds on the literature of the last decade that has finally started to tackle the continuing legacy of the bantustans on the lives of millions of South Africans. Additionally, we want to help refocus attention on Lesotho and eSwatini, which have been relatively ignored by scholars since the fall of apartheid. </p>
<p>By studying literature on these sites, scholars will be able to examine southern Africa as an interconnected regional economy, rather than a series of discrete national economies. This will highlight the historical roots of continued regional inequities.</p>
<h2>Strategic choices</h2>
<p>Our article examines the possibility of territorial transfer and border adjustments in the 1970s and 1980s. Then, South Africa was pushing for international recognition for the bantustans in order to generate a sense of legitimacy for the apartheid project.</p>
<p>It focused on getting its most vulnerable regional neighbours – Lesotho and Swaziland – to recognise the bantustans, whether formally via diplomatic recognition or in everyday relations on mundane matters like border control. </p>
<p>In trying to force its neighbours’ hands, South Africa proposed the possibility of making good on claims on South African land made by Lesotho and Swaziland dating back to the 19th century. Proposals to transfer land caused leaders on all sides to make difficult decisions that pitted national interests against global geopolitics. All too often, borderlands residents paid the price for disputes over sovereignty. This position of vulnerability continues today.</p>
<p>We examined a variety of records, including South African and United Kingdom archival sources, as well as contemporary reports on potential land transfers. </p>
<p>We focused on the ideas of land transfer and border adjustments because they are emotive issues for residents. They also signal state priorities. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305707042000215383">transfer</a> of Glen Grey and Herschel districts from the Ciskei to the Transkei “homelands” in 1975, for instance, shows that the apartheid regime made land concessions to further strategic goals.</p>
<p>South Africa approved the transfer to convince Transkei’s leader <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kaiser-daliwonga-matanzima">Kaiser Matanzima</a> to declare “independence”. On the other hand, while demanding back the “conquered territory” (portions of South Africa’s Free State province taken by Afrikaner settlers in the 19th century), the leaders of Lesotho were unwilling to take on the Basotho bantustan of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Qwaqwa">Qwaqwa</a> (offered by South Africa) because it was not the whole conquered territory, and it would have meant recognising apartheid.</p>
<p>Lesotho’s leaders also calculated that international aid received from its status as a “front line state” – neighbouring states <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/chapter-3-historical-lesotho">harbouring South Africans fighting against apartheid</a> – was more valuable than a <a href="https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/4134/1/John_Bardill_-_Destabilization%2C_The_Lesotho_case.pdf">partial return</a> of the conquered territory.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/king-sobhuza-ii-1899-1982">Swaziland’s King Sobhuza II</a>, meanwhile, signed a deal in 1982 that would have enlarged the Swazi kingdom by incorporating <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/kangwane">KaNgwane</a>, the area that had been designated as a bantustan for Swazi-speaking South Africans. In exchange, Sobhuza and the Swazi state would take on as citizens every Swazi-speaking person in South Africa. And, in a secret pact, they would expel the then-banned liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC), from its forward bases in the kingdom.</p>
<p>KaNgwane leaders rejected the deal. The KwaZulu administration, which would have lost its Ingwavuma District as well under the deal, sued in court to have it declared void. And so, the deal gradually fell apart and was never consummated.</p>
<p>These examples show that while international borders may seem fixed, they were negotiable for the right price in southern Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s also clear that Lesotho would not, and Swaziland could not, take the apartheid state’s border deals. This shows the important role internal pressure and international aid played in influencing border changes. </p>
<h2>Continued disadvantages</h2>
<p>These cases also show how residents of the bantustans and small regional states paid the price for border and boundary disputes. Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana all faced an increased <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/south-african-defence-force-sadf-raid-maseru-effort-kill-suspected-members-african">military threat</a> from the apartheid regime.</p>
<p>Even after the fall of apartheid in 1994, borderlands occupants continue to face greater difficulty in crossing borders to access <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2021/03/border-wars">work</a>, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-02-14-swazi-parents-in-matric-panic/">school</a> and <a href="https://samponline.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Acrobat26.pdf">services</a>. </p>
<p>The challenge for the region is better integration to allow for a more just and humane border policy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>International borders were negotiable for the right price. What residents of former ‘homelands’ and of Lesotho and eSwatini have in common now are limited government services and few job prospects.John Aerni-Flessner, Associate Professor of African History, Michigan State UniversityChitja Twala, Associate Professor of History, University of the Free StateLicensed 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/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>
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<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/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.