Yonela Mlambo
CAPE TOWN - Recently I penned an article titled; Buthelezi’s ruthless power mongering debunking the popular discourse about South Africa’s democratic transition which erroneously characterised IFP and ANC conflicts in 1990s as ethnic war.
I argued that Buthelezi (IFP President Emeritus), which is an absurd political title, and the de facto IFP president, manipulated Zulu nationalism, history, and by and large Zulus, to support his maleficent ambitions of becoming the lifetime Prime Minister of the then so-called KwaZulu dummy state.
The mission of this paper is to expand on the yesteryear article.
The discovery of mineral resources in South Africa ensued large coerced internal migration and the subsequent building of the disciplinary measures to control the cheap labour of African migrants i.e. the building of compounds and/or hostels.
Life in the hostels was not organised based on “ethnicity”’ and “ethnicity” was not a master signifier in establishing relationships among hostel dwellers.
However, relationships among the hostel dwellers were built through the phenomenon of homeboy in lieu of “ethnic” identity.
Forming “ethnic” identity relationships is a fairly recent phenomenon in hostels and by and large in townships that gains significance with the National Party winning the 1948 “elections” thus forming the “government”.
For continued subjugation of Africans, “ethnicity” became a potent weapon in the hands of the National Party to utilise.
National Party social engineering was buttressed by separate development coated in “ethnicity”, in flawed “Afrikan-ess” which some respected South African scholars preposterously characterised National Party separate development as an absolute democracy and decolonisation par excellent.
Power mongering Buthelezi and other Bantustan collaborators took a ride on the National Party social engineering of South Africa buttressed in “ethnicity”.
Buthelezi worked hard enough to prove himself to the apartheid authorities as a faithful servant to its separate development thus in 1953 was installed the rightful chief of the Buthelezis’.
Here in this article, I shall not parse how Buthelezi went further to manipulate Zulu history claiming that he is from a family that is traditionally responsible for providing the Zulu nation with oNdunankulu.
In the 1980s and particularly in the 1990s it become evidently clear that the demise of apartheid was inevitable, and that National Party “ethnic” rule was unsustainable.
The waning of the National Party “ethnicity’’ rule posed a significant threat to Buthelezi’s ambitions of becoming the lifetime of the so-called KwaZulu dummy state.
Coming to terms that his power was waning and “ethnicity” card legitimacy being in crisis, and with the resistance against apartheid intensifying thus transition to democracy becoming invertible, Buthelezi reinvented the Inkatha to be a political party at uLundi on 14 July 1990 to gain political legitimacy.
Nevertheless, IFP dismally failed to dismantle its institutionalised political culture thus further instrumentalizing Zulu nationalism to garner support.
IFP made aggressive inroads to various hostels and in townships where most of Zulu migrant workers were living instrumentalizing Zulu “ethnicity’’ and/or culture, history, and heritage, and organising izinduna and amakhosi in rural areas pushing propaganda that the Zulu kingdom is under attack, therefore, must take arms to defend the kingdom.
Buthelezi went further to resuscitate his relationship with the late Majesty King Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu for his propaganda to gain legitimacy.
To his surprise Buthelezi and his personal property, political party qua IFP was that not all AmaZulu [were] docile to his instrumentalization of Zulu culture, history, heritage, and propaganda of Zulu kingdom being under attack by ANC.
In pushing the propaganda of the Zulu kingdom being under attack, AmaXhosa were associated with ANC.
Confronted with the rejection from AmaZulu for instrumentalizing their heritage for his own political ambitions, Buthelezi and IFP used coercion to compel them to support him and his political party.
David Thandabantu Ntombela is the notorious IFP warlord who led attacks in Natal in massacring at least 80 people in what became to be known as the seven-day war and displacing about 20 000 people.
ANC supporters who have been synonymized with AmaXhosa witnessing IFP supporters under the guise of being AmaZulu mouthpiece attacking them, therefore, saw it important to protect themselves against the threat.
Therefore, the public must be cautious of the assertions that the IFP sponsored violence received AmaZulu unanimous support.
There were AmaZulu who lost their lives for rejecting Buthelezi and IFP “ethnicity”, culture, and heritage instrumentalization.
Furthermore, there were AmaZulu ANC supporters and there are still AmaZulu ANC supporters notwithstanding their seeming resurgence of “ethnic” gimmick politics witnessed in the recent local government elections coupled with the NFP leadership crisis which saw an increase in IFP voter turnout in KZN.
* Mlambo is MPhil candidate at UCT
Cape Times