SOUTH AFRICA. THE ZULUS CRY BUTHELEZI
(September 15, 2023)
JOHANNESBURG. The Zulus, the most important black South African ethnic group, mourn Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi who passed away on 9 September at the age of 95.
After Frederik W. de Klerk and Desmond Tutu, who died in recent years, the last protagonist of the tormented South African 20th century is passing away.
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FIRST OF ALL, ZULU LEADER
Chief Buthelezi was keen to let everyone know, even with his clothing, that he belonged to the Zulu people: for this reason he wore leopard skins even on official occasions to ward off the suspicion of being a friend of the whites.
In reality, he was first of all leader of the Zulus and then a politician of national level; as needed, he was an ally and adversary of the ANC, friend and foe of the white supremacist government.
The traditional aversion of the Zulus towards the Xhosa, the ethnic group from which Mandela came, also had an impact on his conduct: it’s no coincidence that he would have preferred a federal South Africa rather than the unitary country wanted by the ANC.
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THE CHARACTER
A complex figure, he was proud, quarrelsome and capricious; famous for his interminable parliamentary speeches: one of them was 427 pages long and took two weeks to be delivered in full.
At times charming, at others ruthless: he did not tolerate dissent.
To supporters, he was an exceptional man who did his best to protect his people while working to undermine an evil regime;
for his opponents, he was the one who occupied a comfortable position of power while anti-apartheid militants were imprisoned, beaten, tortured and killed by the regime’s police.
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THE LIFE
He was born in south-eastern Zululand on 27 August 1928 into the Zulu royal family.
Her mother was Princess Magogo kaDinZulu, sister of the king and famous singer of traditional songs: her father had arranged a marriage with the Buthelezi: Mangosuthu’s father would become her husband, thus resolving a dispute between families.
At 14, the prince was told that his father had died: going to the family farm, following tradition, he pierced the ground with a spear to show where the tomb should have been placed and claimed his father’s inheritance for himself.
He studied at Adams College, a well-known missionary school near Durban, but in 1948 – when he began university in the Eastern Cape – the National Party, the political force of the Afrikaaners, won the general elections: the hard years of apartheid had begun.
Between the 1950s and 1980s, a complex battery of rules was passed aimed at clearly separating the different “racial” components of the country.
Buthelezi then joined the youth wing of the ANC and took part in a campaign opposing the new regime: for this he was expelled from university. He then returned to KwaZulu to assume the duties of head of the family clan.
He married Irene, a nursing student from Johannesburg: polygamy is allowed among the Zulus, it seems that her father had 40 wives, but Buthelezi, a practicing Anglican, decided not to take any more.
In 1954, King Cyprian appointed him his traditional prime minister: the position was important, because it gave him the opportunity to manage the crown properties and everything that concerned his people.
The difficult situation created by the policy of “separate development of races” forced Buthelezi to carve out a new role for himself in the complex South African mosaic, not without suffering. In 1970, for example, with the Bantu Homeland Citizenship Act, one of the laws adopted by the white-monopolized parliament, it was established that all Zulus would lose their RSA citizenship to acquire that of KwaZulu.
The territory of their bantustan was redesigned in order to separate different areas from each other: the best lands became the property of white farmers, while families had to abandon their homes.
Consequence: hundreds of thousands of people were uprooted from their lands and forcibly moved to less hospitable and less productive regions.
Buthelezi, who had since become Chief Minister of KwaZulu, was offered the nominal independence of his statelet, but he refused, arguing that those who were dividing South Africa were going against the course of history because the country had a common destiny.
To better support his power in ’75 he founded the Inkatha YeSizwe “the Crown of the nation”: born as an anti-apartheid movement, it soon became an instrument to control his people.
Party membership, for example, was compulsory, under penalty of losing one’s job.
A militia was also created which in his time would serve to fight ANC activists.
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INKATHA VS ANC
Meanwhile, relations between Inkatha and the ANC were deteriorating: Buthelezi, a vigorous anti-communist, claimed that the organization was full of Marxists, which is why he refused to provide safe houses for members of his armed wing.
“In the 1980s – writes Efrem Tresoldi [1] – he was complicit in the terror strategy devised by the apartheid regime with the intention of fomenting black-on-black violence and creating instability in the country. Inkatha warriors, mostly Zulu workers far from their homeland who live in the infamous all-male hostels in the townships, terrorize the local population.
In Thokoza, Katlehong, Vosloorus, Boipatong, KwaMakhutha, KwaMashu – in the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces – thousands of innocent people are killed, injured or forced to flee from their homes.”
It’s estimated that at least 12,000 people lost their lives in a conflict fomented by the white regime which aimed to demonstrate that South Africa was in danger of descending into chaos and violence should an ANC-dominated president and parliament be elected.
“To the end of his life – write BBC[2] – Buthelezi claimed that it was the ANC that instigated most of the violence, but evidence later emerged that Inkatha received South African military assistance to finance the hit squads.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a body established to investigate the era of racial segregation and heal the wounds left open after the end of Apartheid,
demonstrated that Buthelezi’s party was guilty of serious human rights violations.”
Chief Buthelezi long opposed the publication of the TRC report which finally appeared after the changes requested by the Zulu leader were made to the text.
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THE ’94 ELECTIONS
On 27 April 1994, therefore, all adult South Africans, regardless of the color of their skin, voted to elect the first multiracial parliament in the country’s history.
Up until ten days before the vote, Buthelezi was planning not to participate: it was Mandela who convinced him to withdraw from the boycott.
thus, the prince’s photo was placed on the already printed cards.
For Inkatha it was a triumph: in KwaZulu he obtained more than 50% of the votes and 10% on a national scale.
When Mandela, elected president, formed his first government, Buthelezi was Minister of the Interior, a position he held until 2004 when the IP, renamed Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), went into opposition.
With the election in 2009 of Jacob Zuma, a Zulu, the decline of the IFP began and it also lost support in KwaZulu-Natal.
Ten years later, Buthelezi announced his gradual retirement from politics: he didn’t resubmit his candidacy for the presidency of the IFP, but remained premier of his province and national MP.
Despite his advanced age, he still exercised a strong influence among his people: when King Zwelithini suddenly died in March 2021 and a few weeks later also the main queen, Buthelezi intervened in support of his favorite candidate, Prince MisuZulu kaZwelithini, who in August 2022 he was definitively crowned.
At stake wasn’t only the crown, an overall ceremonial role, but the presidency of the Ingonyama Trust Board which manages millions of hectares of land and herds of cattle. The whole thing is worth several million dollars.
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THE ZULUS
The Zulu people are made up of a total of 14.2 million people who live in South Africa (approximately 10 million), Lesotho, Eswatini (two small kingdoms completely surrounded by the RSA), and then in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Botswana.
They’re the largest ethnic component of the country: They speak isiZulu, a Bantu language belonging to the Nguni subgroup.
It is a rather complex language because it is part of the group of languages whose main distinctive characteristic is the use of the so-called click consonants, such as the dental “c”, the alveolar “q” and the lateral “x”.
The name of the people comes from amaZulu, which in their language means “people of the sky”.
On a religious level they are divided into Christians and followers of traditional rites.
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HISTORY
The Zulus are one of the Bantu populations who have migrated from the north to southern Africa for centuries: in 1709 Zulu kaMalandela led his entire clan to the northern part of today’s KwaZulu-Natal province. From that moment on, the ascendant phase of the people began, expanding their territory at the expense of other clans who were losing ground.
Over time the different groups merged, ending up forming a real kingdom: in 1816 a powerful state was founded under the leadership of King Shaka, who transformed a confederation of peoples into a strong empire.
Shaka creates a highly militarized system, known as Impi, which includes compulsory conscription, a standing army equipped with new weaponry and a combat strategy based on encircling opponents.
The Zulu expansion was the event that contributed to the depopulation of vast areas of southern Africa in the 19th century.
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THE BRITISH ARE COMING.
Meanwhile, the season of European conquest of Africa has begun: Great Britain has had its eyes on South Africa for some time, where huge gold reserves were discovered in the Transvaal in 1872: London naturally wants to get its hands on the territory at all costs and subdue the various populations: consequently the envoys of the Crown delivered an ultimatum to the leaders of the Zulu kingdom (December 1878).
King Cetshwayo must disband his army and accept British supremacy: the sovereign refuses, so war breaks out between the Zulus and the African contingent of British troops.
Although initially the Zulus achieved a brilliant victory in the battle of Isandlwana (22 January 1879), the British subsequently prevailed in several clashes until July 1879 when the outcome of the conflict was decided at the battle of Ulundi.
The King is captured, the Zulu empire divided into 13 small kingdoms: however, in 1883 Cetshwayo is restored to the power of a vassal state called Zululand. This didn’t stop the clashes between the Zulus and King Zibhebhu, one of the 13 lowly rulers established by the British supported by Boer mercenaries.
Cetshwayo died in February 1884, killed by Zibhebhu’s militiamen: he was succeeded on the throne by a 15-year-old boy, DinuZulu. The wars within Zululand continued until 1897, when the territory was absorbed by the new province of Natal.
The following is known:
in 1910 the South African Union was born, a dominion with a certain autonomy within the Commonwealth: the country participated alongside Great Britain in the world wars.
Then in ’48 the Afrikaaners won the elections and applied their program of methodical separation of the population into groups and subgroups.
In 1960 the country left the Commonwealth, unilaterally proclaiming itself a republic: the conflict between whites and blacks became increasingly radicalised, until the turning point of 1991 and the 1994 elections which we have already described.
The Zulus have continued to play their role through Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi: now they must turn the page and find a new leader to lead them into the 21st century.
PIER LUIGI GIACOMONI
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NOTES:
[1] E. Tresoldi, L’altro Sudafrica di Buthelezi, nigrizia,it, 13 Settembre 2023;
[2] BBC News Africa, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi: The man who divided South Africa, bbc.co.uk/news, 9 September 2023.