FT931-15957
_AN-DAJAPADAFT
930109
FT 09 JAN 93 / The history of bloodlust that stains the conference table:
The Zulu tradition is killing and conquest under Shaka, its heroic but
brutal warrior king. This is hard to reconcile with the ideal of a new South
Africa
By PATTI WALDMEIR
ACROSS a windswept hilltop in Zululand, thousands of feet above the spot
where Zulu pride was shattered by the British more than a century ago at the
Battle of Ulundi, descendants of that warrior nation lead a ceremonial
procession to deliver a young bride to the kraal,or homestead, of her new
husband.
Picking their way across a boulder-strewn field, they carry a mattress, box
spring, sleeping mat and bedroom furniture, along with brightly-coloured
duffle bags filled with smaller household items: the bride's dowry.
The men also carry 'traditional weapons': painted sticks and spears, cowhide
shields and clubs, the cultural arsenal of the Zulu man from time immemorial
and the symbols of a powerful nationalism which propels South Africa closer
every day to civil war.
For this wedding is not just a cultural occasion; in these days of endless
slaughter among the Zulus, culture is inseparable from politics. The
colourful display of tradition is part of a battle for the soul of the
7m-strong Zulu nation between the African National Congress (ANC), which
would subsume Zulu identity in a new South African nationhood which denied
ethnicity, and the Inkatha Freedom Party, militant Zulu nationalists who
will fight to the death for tribe and tradition.
Guests at this wedding are firmly on the side of Inkatha. They make a
political point of continuing the traditions of a vast 19th century kingdom
ruled by the Zulu hero, Shaka, who combined Napoleon's ambitions with the
methods of Genghis Khan.
Women adorn their bare breasts with strings of beads - or, incongruously,
sport a modern nylon brassiere gone grey from many washings, above a more
traditional skirt of plastic or cloth strips. Male relatives of bride and
bridegroom wear skirts made from strips of leopard-skin or other fur; the
groom wears a crown of black plumes and cow-tail bracelets on his shins and
upper arms.
In a field nearby, youths test their manhood in an age-old sparring contest
with stick and shield. The spirit of the amaZulu, 'the people of heaven',
lives on in them, proud and defiant, fractious and belligerent.
That belligerence is fast proving an obstacle to the creation of a new South
Africa. Violence involving Zulus has so far left 8,000 people dead in Natal
province; nationwide, 15,000 people have died, many in fighting between
Zulus and other tribes. The violence has many causes - political, social,
economic, not to mention superstitious - but since 1990, it has taken on an
increasingly ethnic tone.
The ANC denies this, arguing that ethnicity is an invention of Pretoria,
dreamed up by a white minority which could not rule without creating
artificial tribal divisions among blacks; indeed, it shuns ethnicity
precisely because the government so abused it.
But there is little that is artificial about the Zulus' sense of ethnic
identity, fed by a powerful historical memory of a glorious military past,
and stoked constantly by the reigning King, Goodwill Zwelithini, and by
Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, chief minister of the KwaZulu homeland and
leader of Inkatha. He uses ethnicity - as the Afrikaners before him used
their fierce nationalism - as a powerful weapon.
In speech after speech, Chief Buthelezi and his nephew, King Goodwill,
exploit this ethnic consciousness by reminding Zulus of their history:
unique among the black tribes of South Africa and probably unparalleled by
any tribe on the continent.
'KwaZulu has been KwaZulu ever since King Shaka put it together as one
kingdom,' King Goodwill said in a recent speech to mark the annual Shaka Day
celebrations. 'KwaZulu is the place of the Zulus because history has made it
so. . . because our illustrious King Shaka rose like a colossus in his day
and age to make KwaZulu a place of Zulus.'
Nothing is as likely to stir the Zulu heart as an appeal to the national
hero Shaka, the one symbol which all acknowledge, whether they be Christian
or pagan, urban or rural, traditional or modern.
'You don't have to be Inkatha to have Shaka as your King,' says Madoda, a
young 'comrade' (in the lingo of Natal, an ANC supporter), who aspires to
citizenship of a new South African nation which is blind to colour and
ethnicity. But even he is not ashamed to admit: 'Shaka is my hero.' Few
Zulus would disragree, however deracinated they have become in the polyglot
townships, or even in exile with the ANC.
For the squeamish foreigner, it can be difficult to understand the appeal of
Shaka. Historians dispute the details of the atrocities he committed in his
campaign to unite 200-odd clans in a new Zulu nation - indeed, Madoda argues
he was no worse than any other 19th century ruler - but none deny that many
thousands died in often arbitrary slaughter.
Shaka was a visionary, an illegitimate son of the insignificant Zulu clan,
who inherited a territory of 100 square miles and eventually gave the Zulu
name to a nation which spanned 200,000 square miles and had 50,000 men under
arms. He was a brilliant military tactician who bequeathed to the Zulus the
short stabbing spear and fighting formation which helped them to victory at
Isandhlwana, the British imperial army's worst ever defeat. Almost
single-handedly, he created a culture which values discipline, obedience and
total submission to authority.
But his methods were ruthless and his genius sometimes lunatic. His royal
kraal was called, appropriately enough, KwaBulawayo, 'the place of killing'.
The explorer and medic Henry Francis Fynn, a member of the first party of
whites to meet Shaka, describes in his diary how perfunctory executions were
frequently carried out whenever whites visited the king (and by Zulu legend,
much of the rest of the time as well). Offenders had their necks broken in
full view of the guests, or were impaled on stakes and left to die slowly.
But Shaka's brutality reached new heights on the death of his mother, Nandi.
He decreed that no cultivation should be allowed during the year following
her death in 1827; all milk was to be poured on the earth as it was drawn
from the cow (tantamount to a sentence of starvation, given that milk curds
were the Zulus' staple food); all women found pregnant during the following
year were to be executed, along with their husbands.
Soon afterward, Shaka's rule declined and he was assassinated in 1828. But
his spirit lives on in the authoritarian traditions of Zulu society and the
militaristic tone which traditional Zulus adopt without embarrassment.
The Zulu king still forms military regiments (albeit largely ceremonial)
which group males of a certain age under his control. Albert Mncwango is a
member of the Nala regiment, the first to be formed by the current king, a
descendant of Shaka.
Mncwango, whose home is Mahlabatini in the heart of traditional Zululand,
explains that his duties are not just ceremonial: 'After regiments have been
formed, there must be an occasion of washing of their spears, meaning that
we want to get involved in a military campaign. Our regiment has never
washed our spears. That is the problem. . . the Zulu regiments would really
love to get involved in a full-scale war.' Not just for the thrill of
fighting, he explains, but to avenge the deaths of women and children killed
in the violence.
He and other traditional Zulus - such as Chief BF Bhengu, chief of the
Ngcolosi clan, whose kraals cling to the steep slopes of the Valley of a
Thousand Hills near Durban - defend the custom of carrying cultural weapons
which has caused so much political controversy.
Mncwango explains: 'Every Zulu male would always carry something in his
hand. Even if you go to visit your girlfriend or go shopping with your wife,
you carry a traditional weapon because there is nothing so disgraceful in
Zulu culture as to be unable to defend your wife and children.' Chief Bhengu
adds: 'You can't go to a wedding without carrying cultural weapons. It's
like going without wearing your trousers.'
Some educated Zulus - such as prominent journalist Khaba Mkhize - dismiss
such traditionalists, with their skins and spears, their beads and clubs, as
'postcard Zulus'. 'There are two major types of Zulus: postcard Zulus and
the type of Zulu who is running away from the postcard,' says Mkhize, who
regularly covers the violence which flares between the two. 'The postcard
Zulu belongs to a dying generation,' he concludes.
Certainly, millions of Zulus are migrating to urban areas in Natal and the
Transvaal, where inter-marriage will eventually dilute tribal identity. But
this is likely to prove a long process, and one which can easily be
interrupted or even reversed - as has happened recently - by outbreaks of
violence which waken a slumbering ethnicity. Although ethnic consciousness
ebbs and flows with politics, it is never far from the surface.
Inkatha leader Chief Buthelezi, one of South Africa's most skilful
politicians, capitalises on this situation: he taps a strong vein of tribal
feeling in traditional rural communities in KwaZulu, and especially among
the approximate 2m Zulus who live away from their homes in Natal, many in
migrant worker hostels which have become Zulu enclaves in multi-ethnic
townships. In a hostile environment, they look to tradition and Inkatha to
protect them.
Buthelezi complains of a campaign of 'ethnic cleansing' against the Zulus,
claiming that the government and the ANC want to create 'Zulu concentration
camps' by fencing migrant worker hostels, and adds a new concept, 'cultural
castration', to the lexicon of ethnic conflict.
Buthelezi's complaints are exaggerated: most deaths so far have involved
Zulus killing Zulus, and the ANC's campaign against the hostels is far more
political than ethnic.
But even the ANC would agree that a strong Zulu ethnic identity is one which
the new South Africa ignores at its peril: the post-colonial history of
Africa has shown how difficult it is to replace individual tribal identities
with a commitment to a new single nationhood.
Jacob Zuma, the most senior Zulu in the ANC leadership - where Zulus are
rare - acknowledges this powerful identity. 'When it comes to KwaZulu, you
are dealing with a group of people which - not because I am a Zulu - were
highly developed socially and militarily by the time they were in contact
with colonialists. And the colonial crushing machine could not finally crush
that.
'The Zulu kingdom. . . remained a very strong factor among the Zulus,
because we always had the King, however undermined he was,' he adds. Unusual
among ANC leaders, Zuma does not try to deny his own ethnicity. 'I do not
pretend because I am sitting here in the ANC that now I am some South
African who is not a Zulu. I am a Zulu and I am proud of being a Zulu.'
But he believes that ethnic confrontation can be defused by devolving some
powers to regional and local government and protecting language and culture
through a bill of rights. He rejects Inkatha's demand for autonomous or
semi-autonomous regional government for Natal, where Zulus would be in the
majority. 'Even if you said today 'We are leaving you, Natal, to
yourselves', no one leader in Natal can say, 'Because you are Zulus, I'm
taking you along'. It is too divided.'
Those divisions have fuelled violence which could hamper the creation of a
democratic South Africa for many more years to come - and which has all but
destroyed the nation forged by Shaka.
'I talk to Shaka about it,' says Mabongi Majola, a young sangoma (spiritual
healer) who squats by the side of the road in her headdress of goats'
bladders, plaited hair and beads. 'Shaka is worried about the future of the
Zulu nation because of the violence,' she says. And as many Zulus will tell
you, he is not the only one.
Countries:-
ZAZ South Africa, Africa.
Industries:-
P86 Membership Organizations.
Types:-
CMMT Comment and Analysis.
The Financial Times
London Page I