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