It is ironic
that some of the arguments used by defenders of the Ingonyama Trust differ
little from those used by the apartheid government to justify the homelands
policy. In his recent article in the Daily
Maverick Mbongeleni Mazibuko unwittingly falls into this trap by drawing on
discredited history and by his misuse of concepts such as culture and
tradition. He also conveniently
side-steps the gross infringements of the land rights of rural residents by the
Trust, and by some traditional leaders.
Most of the
Ingonyama Trust land is that which constituted the KwaZulu bantustan, some of
which, such as southern and far northern areas of KZN, was never part of the
historic Zulu kingdom. From its
heartland north of the Thukela river, King Shaka deployed his well-trained
warriors to areas much further afield to raid for cattle. In the process,
people either dispersed or, in some cases, bowed to the use of force and became
client chiefdoms supplying Shaka with cattle, and guarding his far- flung
cattle outposts. He did not have the political
or military capacity to incorporate these areas into the kingdom. With his
enemies, including within his own family, multiplying, Shaka’s position became increasingly
precarious. Accompanied by armed traders from Port Natal he had vanquished his
main opponents, the Ndwandwe, but internally the powerful Qwabe grouping was
posing an increasing threat. This threat may have been one of the reasons that
he decided to build his new homestead further away from them, at KwaDukuza
(just south of the Thukela river) shortly before his ten-year reign ended with
his assassination. His half-brother, Dingane, was unable to retain the type of
military control Shaka had over his own subjects and the client chiefdoms
outside of the kingdom, so many fled the kingdom to what was later to become
the colony of Natal and others returned there from further afield.
The kingdom
founded by Shaka was an amalgamation of discrete chiefdoms, and it was
stratified according to historical and clan relationships to the king. The lowest stratum comprising ‘outsider’
groupings, to which a derogatory label was applied, lived in the coastal areas
or around the Thukela. Excluded from politics,
they provided menial labour and cattle tribute to the elites. Falling into this category was the powerful
Hlubi grouping who, posing an increasing threat to King Mpande, prudently
migrated to the colony in 1848 to avoid the risk of an all-out war.
Contrary to
what Mazibuko avers, it is highly unlikely
that the majority of the traditional leaders in what is now KZN are descendants
of the clan-based groupings of the Zulu kingdom, which was itself subject to a
divide-and-rule policy by the British after the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879. The
forebears of many of today’s leaders had never been part of the kingdom and, in
the colony, new chiefs were created by administrator Theophilus Shepstone when
he found people living without any. Mission areas appointed their own. Chiefs
were needed for the implementation of the indirect rule system – rule through
chiefs – developed in what was then Natal, exported to other colonies, and
further refined by the architects of apartheid.
The office
of traditional leadership today is a product of colonialism and apartheid because,
since the 19th century, chiefs have not been ‘chiefs by their
people’. The general trend in pre-colonial times was for an unpopular chief to
be deposed or killed – or people might simply migrate elsewhere. However, with
indirect rule they became accountable to the government which paid their
salaries and, pre-1994, would be deposed if they were not politically compliant. Democracy and accountability are still absent
in many traditional areas today and it has proven virtually impossible to get
the government department responsible, COGTA, to take any action against leaders
who abuse their positions, or even commit crimes.
While there
is a tendency to see traditional leadership as some distinctly pan-African
phenomenon, it is an office which exists, or has existed, in societies all over
the world at a certain stage of state formation. Many societies in Africa did not have this
system of governance. While colonising governments used the position for their
own purposes, the stance taken by post-liberation governments varied. Most retained the position, but restricted
incumbents to ceremonial and developmental roles, Uganda – which had historically
included different kingdoms – restricted their powers drastically, and Tanzania
abolished traditional leadership. Swaziland is probably the only country in
Africa in which traditional leaders have more powers than they do in South
Africa. The office is not under threat
since they are recognised in Chapter 12 of the Constitution. In the mid-1990s
the ANC government, which was then divided over the subject, made a serious mistake
by not insisting that the incumbents could not occupy both traditional and
political offices (as in Botswana). Many have allowed themselves to be used as
political tools, when they could have played a far more constructive role in
their communities had they been above party politics.
There is
probably no word which has been as badly abused in South Africa as ‘culture’. Drawing
on the ideas of Scientific Racism embodied in what was termed ‘ethnos theory’
this term was used by the apartheid government to justify, and disguise the
racial basis for, homelands. Culture is simply an analytical construct used to
describe what people have in common such as shared norms, values, knowledge and
beliefs, which are learned. Even within a group speaking a common language what
is interpreted as its culture may be highly variable. These ideas change as the
socio-economic structure of the society of which they are part does, as may traditions
and customs embodying these ideas. While there are regional similarities, families
are the custodians of customs, which may vary from one clan to another.
Contemporary Zulu identity as it is portrayed today is a product of societal
changes, especially economic and political, the 20th century. However,
there is no single ‘Zulu’ identity in KZN, for many residents would identify
with other historically-based groupings such as Bhaca, Hlubi, and Thonga, and
others would emphasise their Ndwandwe roots (i.e. the enemies of the Zulu
kingdom).
There is
thus no historical basis for the privatisation of state land in the hands of
the Zulu king who cannot be said to have ‘owned’ it in the past : Contemporary ownership of land, focussing on
commercial value, should not be equated
with ideas prevailing in the past when it had very different meanings for the
families who were living on it, based on intimate relationships between the
living and the dead (buried on it), and the way in which these were related to
the fertility of land (to meet subsistence needs). King
Zwelithini enjoys widespread support and respect in his own right – especially since
he publicly distanced himself from party politics in 1994 – not through his association with the Trust. The
Board administering the trust, of which the king is the sole trustee, was appointed
a few years after the Trust was established in April 1994. Prior to that it had
been overseen by the king’s lawyer, the late Sdumo Mathe, with the Board taking
over soon after Mathe’s untimely death. Calls to dismantle the Trust have
nothing to do with a ‘clash of cultures’ but are rooted in economic realities.
The Trust, through its Board, not only contests
the transfer to the government fiscus of mining royalties due to it, but acts
as a virtual parallel government itself issuing leases which are often cloaked
in secrecy, and which trample on the legally protected rights to the land, and
the security, of those living on it. As
a result of the issuing of these leases people have lost the land they lived
on, and used for subsistence, to mining companies or other business ventures.
They may be removed, or face the threat of removal, from their land, as during
apartheid years. Their water becomes polluted
and cattle become sick. In coal mining areas such as Somkele (near Mtubatuba)
the rate of respiratory illnesses is extremely high and linked by locals to
most deaths. In the kwaMzimela area homes and graves are blasted away by sand
mining. There are many other examples, and despite the black empowerment
rhetoric, it may be white businesspeople who benefit from Trust deals.
It is
traditional leaders who give permission to the Trust to grant leases,
regardless of the consequences for their subjects, who may not even know about
them until they are told to move (as in eMpembeni)*._ The democratic
government, which claims to represent ‘the people’, has dealt rural folk a
further blow by passing legislation which will give even more powers to
traditional leaders to enter into such agreements. Not for nothing is these two pieces of
legislation – one of which amends the 2003
Act governing traditional leadership, and the other governing traditional
(chiefs’) courts – referred to, with good reason, as the ‘bantustan bills’. To avoid a further retreat into the past this
legislation must be opposed at all costs.
*See other
2018 and 2019 reports on the Ingonyama Trust and on eMpembeni
Reference notes : This report draws on a wide range of historical material, including chapters in Duminy and Guest (eds) 1989 Natal and Zululand a New History; Chapters in Carton, B, J Laband and J Sithole (eds) 2009 Zulu Identities; Laband J 2017 The Assassination King Shaka ; Wright J 2016 ‘Making Identities in the Thukela-Mzimvubu Region cc1770-1940 in Hamilton C and N Leibhammer Tribing and Untribing the Archive
Other references include academic publications on culture, traditiion and traditional leadership. See , for example, Boonzaier E and J Sharp (eds) 1989 South African Keywords : Th uses and abuses of political concepts