The limits of gender rhetoric for nationalism: A case study from southern Africa

Theory and Society

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 121-152

  Waetjen, Thembisa ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OREGON   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0035532088     PISSN: 03042421     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1011099627847     Document Type: Article

References (100)

1. For example, see special issue of off our backs, April 1994.
2. See, for example, the special issue of Daedelus. Spring 1993 that reexamines nationalism.
3. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
4. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
5. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
6. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
7. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
8. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
9. Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World (London: Zed Press, 1986); Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and The Morning After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Floya Anthias and Yuval-Davis, Women-Nation-State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989); Silvia Walby, "Woman and Nation," International Journal of Comparative Sociology XXXIII, 1 (2), (1992); Anne McClintock, "Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism, and Family," Feminist Review (Summer 1993); Nira YuvalDavis, "Gender and Nation," Ethnic and Racial Studies 16/4 (1993).
10. McClintock, "Family Feuds."
11. See Enloe, The Morning After; Jean Bethke Elshta n, Women and War (New York: Basic Book Publishers, 1987), Jean Elshtain and Sheila Tobias, editors.
12. See Enloe, The Morning After; Jean Bethke Elshta n, Women and War (New York: Basic Book Publishers, 1987), Jean Elshtain and Sheila Tobias, editors.
13. Yuval-Davis, "Gender and Nation."
14. Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class (London: Verso, 1991), 49.
15. See, for example, Vron Ware, Beyond the Pale (London: Verso, 1992).
16. Enloe, Bananas, 44.
17. Joanne Nagel, "Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations," Ethnic and Racial Studies 21/2 (1998).
18. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991), 9.
19. Anthony Smith, Theories of Nationalism (New York: Torchbook Library Edition, 1971), 22.
20. A notable exception is Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism
21. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7.
22. Heidi Hartmann, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union," in Women and Revolution, Lydia Sargent, editor (Boston: South End Press, 1981).
23. For example, see Jeff Hearn and David Collinson, "Theorizing Unities and Differences Between Men and Between Masculinities." in Theorizing Masculinities, Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman, editors (Thousand Oaks, London, and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1994).
24. In the context of African nationalism, the class origins of nationalism are discussed by John Saul, "The Dialectic of Class and Tribe," in The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa: Essays by John Saul (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1979).
25. See, for example, Linda Kintz, Between Jesus and the Market: Emotions that Matter in Right Wing America (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).
26. To a certain extent, it demystifies (or de-biologizes) masculinity as a "force" in nationalist violence. Enloe, The Morning After, and David Morgan in "Theatre of War" in Brod and Kaufman, Theorizing Masculinities, argue against the psychoanalytical view that masculinity in war is mobilized through men's anxieties about death, homoeroticism, etc. See also, Helen Pringle, "The Making of an Australian Civic Identity: The Bodies of Men and the Memory of War," in Geoffry Stokes, editor, The Politics of Identity in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
27. Gerhard Maré, Ethnicity and Politics in South Africa (London: Zed Press, 1993), 68. See also, Daphna Golan, Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu Nationalism (Boulder and London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1995); Thembisa Waetjen and Gerhard Maré, "Workers and Warriors: Inkatha's Politics of Masculinity in the 1980s," Journal of Contemporary African Studies 17/2 (1999).
28. Gerhard Maré, Ethnicity and Politics in South Africa (London: Zed Press, 1993), 68. See also, Daphna Golan, Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu Nationalism (Boulder and London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1995); Thembisa Waetjen and Gerhard Maré, "Workers and Warriors: Inkatha's Politics of Masculinity in the 1980s," Journal of Contemporary African Studies 17/2 (1999).
29. Gerhard Maré, Ethnicity and Politics in South Africa (London: Zed Press, 1993), 68. See also, Daphna Golan, Inventing Shaka: Using History in the Construction of Zulu Nationalism (Boulder and London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1995); Thembisa Waetjen and Gerhard Maré, "Workers and Warriors: Inkatha's Politics of Masculinity in the 1980s," Journal of Contemporary African Studies 17/2 (1999).
30. Tania Broughton, "Here They Are: KZN's New Casinos." (The Mercury, August 7, 2000), 7.
31. Sara Gertrude Millin, The South Africans (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927), 259.
32. Ibid., 277.
33. Patrick Harries, "Imagery, Symbolism, and Tradition in a South African Bantustan: Mangostuthu Buthelezi Inkatha and Zulu History," History and Theory 32/4 (1993).
34. Speech by King Goodwill Zwelithini, 26 May 1991, Johannesburg.
35. Buthelezi, numerous speeches.
36. Speech by Buthelezi, 1 May 1986, Durban.
37. Speech by Buthelezi, 29 may 1979, Ulundi.
38. Speech by Buthelezi, 25 September 1989, Stanger.
39. Thus, Gellner's caution that nationalism is not the reassertion of pre-colonial identities but rather the "crystallization of new ones suitable for the conditions now prevailing" can be extended more specifically to its masculinist expressions. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalisms (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), 49.
40. Official numbers calculating loss of life in this conflict have varied from 15,000 to "more than 20,000." I have chosen to cite the most conservative figure since the validity of my point is hardly further substantiated by the larger (and probably more accurate) figure.
41. "The worst election irregularities, and possibly the best case for the invalidation of an election, came from the conflict-torn province of KwaZulu-Natal. The Weekly Mail of May 6 reported that in some areas of northern KwaZulu ballot boxes, when opened, contained neatly stacked piles of ballot papers with exactly 2,000 votes for Inkatha and only a handful for the ANC. There were also reports of pirate voting stations in IFP controlled areas, accounting for anything up to 500,000 votes… the ballots were counted largely as they were…. " 210. Reynolds, Andrew, "The Results," in Andrew Reynolds, editor, Election '94, South Africa (London: James Currey; Cape Town and Johannesburg: David Philip, 1994).
42. Buthelezi has served as Minister of Home Affairs both under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki and during the 1999 elections was considered a likely candidate for deputy vice president, an office that was instead given to a less controversial Zulu, Jacob Zuma.
43. See Anthea Jeffrey, The Natal Story: 16 Years of Conflict (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997), for a full account of this conflict.
44. Gerhard Maré and Georgina Hamilton, An Appetite for Power (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1997), 227.
45. See Robert Morrell, editor, Political Economy and Identities in KwaZulu-Natal (Durban: Indicator Press, 1996).
46. For more on precapitalist Nguni societies see, for example, Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London: Longman, 1979); Jeff Guy, "Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies," in Cheiryl Walker, editor, Women and Gender in South Africa to 1945 (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990); John Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans and the State in Colonial Natal (Durban: University of Natal Press, 1995); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1996).
47. For more on precapitalist Nguni societies see, for example, Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London: Longman, 1979); Jeff Guy, "Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies," in Cheiryl Walker, editor, Women and Gender in South Africa to 1945 (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990); John Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans and the State in Colonial Natal (Durban: University of Natal Press, 1995); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1996).
48. For more on precapitalist Nguni societies see, for example, Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London: Longman, 1979); Jeff Guy, "Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies," in Cheiryl Walker, editor, Women and Gender in South Africa to 1945 (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990); John Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans and the State in Colonial Natal (Durban: University of Natal Press, 1995); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1996).
49. For more on precapitalist Nguni societies see, for example, Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London: Longman, 1979); Jeff Guy, "Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies," in Cheiryl Walker, editor, Women and Gender in South Africa to 1945 (Cape Town: David Phillip, 1990); John Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans and the State in Colonial Natal (Durban: University of Natal Press, 1995); Shula Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1996).
50. Guy, "Gender Oppression."
51. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom.
52. Maré and Hamilton, Appetite for Power, 17.
53. Morell, Wright, and Meintjes, "Colonialism and the Establishment of White Domination," in Morell, Political Economy and Identities, 57.
54. Ibid.
55. This, for example, goes some way in explaining why it was men and not women who were "available" to form the core of migrant labor in South Africa. See Belinda Bozzoli, "Marxism, Feminism, and South African Studies," Journal of Southern African Studies 9/1 (1983). The resilience of precapitalist patriarchy, with women's labor at the core of a stable subsistence, made the containment of women in the rural homestead a point of collusion between colonial and African patriarchies. As the domestic backbone of both modes of production, for a long while women were not allowed to migrate to the cities without permission of the chief.
56. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
57. Maré and Hamilton, Appetite for Power, 88.
58. Henry Slater, "The Changing Pattern of Economic Relationships in Rural Natal, 1838-1914," in Economy and Society in Pre-industrial South Africa, Shula Marks and AnthonyAttmore, editors (London: Longman Press, 1980).
59. Cherryl Walker, "Gender and the Migrant Labour System," in Walker, Women and Gender.
60. Sheila Meintjes, "Family and Gender in the Christian Community of Edendale," in Walker, Women and Gender.
61. Marks, Ambiguities; Maré and Hamilton, Appetite for Power; Morrell, Wright, and Meintjes, "Colonialism."
62. Marks, Ambiguities; Maré and Hamilton, Appetite for Power; Morrell, Wright, and Meintjes, "Colonialism."
63. Marks, Ambiguities; Maré and Hamilton, Appetite for Power; Morrell, Wright, and Meintjes, "Colonialism."
64. Shula Marks, "Patriotism, Patriarchy, and Purity; Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness," in Leroy Vail, editor, The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (London: James Currey; Berkeley University of California Press, 1989).
65. Rand Daily Mail, Jan 27, 1971, quoted in Paul Forsyth, The Past as Present: Chief ANMG Buthelezi's Use of History as a Source of Political Legitimation (Unpublished MA thesis, University of Natal, 1989), 54.
66. Forsyth, The Past as Present, 18.
67. Saul, "Dialectic of Class and Tribe," 361.
68. Buthelezi's speeches were the most important vehicle of Inkatha's nation-building. As primary spokesperson and president of Inkatha, Buthelezi's speeches are representative of the movement's rhetoric.
69. Maré and Hamilton, Appetite, 88-89.
70. Buthelezi's rightful position as a chief is uncertain due to the claim of his elder brother who was at one point exiled to the Transvaal by the South African government. See Mzala, Gatcha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda (London: Zed Press, 1988), 6.
71. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 49-52.
72. KwaZulu Legislative Assembly transcripts. 18 May 1980. Emphasis added.
73. Ibid.
74. KwaZulu Legislative Assembly transcripts. v. 24, June 1981. Emphasis added.
75. Ibid.
76. KwaZulu Legislative Assembly transcripts, v. 23, 29 May 1981.
77. KwaZulu Legislative Assembly transcripts, v. 24, June 1981.
78. For more on the Inkatha Women's brigade, see Shireen Hassim, "Family, Motherhood, and Zulu Nationalism," Feminist Review (1993); also Thembisa Waetjen, "The 'Home' in Homeland: Gender, National Space, and Inkatha's Politics of Ethnicity," Ethnic and Racial Studies 22/4 (1999).
79. For more on the Inkatha Women's brigade, see Shireen Hassim, "Family, Motherhood, and Zulu Nationalism," Feminist Review (1993); also Thembisa Waetjen, "The 'Home' in Homeland: Gender, National Space, and Inkatha's Politics of Ethnicity," Ethnic and Racial Studies 22/4 (1999).
80. Speech by Buthelezi, 4 November 1984, Ongoye.
81. Speech by Buthelezi, 18 February 1984, Kwatambamhlope.
82. Ibid.
83. TEBA Times 1994, 7.
84. See, for example, Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Viet Erlmann, Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996): William Beinhart, "Worker Consciousness, Ethnic Particularism, and Nationalism," Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, editors, Race, Class and Nation in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Longman, 1987); Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa (London: James Currey, 1994).
85. See, for example, Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Viet Erlmann, Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996): William Beinhart, "Worker Consciousness, Ethnic Particularism, and Nationalism," Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, editors, Race, Class and Nation in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Longman, 1987); Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa (London: James Currey, 1994).
86. See, for example, Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Viet Erlmann, Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996): William Beinhart, "Worker Consciousness, Ethnic Particularism, and Nationalism," Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, editors, Race, Class and Nation in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Longman, 1987); Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa (London: James Currey, 1994).
87. See, for example, Dunbar Moodie with Vivienne Ndatshe, Going for Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Viet Erlmann, Nightsong: Performance, Power and Practice in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996): William Beinhart, "Worker Consciousness, Ethnic Particularism, and Nationalism," Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido, editors, Race, Class and Nation in Twentieth Century South Africa (London: Longman, 1987); Patrick Harries, Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Laborers in Mozambique and South Africa (London: James Currey, 1994).
88. Moodie, Going for Gold, 15.
89. Ibid.
90. Agency for Industrial Mission (AIM), Another Blanket (Roodepoort: AIM 1976), 7.
91. Harries, Work, Culture and Identity, 157.
92. AIM, Another Blanket, 12 (quoted in Moodie, Going for Gold).
93. See especially chapter 7 in Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
94. Ibid, 218.
95. Robert Morrell, "Of Boys and Men: Masculinity and Gender in Southern African Studies," Journal of Southern African Studies 24/4 (1998).
96. Catherine Cambell, Identity and Gender in a Changing Society: The Social Identity of South African Township Youth (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Bristol, 1992), 622.
97. Speech by Buthelezi, 1 May 1986, Durham.
98. Speech by Buthelezi, 28 September 1985, Umlazi.
99. Speech by Buthelezi, 17 December 1978, Quadi Chief's residence.
100. TEBA times, 1982.