Imagery, Symbolism, And Tradition in South African Bantustan

Wesleyan University

Imagery, Symbolism and Tradition in a South African Bantustan: Mangosuthu Buthelezi,Inkatha, and Zulu HistoryAuthor(s): Patrick HarriesReviewed work(s):Source: History and Theory, Vol. 32, No. 4, Beiheft 32: History Making in Africa (Dec., 1993),pp. 105-125Published by: Blackwell Publishing for Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505634 .Accessed: 13/12/2011 13:23

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IMAGERY, SYMBOLISM AND TRADITION IN A SOUTH AFRICAN BANTUSTAN:

MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, INKATHA, AND ZULU HISTORY

PATRICK HARRIES

ABSTRACT

During the precolonial period Zulu identity was based on a set of cultural markers defined by the royal family. But European linguists extended the borders of Zulu, as a written language, to include the peoples living to the south of the Tugela river in the colony of Natal. Folklorists, anthropologists, historians, and other social scientists, as well as European employers, adopted this view of the Zulu as a people or Volk. Following the defeat of the Zulu kingdom in 1879 and the decline of the royal family, migrant workers increasingly returned home with this new notion of what it meant to be Zulu. This essentially European interpretation of the word was embraced and spread by Christian converts who, in the twentieth century, sought to mobilize an ethnic political following.

Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi has continued with this tradition. In his speeches he represents the Zulu in primordial terms as a bounded group that historically has occupied both Natal and the old precolonial kingdom. The bantustan of KwaZulu, delineated and defined by the policy of apartheid, is presented as the natural heir to the Zulu kingdom, and the Inkatha Freedom Party is portrayed as the guardian of the essence of Zuluness. An attractive historical self-imagery encourages people to define themselves in an exclusive manner as Zulu. Firm values and standards provide an ontological security and a network of assistance for sons abroad. Through a martial imagery, Buthelezi has represented the seven million Zulu as historically the most powerful obstacle to white supremacy. But since the resurgence of nationalist politics in the mid-1980s, and especially since the democratization started in 1990, Inkatha has attempted to attract the Zulu as a people in opposition to the ANC and their allies. This has most visibly resulted in a violent struggle for power; but it has also led to a virulent struggle over what it means to be Zulu.

As South Africans scramble for new ways to resolve the crisis in their country, historians scramble for new ways of looking at the society that gave birth to this crisis. During the 1970s the decolonization of Anglophone history was marked by a long debate between liberal and neo-Marxist, or radical, historians.' More recently this debate has waned as the sharper edges of the two

1. On the development of liberal historiography, see C. C. Saunders, The Making of the South African Past (Cape Town, 1988). Neo-Marxist and Afrikaner historiography are more fully treated in K. Smith, The Changing Past: Trends in South African Historical Writing (Johannesburg, 1988). The radical approach is well covered by a special issue of the Radical History Review 46/47 (1990).

106 PATRICK HARRIES

approaches have been rounded and postmodernism has emerged as a new heresy.2 The demand for history to be made accountable to oppressed classes and communities has led to the production of a popular, "peoples' history" which has its parallel in the Witwatersrand University "History Workshop" movement.' A revisionist historiography that mirrors the divisions in once ser- ried ranks is being produced by dissident Afrikaners.' But what might seem most remarkable to someone unfamiliar with Bantu education is the lack of an Africanist historical tradition. Until very recently, black students of history were shunted into tightly-controlled colleges in the tribal reserves, or bantustans, that form a pillar of the apartheid system. The severe political repression and lack of facilities at these colleges restricted the emergence of an independent black historical tradition. However, in some of the bantustans, local political parties have been employing myths and symbols that provide a powerful historical self-imagery for a largely nonliterate population. This is particularly the case in KwaZulu where the governing Inkatha Freedom Party has created a vivid and sophisticated vision of the Zulu past.5

Like much of South African history, Inkatha's representation of the past serves a present function. The party imbues itself with a historical legitimacy by defining, in a manner that is at once spatial and temporal, a specific Zulu constituency. Symbols provide people with unifying cultural markers. Those that are believed to be historical and traditional are particularly powerful as they link people not only spatially, but also temporally. A shared symbolism holds people within a boundary of belief, while tradition provides a legitimating precedent. In this essay I explore the function, origin, and efficacy of traditional imagery.

It is often stressed that tradition is a resource and an instrument used by competing elite groups in their attempt to obtain a mass following. But this instrumentalist view needs to be qualified; traditions can be invented, but only

2. A revitalized liberalism is broadly represented by the South African Historical Journal, social history by the Journal of Southern African Studies, and Marxian structuralism by the Durban- based Transformation.

3. People's history has appeared largely in the form of popularized history, in booklets for trade unions, community organizations and schools. For an overview of this movement, see L. Calinicos, "The 'People's Past': Towards Transforming the Present" in Class, Community and Conflict in South Africa, ed. B. Bozzoli (Johannesburg, 1987). On the History Workshop movement, see the special issue of the Radical History Review 46/47 (1990).

4. H. Giliomee, "The Beginnings of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1870-1915," South African Histor- ical Journal 19 (1987), 115-142; I. Hofmeyr, "Building a Language from Words: Afrikaans Lan- guage, Literature and 'Ethnic Identity,' 1902-1924" in The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, ed. S. Marks and S. Trapido (London, 1987); A. du Toit, "No Chosen People: The Myth of the Calvinist Origins of Afrikaner Nationalism," American Historical Review 88 (1983), 920-952. Much of what critics refer to as this "overenlightened" approach to politics and history is concentrated in Die Suid-Afrikaan and Vrye Weekblad.

5. J. Wright and A. Mazel, "Controlling the Past in the Museums of Natal and KwaZulu," CriticalArts 5 (1991), 59-77; P. Mdluli, "Ubunto-Botho: Inkatha's 'People's Education," Transfor- mation 5 (1987), 60-77; D. Golan, "Inkatha and Its Use of the Zulu Past," History in Africa 18 (1991), 113-126; P. Forsyth, "The Past in the Service of the Present: The Political Use of History by Chief A. N. M. G. Buthelezi, 1951-1991," South African Historical Journal 26 (1992), 74-92.

MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI, INKATHA, AND ZULU HISTORY 107

in the sense that inventions build upon a previous body of knowledge. They are not created anew but are rather manufactured, or assembled, from an existing body of knowledge that, consciously and unconsciously, includes myth and symbol. For tradition to be accepted as legitimate, it must bear a semblance of repetition. Perhaps more importantly, for an image to take on the sanctity of tradition, people must believe that it embodies an efficacy born of past experience. Traditions may be imposed from above but they will remain impuis- sant as long as they do not strike a resonant chord in the community. It is only when traditions fulfill a local need, and hence are accepted and adopted by the community, that they can be transformed by the elite from a resource into an instrument.

I. PRECOLONIAL ZULULAND

Notions of the past are closely tied to notions of space. During the precolonial period people defined themselves as Zulu by accepting their inclusion within boundaries that were at once cultural and geographical. "Tshaka defined no boundaries," Ndukwana Ka Mbengwana informed James Stuart at the end of the nineteenth century, "for the territories he conquered and whose occupants tendered their allegiance to him were already sufficiently defined and known."6 But while streams, hills, and other elements of the landscape delineated the physical borders of the kingdom, a series of markers defined its expanding cultural space. The language of the royal family was defined by drawing a boundary between Zulu and surrounding language forms that, qualified as tekeza and tefula, were associated with non-Zulu peoples, pejoratively called Tonga and Lala.7 Hence the language of the royal family was adopted by conquered peoples because of its perceived status. It was also adopted because of a policy of nkukulumanje, or the purposeful "slaughter" by the Zulu language of surrounding linguistic forms.8 Other cultural markers distinguished members of the Zulu kingdom from their neighbors. Food taboos and styles of cooking, dress and personal ornamentation, together with the abolition of cir- cumcision, all became markers defining the cultural borders of the kingdom. Other symbols linked people as Zulu; the king's amabutho (regiments) and his isigodlo (harems) were made up of young men and women drawn from throughout his lands and, moving between his residences, these institutions were prominent and mobile symbols of unity. National rituals such as the first fruits ceremony and the doctoring of the army brought the king's blessings on his people. A national hunt was organized on the death of the king to cleanse the kingdom of the contamination brought by his death. People knowledgeable

6. The James Stuart Archive, ed. J. Wright and C. Webb (Pietermaritzburg, 1986), IV, 316. 7. Ibid., evidence of Mqaikana, 3. 8. J. W. Colenso, Zulu-English Dictionary (Pietermaritzburg, 1861). See also W. H. I. Bleek,

entry for 12th August 1856 in The Natal Diaries (Cape Town, 1965), 76; Bleek, A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages (London, 1862), 5.

108 PATRICK HARRIES

in the sphere of historical precedent or tradition sanctioned and defined behavior that was considered Zulu.

The spatial unity of the Zulu kingdom was also reinforced by various historical symbols. The homestead built by Jama, whose son Senzangakona was the putative father of Shaka, was considered "the place of unity and strength" and "the birthplace of the nation."9 The Emakhosini valley was a powerful site of pilgrimage as it housed the spirits of the deceased Zulu kings. Particularly important as a sign of historic national unity was the magic coil or inkatha yezweyakwaZulu, kept in the inner sanctum of the isigodlo. The king's inkatha was made up of substances believed by a young girl in Cetshwayo's isigodlo

to embody the power and energy of the nation. These "soul-substances" were found in the "body dirt" of the populace, but especially that of the chiefs and the king himself. Tiny bits of grass against which the feet of passing multitudes had brushed on the country's footpaths, samples of thatch or scrapings from any article with which friend or foe had been in physical contact, all these contained the essence of the soul of the nation or a means by which the enemies of the nation could be suppressed. Small samples of these specimens were then incorporated in the magic coil whereby the soul of the nation, represented by it, became enlarged, strengthened and rejuvenated.... Shaka greatly strengthened the power of the inkatha. He subjected a large number of tribes but formed them into a united people by collecting bits from the izinkatha of vanquished tribes and particles from the bodies of slain chiefs and embodying them in his own coil.'0

It is clear that Zulu identity was strongly tied to the person of the king. But many of the conquered chiefdoms included within the Zulu kingdom retained a certain degree of independence. In 1838 the Zulu were defeated by white settlers from the Cape, and the Tugela River was established as the southern border of their kingdom. In 1879, just sixty years after Shaka's first major victory, a British army crossed the Tugela and destroyed the military capacity of the Zulu royal family. The kingdom was broken into thirteen "pre-Shakan" chiefdoms; it exploded into civil war when, in 1883, the exiled king Cetshwayo returned home and attempted to reimpose his authority. During the early stages of the war the royal family was decimated and Cetshwayo's son, Dinuzulu, was only able finally to defeat his enemies with the aid of neighboring Boers. But, in return for this support, Dinuzulu was obliged to give his allies a large part of northwestern Zululand. The royal family was dealt a further blow when, after the annexation of Zululand by the British in 1887, Dinuzulu was exiled to St. Helena. Ten years later, when Dinuzulu was allowed to return home, what remained of his father's kingdom was incorporated into Natal and he himself was demoted to the position of headman. But the colonists still feared the power of the Zulu throne and, having implicated Dinuzulu in the Bambatha Rebellion of 1906, they imprisoned and later banished him to the Eastern Trans- vaal where he died seven years later. The goverment considered that, as a mere headman, Dinuzulu's death would not contaminate the nation and they prohib-

9. Paulina Dlamini, Servant of Two Kings, compiled by H. Filter and edited by S. Bourquin (Pietermaritzburg, 1986), 29.

10. Ibid., 35-36.


ited his relatives from arranging a cleansing hunt. With the king out of the way, they allowed settlers to purchase large tracts of Zululand and froze what remained into "reserves." At the time of Dinuzulu's death, his father's kingdom had been reduced to about a third of its former size.

The fortunes of the royal family had reached a low ebb for, no longer able to call up regiments or distribute land, the king had been stripped not only of his title but also of the economic base of his power. As the Zulu royal family declined as a focus of identity and social cohesion, it seemed to many white intellectuals that the culture of the old Zulu kingdom would be subsumed within an amorphous Anglo-Saxon identity. I I Yet at the same time, a competing notion of what it meant to be Zulu was gaining ground.

II. IDENTITY AS A RESOURCE

European linguists first remarked on the existence of Zulu as a dialect of Kaffir in 1834. Sixteen years later, the Reverend Appleyard considered Zulu to be the language of the "Natives of Natal" as well as those of the kingdom of Zululand.12 This delineation of the Zulu language was based on the power relations that defined the political borders to the east of the Kaffirs (Xhosa) and the differences between chiefs and commoners. For Wilhelm Bleek, Zulu was in 1857 "the standard language throughout the whole of Natal and the Zulu country." Al- though "pure Zulu" was only "spoken at (king) Mpande's court," he believed (incorrectly) that the chiefdoms living south of the Tugela river, the southern border of Zululand, "were formerly Zulu subjects . . . and still consider the Zulu language as their standard language.""3 This hierarchical perception of language was also adhered to by American and British linguists who believed the Zulu country to be "the proper place" to learn the language and who thought Lala to be a rough dialect of Zulu.14 Folklorists soon compiled a literature, made up of songs and stories, that presented the pre-industrial spirit or ethos of what they described as the Zulu tribe, nation, or Volk.15 By the turn of the century, historians were reinforcing this notion of the Zulu as a people, separate from the Xhosa, living on both sides of the Tugela. 6 Hence when, in the mid-

11. W. A. Norton, "African Life and Language: Inaugural Lecture, University of Cape Town, 1921" in African Studies 9 (1950), 1; C. M. Doke, "The Linguistic Situation in South Africa," Africa 1 (1928), 483.

12. A. Appleyard, The Kafir Language (Kingwilliam's Town, 1850), 38-39. See also J. Bryant, "The Zulu Language" and L. Grout, "The Zulu and Other Dialects of South Africa," Journal of the American Oriental Society (1849), 386-396, 397-433; C. Doke, "The Growth of Comparative Bantu Philology," African Studies 2 (1943), 43, 46.

13. W. Bleek, Zulu Legends [1857] (Pretoria, 1952), xiv; Bleek, A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages (London, 1862).

14. D. J. Kotze, Letters of the American Missionaries 1835-1838 (Cape Town, 1950), 123; J. W. Colenso, Zulu-English Dictionary, iii.

15. Bleek, Zulu Legends; Callaway, Nursery Tales, Traditions and Histories of the Zulu (Lon- don, 1868).

16. J. Y. Gibson, The Story of the Zulus (Pietermaritzburg, 1903); J. Stuart, A History of the Zulu Rebellion of 1906 (London, 1913).

110 PATRICK HARRIES

1930s, the young anthropologist Eileen Krige turned to study the Zulu, she depicted the differences in culture that she found as "discrepancies," the product of unreliable evidence or confusion or, alternatively, due to contact with Euro- peans. Like the linguists, Krige got rid of this confusion by presenting a single, standard, ahistorical representation of Zulu life and customs.'7 In 1949 A. T. Bryant, after a literal reading of oral tradition, described the fourteenth-century migration southwards of the Zulu from central Africa to their home between the Mzimkhulu and Pongola rivers, that is, Natal and Zululand. 8

Although it seems unlikely that many people living south of the Tugela would have identified themselves as Zulu, migrant workers employed beyond the borders of the colony readily did so. "Zulu" was a classificatory label, used by both employers and workers in the diamond and gold fields, that could be exploited to the benefit of migrants arriving from Natal/Zululand. These men not only saw themselves reflected as a group in the eyes of their employers and peers; they also found a valuable source of community, respect, and assistance in the title. "Zulus" were, from the 1 870s onwards, highly visible as protagonists in the faction fighting that interrupted life on the railway works, as well as the diamond and gold fields of South Africa. 19 Although migrant workers returned home with a knowledge of the word Zulu as a term describing the peoples on both sides of the Tugela, the popularization of this idea in Natal/Zululand should be ascribed to another group of people. These were the mission-educated Kholwa, many of whom were descendants of refugees from the Zulu kingdom. These teachers, traders, and commercial farmers were members of a class whose vision of the world had long been marked by a wish to be accepted by European society. Their identity had been equally marked by an ardent desire to distance themselves from what they perceived as the "barbarous" Zulu state north of the Tugela river. But their politics of gradualist assimilation was rapidly transformed when it became obvious that one of the cornerstones of the new Union of South Africa, founded in 1910, was the subordination of the interests of the black population to those of the governing whites.

In an attempt to remove legislation that restricted their voting rights and their ability to buy land, the black petty bourgeoisie sought to attract a mass following.20 The black population in the rural areas of Natal was badly dislo-

17. E. Krige, The Social System of the Zulus (Pietermaritzburg, 1936). 18. A. T. Bryant, The Zulu People (Pietermaritzburg, 1949), chaps. one and two. 19. CA.CO 3276 RM Worcester to Col. Sec., 7 and 10 Feb., 1877; H. J. Simons and R. E.

Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa, 1850-1950 (Harmondsworth, Eng., 1969), 46; Phillips, Some Reminiscences (London, 1924), 22-23; W. Crisp, Some Account of the Diocese of Bloem- fontein in the Province of South Africa, 1863-1894 (Oxford, 1895), 94; C. A. Payton, TheDiamond Diggings of South Africa (London, 1872), 165.

20. N. L. G. Cope, "The Zulu Royal Family under the South African Government, 1910-1930: Solomon kaDinuzulu, Inkatha and Zulu Nationalism" (unpublished D.Phil., University of Natal, 1986); Cope, "The Zulu Petit Bourgeoisie and Zulu Nationalism in the 1920s: The Origins of Inkatha," Journal of Southern African Studies 16 (1990), 431-451; S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa: Class, Nationalism and the State in Twentieth-century Natal (Johannesburg, 1986).


cated during the 1 920s by the consolidation of white supremacy and the development of commercial farming and industry.2' As people were forced from their lands they suffered an alienation that was at once material and psychological. Absolom Vilakazi has written of "the feeling of emptiness" of this period:

when Zulu culture and many of its patterns like kinship groupings and family solidarity, the respect for seniors, and the ideal of Zulu womanhood .. . were breaking down due to contact with western civilization and Christianity. Western ways which were not understood were being copied, and the result was social chaos. The tribal Zulus, there- fore, to whom the old values still meant something, found themselves in a spiritual and cultural desert. They were looking for a messiah to lead them out of the desert, to recreate and revitalize their old cultural traditions and to give them something which they could understand.22

Several messiahs emerged at this time. One of them was Isiah Shembe, the subject of Vilakazi's study. This leader of the Nazarite Baptist Church had a covenant with God "to lead the Zulu people from white bondage." He offered his followers a "cultural sanctuary where the old values are still respected; respect for seniority; parental authority over children; the subordinate position of women."23 Shembe employed rituals, rites, and an imagery drawn from the culture of the Zulu kingdom that were immediately recognizable and compre- hensible to his followers. He offered his followers, most of whom were illiterate, the stability and security of tradition while introducing a controlled modernization. National political movements like the African National Congress (ANC) and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) also sought, in their search for a mass following, to appeal to the need, expressed by blacks in Natal, for a culture that was both functional and familiar.

The 1920s saw a massive growth in the ICU. The radicalism that swept through the country threatened the more conservative members of the ANC who, like John Dube, attempted to fall back on a regional support base. Like Shembe, both Dube and Champion, the ICU leader in Natal, employed the powerful imagery and symbolism of the old Zulu kingdom. Dube was particularly suc- cessful in forming an alliance with the royal family, whose members were eager to recover some of their past glories and enjoy more fully the patronage of the Native Affairs Department. An unexpected alliance was also formed with white segregationists who, no longer afraid of Zulu militarism, wished to foster an ethnic consciousness that would neutralize the radical populism of the 1920s.

This early wave of Zulu ethnic consciousness was essentially different from the political identity expressed by the members of the precolonial Zulu state. The ethnic movement was led by men who had a vastly expanded sense of space. They were often Christians whose religious tenets were universalistic; their political and commercial activities took them well beyond the borders of

21. H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: the ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924-30 (New Haven and London, 1987), 34-62, 188-195.

22. A. Vilakazi with B. Mthethwa and M. Mpanza, Shembe: The Revitalization of African Society (Johannnesburg, 1986), 28-30.

23. Ibid., 40, 54.

112 PATRICK HARRIES

Natal and Zululand; their Western education and exposure to new ideas taught them to value notions of community, such as race pride and nationalism, at a time when black societies were under extreme stress. Their sense of tribalism was founded less on a narrow political loyalty to kinsmen and a chief, than on the Western model of a broad community defined by culture and, especially, language.

The language of the Natal African petty bourgeoisie was not the oral linguistic medium that had been imposed upon subordinate peoples by the precolonial Zulu monarchs. It was a standardized, written language shaped by contempo- rary science; a vehicular language, fixed in time and space by grammars and orthographies, that linked together a literate community of readers on both sides of the Tugela. As the royal family's ability to dispense patronage collapsed, a knowledge of standard Zulu provided a means of advancement as it gave people access to the Western system of knowledge. As a vehicular language, Zulu facilitated commercial transactions and ensured access to a number of professions in the colony/province of Natal.

Language was not the only cultural marker uniting historically disparate peoples as Zulu. The Zulu king was perceived as a crucial symbol, linking the people north and south of the Tugela in a new, and yet historical, Zulu community. By portraying the king and the Zulu language as traditional symbols that bound Zulu-speakers within a new and expanded political space, the petty bourgeoisie was able to unite disparate communities into the most powerful ethnic alliance in South Africa. At a grassroots level this new concept of tribe provided people, uprooted and disoriented by colonialism, with a means of reasserting patriarchal and tribal controls that were more familiar than the popular radicalism of the period. What is equally clear is that, while Zulu symbolism was traditional, its content was decidedly modern.24 By looking at the imagery of the old Zulu kingdom, the petty bourgeoisie sought to unite traditionalists and modernizers; to reinforce the space that they had defined, they encouraged the belief in a shared past.25

Much of this new ethnic identity emerged out of a purposeful social engi- neering. A Zulu National Congress, Inkatha kaZulu, was founded in 1924. This movement called for the recognition of Dinuzulu's son, Solomon, as paramount chief of the Zulu, created a Zulu national fund, and unveiled a monument to Shaka at Stanger. A Zulu Society was established by the Natal Bantu Teachers Association in 1937 with the financial backing of the Native Affairs Depart- ment.26 Its members promoted the Zulu language, literature, and folklore in

24. S. Klopper, "Mobilizing Cultural Symbols in Twentieth-century Zululand," in African Studies Forum, ed. R. Hill, M. Muller, and M. Trump (Pretoria, 1991), I; Klopper, "The Art of Zulu Speakers in Northern Natal-Zululand: An Investigation of the History of Beadwork, Carving and Dress from Shaka to Inkatha" (PhD. diss., University of the Witwatersrand, 1992).

25. P. la Hausse, "Ifalesizwe: Petros Lamula and the Creation of Zulu History" (paper presented to the Workshop on Regionalism and Restructuring in Natal, University of Natal, Durban, 1988).

26. T. Couzens, The NewAfrican:A Study of theLife and Work of H. I. E. Dhlomo (Johannes- burg, 1985), 293, passim.


a manner that was common to nationalist movements throughout the world. Like Inkatha, they called for the recognition, by the Native Affairs Department, of Solomon as paramount chief. Solomon cultivated this support and established Shaka Day as a specifically Zulu day of remembrance. There seems little doubt that, by mobilizing these ethnic markers, the black petty bourgeoisie was able to construct a powerful regional support base. This was often defined on the basis of exclusion. Ezekiel Mphahlele, who came to Adams College from the Transvaal, had to get used "to hearing the boys shout or chant Zulu war songs." He liked neither his housemaster, "a bloated little Zulu," nor the boys who "did not like non-Zulu boys and girls coming to the college. They regarded us as foreigners, to be avoided."27

Zulu ethnicity, as a primary marker of identity, was not merely the product of a local petty bourgeoisie in alliance with white segregationists, chiefs, and the descendants of the house of Shaka. Accepting a specific symbol as an ethnic marker was a voluntary act that was situationally and culturally defined. Zulu males, seeking work in the growing industrial centers of South Africa, were able to use a network of ethnic contacts and supports. Similarly, as the royal family declined as a focus of community, and the colonial state failed to take over its welfare functions, people found a new security in a Zulu identity. As will become clearer, the symbols around which this identity crystalized were rooted in local forms of knowledge.

A Zulu ethnic consciousness was merely one of several identities held by an individual and, during the 1940 and 1 950s, when the nationalist movement was in the ascendant, the ethnicity promoted by regional politics was pushed into the background. Nevertheless in 1951, significantly only three years after the imposition of apartheid, Solomon's son, Cyprian, was recognized by the Na- tional Party government as "Paramount Chief" of the Zulu. During the 1950s the colonial reserves south of the Tugela and the remnants of the old Zulu kingdom were divided into Tribal and Regional Authorities, and in 1970 a single Zulu Territorial Authority was established, soon to become the bantustan of KwaZulu. This provided the new tribalism, or "ethnicity" as it was called by the social scientists, with a geographical space or "homeland." Annual sti- pends from Pretoria provided Zulu ethnicity with an economic base. At the same time a growing ethnic exclusivism, generated by apartheid in the urban areas, fed back into the Zulu "homeland."28 Zulu ethnicity was encouraged by a complex mixture of apartheid, the massive dislocation of rural society, a fear of union militancy, and a belief that regional politics could further the national ambitions of the local elite. At the center of this new wave of ethnic consciousness emerged in 1975 a new Inkatha political movement led by Chief Man- gosuthu Buthelezi.29

27. E. Mphahlele, Down Second Avenue [1959] (Gloucester, Mass., 1978), 132-136. For a similar experience, see that of "Lili Moya" in Not Either an Experimental Doll: The Separate Worlds of Three South African Women, ed. S. Marks (Pietermaritzburg, 1987), 28-29.

28. B. Modisane, Blame Me on History (Craighall Park, South Africa, 1986), 104-105. 29. On Inkatha, see G. Mare and G. Hamilton, An Appetite for Power: Buthelezi's Inkatha

114 PATRICK HARRIES

III. TALKING HISTORY

Inkatha has become a strong political force in South Africa. Its office bearers claim that membership has risen from 30,000 in 1976 to over 750,000 in 1983, 1.6 million in 1988, and around two million today.20 The Natal Indaba proposals, advocated by Inkatha, have introduced the concept of federalism, based on ethnicity, into South African politics. Buthelezi has always been an ambiguous political figure. Although he has worked within the structure of the bantustan system, he has always firmly rejected the lure of "independence." He has taunted and menaced the Pretoria government upon which he depends for his patronage. He has been received by heads of state at a time when they discouraged contacts with Pretoria. While stridently demanding rights for blacks and the release of Nelson Mandela, Buthelezi forcefully opposed the divestment campaign.

Mangosuthu Buthelezi is a regional politician with national ambitions.3" One of the ways in which he has mobilized a regional support base has been through his recourse to the legitimizing power of history and tradition. Buthelezi ex- presses a strong admiration for the didactic and oracular virtues of Kleio. He has a developed sense of history and in his public speeches has made reference to virtually every major historian who has written on the Zulu. It is not unusual for him to quote an entire dispatch buried in the London Public Records Office, an extract from a nineteenth-century newspaper, or a modern doctoral thesis.32 He views history as a tool for understanding the present and peppers his speeches with "I have learnt from history," "as an historian . . ." and "we must learn the lesson of history."33 In his speeches, history takes on a life and dynamism of its own as it "demands," "lends," "decrees," "forges," "infuses," "shapes," "creates," "screams," "shows," "makes," and, particularly, "teaches."34 Buthe- lezi draws numerous parallels between past and present events. The need for unity today is compared with the need for unity in 1879, the structural problems of the segregationist tricameral constitution of 1983 are compared with those of the act of Union of 1910, a proposed ANC march on the KwaZulu capital

(Johannesburg and Bloomington, Ind., 1987); Mare, Brothers Born of Warrior Blood: Politics and Ethnicity in South Africa (Johannesburg, 1992).

30. Gatsha Buthelezi Policy Speech, KwaZulu Legislative Assembly 1983, "A Few Remarks on Meeting with Michael Chatelain," Paris, April 1987. Most of the following references are drawn from Buthelezi's speeches (henceforth BS) housed in the Jagger Library, University of Cape Town.

31. On Buthelezi, see B. Temkin, GatshaButhelezi, Zulu Statesman-A Biography (Cape Town, 1976); Mzala, Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda (London, 1988).

32. Cf. BS, King Shaka Day, Eshowe, 24 September 1991 where Buthelezi criticizes Professor Shula Marks who "writes as though we in KwaZulu are reinventing history to suit our current political requirements." For Buthelezi's own historical writing, see M. G. Buthelezi, "The Early History of the Buthelezi Clan" in Social Systems and Traditions in Southern Africa, ed. J. Argyle and E. Preston-White (Cape Town, 1978).

33. BS, Obuka, Eseleni district, 27 October 1985; BS, Ulundi, August 1983; BS, Rosebank Primary School, 31 October 1983.

34. BS, KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, March 1985, 76, 207; BS, King Dingane's Day, Imbali, Pietermaritzburg, 16 December 1983; BS, AGM of the Women's Brigade, Ulundi, 10 October, 1987; BS, A. G. Conference of the Youth Brigade, Ulundi, 22 August 1987; BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 September 1988.


is likened to the British invasion of Cetshwayo's kingdom, and parallels are made between the sectarianism that divides blacks today and that which divided the Zulu during the civil war of 1883. The violent conflict between Inkatha and the ANC-led Mass Democratic Movement that has shaken South Africa over the past three years also has a historical precedent. "At no time since the conquest of KwaZulu [sic] in the Battle of 1879," stated Buthelezi in October 1992, "has there ever been a greater onslaught against us as Zulu."35

Buthelezi regards history as a means of cultural liberation, for blacks have "allowed foreigners to remove our base as a people and we have struggled in a vacuum without our own roots."36 History, culture, and identity are synony- mous: "Your Zuluness, which is yours by history, is an essential quality of your South African status. It gives you a proud history, but as much as anything else, your Zuluness gives you the strength to wage the liberation struggle with me.... Every part of KwaZulu is rich in the history of the nation. The people of this area walk tall as Zulus."37

To the Inkatha Women's Brigade, Buthelezi stresses that

We have to work hard at keeping our cultural identity intact . . . our Zulu cultural heritage must be inculcated in our children. The songs of the people must be passed on from generation to generation. The dances of the people must be passed on... It is a golden thread which should run right through every generation, and every member of that generation . .. must accept his or her Zulu responsibility to preserve a nation of warriors.38

Culture is viewed as a powerful force defining the spatial unity and temporal depth of a people: "Culture is that which binds people together in groups and as a nation, and it is that which gives continuity to the set of values, moral perceptions and acceptable ways of regulating conflict."39

The outstanding symbol of the Zulu nation is the King himself. According to Buthelezi, the present King, Goodwill Zwelithini, is "the living symbol of the unity of the people" who "assumes the total unity of the Zulu people in his very being."40 The King, who once had his own political ambitions, has been brought under the control of Inkatha and is increasingly associated, in symbolic terms, with Buthelezi:

His majesty and I share a platform and symbolize the unity of our people. His Majesty symbolizes the deep spirit of unity for the Zulu people and I symbolize the political determination to pursue time-honoured values which have always been important in the struggle for liberty. Together His Majesty and I share the load which is placed on the Zulu nation. We will never be torn apart.41

35. BS, Opening of the KwaZulu Cultural Museum, Ondini, Mahlabatini, 13 April 1985; BS, Nkandla, 24 September 1992; BS, Mbumbulu, 3 October 1992.

36. BS, Ondini, 21 September 1980. 37. BS, Khiphinkwinzi Tribal Authority, 16 August 1986. 38. BS, Annual General Conference of the Women's Brigade, 11 October 1986. 39. BS, Ondini, 13 April 1985. 40. BS, King Shaka Day, Ulundi, 27 September 1986; BS, Ulundi, 11 October 1986. 41. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 December 1985; BS, King Shaka Day, Eshowe, 24 Sep-

tember 1991.

116 PATRICK HARRIES

Buthelezi's relationship with the King, however, stretches beyond the symbolic. Once the Buthelezi clan had accepted Zulu overlordship, their chief, Nqengelele, became Shaka's "guardian, adviser and friend," according to James Stuart. Nqengelele's son, Mnyamana, was the guardian of Mpande's children, Cetshwayo's Prime Minister, and a leading general in the 1879 war against the British. Buthelezi frequently reminds his listeners that Mnyamana was his paternal great grandfather and Cetshwayo his maternal great grandfather. How- ever a certain degree of amnesia marks his history of the relations between the royal family and the Buthelezi clan. It is forgotten, for example, that Mnyamana deserted the young king Dinuzulu when the British annexed Zululand in 1887. The refusal of the Buthelezi to join the Usutho royal family in opposing the British initiated a rift between the two clans that was to endure for many years.42 Nevertheless, as Buthelezi likes to recall in public, he is the uncle of the present king. He is the heir to a long line of Zulu leaders:

I am a great grandson of King Cetshwayo who fought the whites for independence of the land and his people. King Cetshwayo was a nephew of King Shaka who founded the Zulu nation.... Ulundi, where I now have my office, is on the very soil where my great grandfather was defeated. . . . the blood and bones of my fallen forebears at Ulundi inspire me from day to day. .. . I am a grandson of King Dinuzulu. I am a hereditary chief of the Buthelezi tribe, the great grandson of Mnyamana Buthelezi who was Prime Minister to the Zulu nation when we were still a sovereign nation. My great grandfather was commander-in-chief of the entire Zulu army. My father was Prime Minister to King Solomon. . I was Prime Minister to King Cyprian, who was my first cousin.43

In Buthelezi's own words, "my role is ordained by history."44 To the ascribed political legitimacy that he inherits from his ancestors, Bu-

thelezi adds his electoral legitimacy. In an appeal to the common man, he states: "I am simply a peasant and as Mangosuthu Buthelezi I am nothing. But let no man trample on me as a Chief Minister of Kwazulu and let no man spurn me as President of Inkatha because then they trample on a deep sense of history and a deep commitment, they trample on an organisation which has vast constituency support. 45

Zulu history, and particularly the role of precolonial monarchs, has been recalled and made tangible to present generations in various ways. Both monu- ments and public rituals make visible the link between the present and the past. Inkatha rallies are held at the Stanger memorial on Shaka Day. Rallies are also held on Dingaan's Day, which transforms the celebration by Afrikaaner

42. Wright and Webb, eds., James Stuart Archive, IV, evidence of Ndukwana, 264, 292; C. T. Binns, Dinuzulu: The Death of the House of Shaka (London, 1968), 119; Natal and Zululand: From Earliest Times to 1910, ed. A. Duminy and B. Guest (Pietermaritzburg, 1989), 218.

43. G. Buthelezi, Power Is Ours: Selected Speeches of South African Statesman M. Gatsha Buthelezi (New York, 1979). See also BS, On King Shaka Day, for Inkanyezi, Ongoye, Enseleni and Hlabisa districts, 30 October 1988; BS, 110th anniversary of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorkes's Drift, 22 January 1989; BS, Nkandla, 24 September 1992.

44. BS, King Shaka Day, Ongoye, 4 November 1984. 45. Clarion Call 3 (1985), 11.


nationalism of the Battle of Blood River (The Day of the Covenant) into a Zulu "day of resistance." Despite Dingaan's role in the assassination of Shaka, a stone has been erected on his grave and a memorial unveiled near the place of his execution.' His royal residence has also been partly restored. Mpande, who, because of his cooperation with the Voortrekkers, stands at the bottom of the hiercharchy of kings, has nevertheless been remembered by the recon- struction of his homestead. Cetshwayo's royal residence has also been partially restored and a statue has been erected to the last independent Zulu King at Ulundi. In 1984, the wagon in which Cetshwayo's body was carried for burial a century before was officially handed to KwaZulu by the National Party Admin- istrator of Natal.47 A KwaZulu Cultural Museum extends the present-day boundaries of Zuluness into the past while the Zulu tradition of opposition to white rule is remembered by the well-kept Isandlwana and Ulundi battlefields.

Buthelezi reinforces his ancestral claims to lead the Zulu by displaying the regalia of office-bearers of the precolonial state. At public functions, he will often wear the leopard skins and bird feathers associated with royalty. Other traditional symbols of status and power are prominently on show: a ceremonial axe, a baton containing powerful medicines, a small cowhide shield, and a fertility necklace. The power of this symbolism lies in the willingness of people to believe that it represents a shared Zulu past. The symbols serve to hide and submerge the differences dividing Zulus today. They also legitimize Buthelezi's rule by making visible and tangible a continuity of leadership that links the chief minister of KwaZulu to the leaders of the Zulu empire. But while the form of the imagery is repetitive, and hence traditional, its content and substance is modern. It seeks to draw a parallel between the independent Zulu kingdom of the nineteenth century and the bantustan dominated by Inkatha. The imagery serves to legitimate Buthelezi's position as a Zulu leader, rather than as a Chief Minister of a government-created bantustan.

The term Inkatha also involves a powerful historical imagery. It refers to the thick coil or ring, made up of the many strands of grass that represent the unity of the Zulu people in their circle of loyalty to their king. But an inkatha is also a grass ring or coil placed on the head as a pad when carrying a weight. Thus the word inkatha carries a double meaning: it is both a sacred emblem of Zulu unity and a support when under stress. The most important element of Inkatha's historical imagery is undoubtedly that of Shaka. Buthelezi refers to the founder of the Zulu nation as a "legend of human endurance, tenacity and singleness of purpose" and a "warrior, statesman (and) genius of nature" who, "like Jesus Christ was born in shame."" "Shaka the great" unleashed the "Shakan Revolution" that created "Shaka's Model State."49 Mangosuthu

46. BS, Gwaleni, Ingwavuma, 18 June 1983. 47. BS, Ulundi, 20 August 1983. 48. King Shaka Day, Clermont Township, Pinetown, 25 September, 1986; King Shaka Day,

Ifafa Mission, Vulamehlo district, 4 November 1983; Mthethwe Tribal Authority, Nseleni district, 2 October 1983.

49. Clarion Call I, 3, 9-10.

118 PATRICK HARRIES

Buthelezi is highly critical of historians who portray Shaka as a brutal despot, and he frequently points out that social conditions in Shaka's Zululand compared favorably with those of early industrializing Europe.50 He traces the roots of the negative image of Shaka to the "disgusting journals" of Fynn and Isaacs, who portrayed Shaka as a black Attila. But Buthelezi's interpretation of Shaka is also informed by a specific intellectual tradition. The vision that Fynn and Isaacs produced of Shaka was structured not only by a wish to make money by printing a "bestseller," but by the symbols, signs, and images of early nineteenth-century Europe. They had little means of describing Shaka to their readers, other than in the dominant gothic imagery of their age.5' Buthelezi's image of Shaka is dominated by a strong Africanist tradition. Shaka is a symbol of black achievement and Zulu unity. He is "Africa's greatest warrior" and has brought the Zulu to the attention of the world.52 Buthelezi portrays Shaka's Zululand as a conflict-free society that, like Shaka himself, provides a model for younger generations to follow: "King Shaka did not conquer to subjugate and to turn into slaves. He did not conquer to make third class citizens. [He] conquered to make us equal, to unite us and to draw us into the great theme of history as people proud of their heritage and proud of their identity."53

This is a favorite theme in which a romanticized precolonial Zululand is divorced from the materialism and competitive individualism associated with Europeans. Hence, "unlike Whites, who conquered to dominate, who conquered to subjugate, who conquered to exploit and who conquered to dehu- manise, King Shaka conquered to unite. "I' Shaka remains the primary symbol of Zulu culture and unity: "We are immensely proud to be Zulus, descendants of our great King Shaka who conquered to incorporate; who conquered to establish Zulu justice and Zulu social order, who longed to produce stability and equality of all people before their king.""

This imagery presents the picture of an egalitarian early Zulu kingdom. By portraying themselves as the heirs to the precolonial monarchs, the KwaZulu leaders link this sovereign nineteenth-century kingdom with their bantustan. The distribution of power is hidden in the past, as it is in the present. Even the word Zululand is subjected to an effective wordplay that joins the precolonial kingdom to the modern-day bantustan. KwaZulu's legitimacy is, in this way, traced back to Shaka and not to the apartheid policy of the Pretoria government. "Some talk as though KwaZulu was the creation of apartheid. KwaZulu was

50. King Shaka Day, Zwelithini Stadium, Umlazi, 24 September 1983; King Shaka Day, Man- deyi, Nkanyezi district, 15 October 1983; King Shaka Day, Clermont Township, 28 September 1986.

51. R. Martin, "British Images of the Zulu, c.1820-1879" (unpublished Ph.D diss., University of Cambridge, 1982).

52. BS, Clermont, 28 September 1986. 53. BS, Tshongwe Showgrounds, Ubombo district, 4 November 1984. See also BS, King Shaka

Day, Stanger, 24 September 1987; King Shaka Day address to the districts of Inkanyezi, Ongoye, Enseleni and Hlabisa, 30 October 1988.

54. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger 24 September 1985; BS, King Shaka Day, Eshowe, 24 Sep- tember 1991.

55. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger 24 September 1985.


a sovereign state in a free and independent Africa before the coming of the colonial powers to this continent. Apartheid did not create KwaZulu. Apartheid did not create KwaZulu's leadership. History dating back to antiquity forged KwaZulu."56

KwaZulu emerged as a state, Buthelezi tells us, before the arrival of the Europeans. But he traces KwaZulu's roots even further back when he comments on the "nearly all-pervasive and popular misconception that the Zulu state, which the nineteenth-century settlers knew, only started with the military con- quests of King Shaka.''57 In this way history not only legitimates the twentieth- century bantustan by tracing its descent from the nineteenth-century kingdom and the clan of Senzangakona; KwaZulu is linked to a remote, primordial past in which the Zulu are portrayed as a unified people, freed from the sectarianism of today.

Buthelezi's claims to the preeminence of the Zulu in the struggle against apartheid also have a historical resonance. Together with his teleological view of the state, this leads him to view the series of devastating wars, known as the Mfecane, that accompanied the rise of the Zulu under Shaka, as "positive; a standing monument of the African people . .. a test through fire."58 While an incident such as Mnyamana's desertion of Dinuzulu is dropped from the historical record, the Mfecane is transformed into a symbol of Zulu domination. The process of state-building would have continued, he claims, had not "the whites arrived to disrupt the process whereby millions of people in numerous political states were driving towards national unity."'59 Cetshwayo had con- cluded a nonaggression pact with the Sotho monarch, Moshoeshoe, and was close to the Pedi king, Sekukuni. "Had we been left to develop South Africa on our own, that process of reconciliation between warring factions would have proceeded and by now we would have had a mighty Black nation in this country."6w The precolonial borders of the Zulu kingdom are exaggerated and the Ndebele and the Gaza are presented, not as refugees from the Mfecane, but as "Zulu offshoots."' It is clear that Buthelezi views KwaZulu, the heir to the Zulu kingdom, as the block upon which to build African nationalism.

The perception that the bantustan is the heir of the old Zulu state is frequently expressed. Buthelezi believes that "the homeland government structure was imposed on what was a sovereign Zulu nation until 1879. We were not created by the so-called system."62 This view of KwaZulu's independence of "colonial"

56. BS, KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, Policy Speech, 1985. British Parliamentary White Paper, "The Situation in South Africa," 20 January 1986; BS, Umlazi, 15 December 1991. See also Mare and Hamilton, Appetite for Power, 40-41.

57. Introduction to Cetshwayo kaMpande, ed. J. Laband and J. Wright (Pietermaritzburg, 1984), x.

58. BS, Stanger, 24 September 1981. 59. BS, King Dingane's Day, Imbali, Pietermaritzburg, 16 December 1983; BS, King Shaka

Day, Eshowe, 25 September 1988. 60. BS, Esikhawini, 23 October 1983. 61. BS, King Shaka Day, Kwabonambi, Nseleni district, 10 October 1984. 62. BS, To the Afrikaanse Studentebond, University of Stellenbosch, 17 July 1985.

120 PATRICK HARRIES

white South Africa was reinforced when Inkatha "decolonized" the titles of Zulu office holders, transforming the "Paramount Chief" into "His Majesty the King" and "chiefs" into inkosi.63 This indigenization of titles has been accompanied by an indigenization of English and Afrikaans place names. In the same vein, when the newspaper Ilanga, founded by John Dube in 1906, was bought by Inkatha in 1987, Buthelezi stated triumphantly, "You have come home Ilanga." Financial and editorial control had been "taken back" from the whites.64

Mangosuthu Buthelezi's vision of history is not restricted to the precolonial period. Hie frequently points out that he learned his politics from his uncle Pixley Seine, the son-in-law of Dinuzulu and one of the principal founders of the African National Congress (ANC). As a member of the ANC's Youth League, Buthelezi became familiar with many of the present leaders of the party. He was an associate of chief Albert Luthuli, who in the 1950s was a leading proponent of nonviolence, and he has gone out of his way to win the support of Luthuli's widow. Thus through both his ancestral ties and his early membership in the ANC, Buthelezi portrays himself as an heir to the leadership of the liberation struggle. As he states, "by hereditary right and by voluntary association, I was steeped in the struggle for liberation."65 After his fall-out with the ANC in 1979 Buthelezi made a strict distinction between Inkatha, which he portrayed as the direct heir to the nonviolent tradition of the early ANC, and what he called the ANC Mission-in-exile. To reify this concept, tombstones were unveiled in ceremonies to Zulu founders of the ANC like H. Selby Msimang, John Dube, and Pixley Seme. Msimang and the veteran nationalist, George Champion, were both members of Inkatha when they died. They were, according to Buthelezi,

a link between the old founding fathers of the ANC and the leadership of Inkatha ... and justified what I say so often, that Inkatha is structured on the ideals of the banned ANC as propounded in 1912. [Selby Msimang's] membership of Inkatha testified to the fact that it was not us in Inkatha who have deviated from the ideals [of the founding fathers]. The ideals of the founding fathers who were descendants of black warriors were structured on the foundation of non-violence and negotiations.66

In Buthelezi's view, the founding of the armed wing of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe) marked a distinct break in the history of the movement, separating "the mission in exile" from "the true ANC which chief Albert Luthuli brought together." Inkatha, and not "the present ANC," is the legitimate heir to the traditions and values of the old ANC. It is "the heir of the struggle through non-violence and negotiation," and "rose as part of the history of struggle after the old ANC and PAC had been destroyed."67

63. BS, KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, General Law Amendment Bill, 1987. 64. Ibid. 65. BS, King Shaka Day, Ongoye, 4 November 1984. 66. BS, Unveiling of H. Selby Msimang tombstone, Georgetown Cemetery, Edendale, 6 April

1987; BS, King Shaka Day, Nkandla, 24 September 1992. 67. BS, Kwadlangezwa, 20 July, 1985; BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 26 September 1992.


The imagery runs deeper when the nonviolent tradition is given a historic Zulu home. Buthelezi draws a parallel between his accession to the chieftaincy of the 30,000 strong Buthelezi clan and that of "our great chief Albert Luthuli [who] had come to this part of South Africa to rally the kind of forces which were needed to revamp a very ailing ANC in the early 1950s. He acted as a Zulu chief amongst Zulus to gather the strength here in this region of South Africa which the ailing ANC so desperately needed."68 Important here is riot the inaccuracy of this statement, but the image of Albert Luthuli as an early model of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a national leader whose political support came from his Zulu constituency. At times the national element is entirely subsumed in Buthelezi's ethnocentric parlance: "One has to remember that it was warrior blood that beat in the heart of people like chief Albert Luthuli and it was chief Albert Luthuli as a Zulu warrior who received the highest international award for peace that the world has ever created -the Nobel Peace Prize. "69

The Zulu-centered tradition of nonviolence is portrayed as antedating the establishment of the ANC in 1912. It is traced to the precolonial period and rooted in the person of Cetshwayo. The last independent Zulu sovereign is represented as "a supreme strategist, statesman, a giant of his day and age, the link between the mighty Zulu empire of King Shaka and the complexities of the modern world . . . [who] . . . came to the realization that the transition had to be made from the stabbing spear of King Shaka to the diplomatic swords of negotiation."70

Buthelezi believes he has "inherited the burden which King Cetshwayo first picked up for the nation. He was after all my maternal great grandfather."71 In this way, he again appeals to Zulu precedent and a deep-rooted tradition in order to legitimate his policy of negotiation with Pretoria. Buthelezi supports this policy with a thinly-veiled threat of force. An assertive, bellicose image of the Zulu past is linked to the present through the use of powerful military metaphors:

Our history as a people has preserved the genius of King Shaka. The blood of the founding fathers of our nation flows through our veins. Their spirit is our spirit. Their courage is our courage. We are a nation of warriors and God help those who ever forget that. We know how to thrust a spear and we have got the power in our arms to do so. . . . The mightiest army which Britain mustered in South Africa had to be mustered against us at the Battle of Ulundi, after we had first defeated that army virtually with our bare hands at the battle of Isandlwana.72

In this threat, directed at the time perhaps more against the ANC-aligned United Democratic Front (UDF) than against Pretoria, the Zulus of the precolonial kingdom become "us," directly fusing historical and modern forms of

68. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 December, 1985. 69. BS, Esikhawini, 23 October, 1983. 70. BS, Ulundi, 20 August, 1983. 71. Ibid. 72. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 September, 1986.

122 PATRICK HARRIES

resistance into a united whole. Frequent appeal is made to the associated symbols of Shaka and the Zulu warrior. Zulu males are of "warrior stock": "King Shaka established a kingdom which was sovereign and independent and he established a people who were drawn together by their Zuluness and who had the steel in their souls of warriors"; The Zulu form a "nation born of warrior stock. We know the meaning of battle and we know the meaning of valour. We shirk at nothing."73 The nineteenth-century military defeats of the Zulu army are ascribed to superior British military technology and the invincible Boer position at Ncome (Blood River). "Our nationalism," Buthelezi reminds his listeners, "is a weapon we pick up when we are threatened. It makes us walk tall."'74

Another image frequently raised is that of "a twentieth-century Mfecane." In a barely veiled threat, Buthelezi states, "We know the meaning of Mfecane and Difaqane. We know the consequence of mass violence."75 A less abstract, and more menacing form of imagery is that of the Inkatha amabutho. These units take their name from the regiments of the old Zulu kingdom. Their members rally to the "Usutho" battle-cry of the royal family and they carry "traditional weapons" such as cowhide shields, spears, kierries, and battle axes. Bu- thelezi makes a constant appeal to amabutho discipline: "King Shaka's armies were invincible because they were highly disciplined. Inkatha moulds itself along paramilitary lines because if we are not disciplined we cannot hope to go far in our liberation struggle."76

But while their imagery is traditonal, the function of the amabutho is decidedly modern. The amabutho serve as Inkatha "militia" in the rural and urban areas, have often been associated with vigilante action and, since the unbanning of the ANC in 1990, have engaged in a savage struggle to secure territories claimed by the ANC.77

Buthelezi likes to give the impression that Inkatha is not an ethnocentric movement. Inkatha's full title was changed in 1980 from Inkatha YaKwaZulu to Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe. The movement officially became a "national cultural liberation movement" and was opened to non-Zulus. As Buthelezi was quick to point out, this was done in the face of Pretoria's disapproval. In 1990, following the unbanning of the ANC and PAC, the movement's name was changed again, this time to the Inkatha Freedom Party. Buthelezi quotes statis- tics and historical precedent to support his view of Inkatha as a nonsectarian

73. BS, Nsiyweni Tribal Centre, Ongoye, 4 November, 1984; BS, Vulindlela, Pietermaritzburg, 30 May 1992. See also King Goodwill Zwelithini, Shaka Day Speech, Stanger, 26 September 1992.

74. BS, King Shaka Day address to the districts of Inkanyezi, Ongoye, Enseleni and Hlabisa, 30 October 1988.

75. King Shaka Day, Ulundi, 20 August 1983. 76. BS, King Shaka Day, Ifafa Mission, Vulamelho district, 4 November 1983. 77. N. Haysom, Mabangalanga: The Rise of Right-wing Vigilantes in South Africa (Johannes-

burg, 1986); J. Aitchison, "The Civil War in Natal" in South African Review 5 (1991), 457-473; L. Segal, "The Human Face of Violence: Hostel Dwellers Speak" Journal of Southern African Studies 8 (1992), 190-231; P. Zulu, "Durban Hostels and Political Violence: Case Studies in Kwa- mashu Umlazi," Transformation 21 (1993), 1-23.


movement. The white frontiersman, John Dunn, was accepted as a "fully- fledged" Zulu chief; Shaka was not "a sectional leader. He cast his shadow over the whole of southern Africa."78 Buthelezi rejects the allegations of oppo- nents who claim that he foments ethnic divisiveness. "It is a lie to say that I speak about the superiority of the Zulus. I certainly speak about the worthwhileness of the Zulus, as I speak about the worthwhileness of any true cultural group."79 He rejects the idea that the Zulu are a chosen people and is adamant that they will not make the same mistakes as (Nazi) Germany.

Yet in his speeches, particularly those made in Zululand, Buthelezi constantly mobilizes Zulu cultural markers and imagery. It is his appeal to a potential ethnic constituency of seven million that bolsters his standing as a national politician. "A united Zulu power," he has recently remarked, "could be the hammer that fashions South Africa on the anvil of negotiations. "80 After the establishment of the UDF in 1983 triggered the battle for territory, Inkatha's ethnic nationalism became increasingly defensive. When the townships around Durban fell into the hands of "comrades" associated with the UDF, Buthelezi was quick to speak of "the hyenas of the night and the jackals [who] crept into Umlazi, KwaMashu, Inanda and Lamontville, in cars with foreign number plates, filled with people who could not even understand Zulu."8' Here, "Zulu" is the legitimating marker and non-Zulu-speaking South Africans become "foreigners" who "invade." Again, when threatened by dissent within Inkatha, Bu- thelezi will fall back on ethnic markers. "We are sick and tired of people of Xhosa extraction here in our midst being holier than thou."82

IV. CONCLUSION

The invoking of an ethnic exclusivity is clearly aimed at creating a political constituency. It is equally clear that the solidarity of the Zulu as an ethnic group is created and maintained through the mobilization of a set of images that are believed to be traditional. These images provide people with an inclusive code and an ethnic identity that is both spatial and temporal. Because of its constancy of form and appearance, tradition gives the impression of being residual, a survival from the past that, because of its link with the pre-existing order, may appear to outsiders as highly conservative or outmoded -even to the point of being atavistic. Because of this, ethnicity and the image of traditionalism on which it is based are often portrayed as a negative force. An ethnic identity is imposed on people by an elite eager to further its interests by mobilizing a mass following. Tradition is also invoked in order to restore the status quo ante by reasserting controls over women and commoners that were breaking

78. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 September 1988; BS, Mandeyi, Nkanyezi district, 15 October, 1983.

79. King Dingane's Day, Imbuli, Pietermaritzburg, 16 December, 1983. 80. BS, Eshowe, 24 September 1991. 81. BS, King Shaka Day, Stanger, 24 December, 1985. 82. KwaZulu Legislative Assembly, Policy Speech, October, 1983.

124 PATRICK HARRIES

down. But this perspective often portrays people as passive objects, rather than active agents, in history. It particularly fails to answer why people should accept the images being thrust upon them by a manipulative, male elite. The strength of ethnic and other forms of symbolism lies in their ability to represent another absent reality. For a symbol to be accepted requires a social consensus. Thus for a concrete symbolic object to exercise any power, it has to find a resonance in popular consciousness.

The rise of Inkatha in the mid-1970s was accompanied by powerful forces of social destabilization. African society had long been fragmented by migrant labor and white rule, but it was atomized as hundreds of thousands of people were pushed off the land by the rapid modernization of farming and the imple- mentation of apartheid.83 This new proletariat was forced into soulless resettle- ment villages in the rural areas and into squatter settlements around the industrial centers. As the old world crumbled and the shape of society changed, people needed to create a new sense of community. Thus Inkatha's images of a society bounded in space and time found a quick resonance.

Many people in Natal find an identity in the perception of a common past and in the symbols that make a historical unity visible and tangible. The invoca- tion of a rich past of firm values and standards recreates a life in which people who have been uprooted, disoriented, and shaken by capitalism and apartheid are able to find an emotional security. Bengt Sundkler recognized this need for stability over forty years ago when he explained much of the appeal of the Independent Churches in terms of an "escape into history, into the glorious Zulu history, which was brought to an abrupt end by the whites." Indeed, much of the popular appeal of Inkatha might be explained by comparing the growth of the movement with that of the Independent Churches. Like Inkatha, the churches provide an area for black advancement. Both movements are marked by a hierarchy of power and respect, and a charismatic leadership. Both Inkatha and the churches have introduced and adopted some of the rites practiced in the precolonial kingdom. Regalia and rituals are, although they take different forms, central to both movements.84 Here it is instructive to recall Monica Wilson's reminder that "ritual draws sanctity from antiquity, but it must be felt relevant to the celebrants' world or it becomes an empty shell."85

Inkatha has not only attempted to reconquer the past; it has also attempted to entrench a new sense of political space. As an expression of Buthelezi's claims to the leading role of the Zulu in the national struggle, Inkatha has held rallies in several major towns in South Africa. These rallies bring ethnicity alive in a manner that is visible, tangible, and audible. Inkatha's public assemblies demand a high degree of participation and, through their colorful flags and

83. The Surplus People Project Report: Forced Removals in South Africa (Cape Town, 1983), IV, 53, estimates that from 1948 to 1982 300,000 people were evicted from Natal farms because of mechanization and the abolition of labor tenancy. Government policy forced a further 150,000 people to move.

84. Sundkler, Bantu Prophets in South Africa (London, 1948), 102-103. 85. M. Wilson, Religion and Transformation of Society (Cambridge, Eng., 1971), 75.


uniforms, prayers, hymns, praise-songs and parades, traditional symbolism, singing and dancing, they unite people into a cohesive community. The movement also unites that community in resistance to the unequal development and form of internal colonialism practiced in South Africa. People are able to mobilize as Zulus to demand from the central government a more equitable, regional distribution of wealth and power. This belief in the viability of regional autonomy is an important element motivating people to accept the new relations of authority and hierarchy invoked by Inkatha's traditionalism.

Inkatha's resistance to the state remains ambiguous because of its ultimate dependence on Pretoria. The movement does not exercise a monopoly over resistance, cultural markers, or the loyalty of the black population of Natal. The conflict between students and amabutho at the University of Zululand in 1983 and, more recently, between hostel dwellers and township residents on the East Rand, can be traced partly to a lack of respect for the traditions that Inkatha upholds as Zulu. Nor does the culture of blacks in Natal and Zululand rest solely on Inkatha's vision of present and past cultural borders. Workers and students mobilize images that are drawn from their class, as well as their ethnic and other backgrounds. Culture has become a terrain of struggle in Natal where the ANC and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) attempt to present an alternative set of images, traditions, and cultural events to those of Inkatha.86 This struggle is not merely about art and culture; the ethnic exclusivism of Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Inkatha points towards federalism or separatism, while the assimilationist values of the ANC and COSATU invoke national unity and a political centralism. The struggle over perceptions of the past is equally a struggle over perceptions of the present and the future.

University of Cape Town

86. BS, King Shaka Day, Mbumbulu, 3 October 1992. See the debate in the Weekly Mail (March-April, 1987) over working-class culture triggered by Black Mamba Rising: South African Worker Poets in Struggle, ed. Ari Sitas (Johannesburg, 1987). See also Sitas's "A Black Mamba Rising: Mi S'dumo Hlatshwayo's poetry," Transformation [Durban] 2 (1986), 50-61; and "Culture and Production: The Contradictions of Working Class Theatre in South Africa," Africa Perspective [Johannesburg] 1 & 2 (1986), 84-1 10.

Documents

Imagery, Symbolism, And Tradition in South African Bantustan