The road to Polokwane?: Politics and populism in KwaZulu-Natal

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KwaZulu-Natal has been, and continues to be mutinous. There is a sense in the popular imagination, usually constructed by the media and embellished in everyday conversation, that there is something different, insubordinate and robust about the province. There is.

But we do need to move away from the platitudes that its ‘character’ is somehow linked to the fact that there are too many Zulus (there are, of course there are) or Indians (there are), and that even its whites are uncomfortable with broader South Africa (memories of the Torch Commando and the Last Outpost).

What is correct is that it has presented, as a territory scrambled together by colonial forces, challenges to the Union and then to the Republic of apartheid South Africa. It has also displayed a long standing ability to present key challenges to African national struggles – harbouring differentiating and sometimes secessionist streaks to them.

So prevalent is this popular image that even current KwaZulu-Natal politicians sport a mischievous glint in the eye (a glint that borders on pride), whenever the subject is mentioned. It seems to confirm their robust uniqueness. But correctly they protest that the current troubles in the ANC and Inkatha with their succession contests embellished with a lot of Zulutalk have nothing to do with any deep historical character-formation.

But the evidence is there, my historian friends protest in turn: such behaviour spans the formation of all types of national organisation in the country – from trade unionism to politics.

After all the argument goes, any history-conscious person will recall AWG Champion’s ICU yase Natal. All it took was some problems with the national leadership of Clements Kadalie and his cohorts to be mixed with local dynamics before discord and division occurred. Or later, when committed communist and socialist trade unionists tried to revive trade unions, Zulu Phungula gave the dockworkers, and other migrants who were to come his way, an independent ethnic base. Even in the late 1970s, the TUACC inner-circle of Durban, arrogantly (for some), confidently (for others) insisted on their way, or no way, in the formation of FOSATU. And even when their detractors like SAAWU decided to join COSATU, it was the Natal grouping that refused to comply, going on its own way. And it was in this province and no other that an UWUSA was to be possible.

On the political terrain, many would recall Chief Buthelezi’s ANC yase Natal, better known as Inkatha and the parting of the ways between the two in 1979. For historical reasons, Rowley Arenstein used to argue, the national liberation struggle in Natal immediately translates into a Zulu liberation struggle. Now, there is talk of the ‘Zuma-Zulu’ factor and/or the ‘Zulu anti-Mbeki core’, dramatised as a repetition of what had gone before: ‘our way’ or ‘no way’. However fascinating such conceptions are, they are dangerous, at a time of rising greed and need.

If there is ‘mutinous energy’ it is no longer between the ANC and the IFP but within each one. However respectful I am of in-depth regional histories and cultural formation, I submit that the reasons for the turbulence are not embedded in a primordial uniqueness but they are due to very recent developments. Had it been about Mazisi Kunene’s, Prof Maphalala’s, Chief Buthelezi’s, Sbu Ndebele’s, Prof Jeff Guy’s or even Jacob Zuma’s understanding of historical Zulu-ness it would have been a great debate, but it isn’t about that at all.

The Zulu-ness that we read and hear so much about is a new construction and is a response by African working-class people to a social crisis unfolding around them.

It is the coincidence of this construction with the political drama unfolding here that calls for serious self-reflection.

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The main drama in the province has been political. In crude summary: it is about the ANC emerging as a clear winner through the ballot-box. This was a remarkable success given the organisational density of Inkatha. The latter did not depend for its...