Emergent democracy and 'resurgent' tradition: Institutions, chieftaincy and transition in KwaZulu-Natal

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 31, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 755-771

  Beall, Jo ^a   Mkhize, Sibongiseni ^b   Vawda, Shahid ^c  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

^b Market Theatre   (South Africa)

^c UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; LEADERSHIP;

AFRICA; SOUTH AFRICA; SOUTHERN AFRICA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 31844445317     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: 14653893     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057070500370530     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. At the time the research was undertaken, Sibongiseni Mkhize was the Director of the Voortrekker Museum (now The Msunduzi Museum) in KwaZulu-Natal.
2. B. Oomen, Chiefs in South Africa: Law, Power and Culture in the Post-Apartheid Era (Oxford, James Currey and Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005), p. 11.
3. S. Berry, Chiefs Know their Boundaries: Essays on Property, Power and the Past in Asante 1896-1996 (Portsmouth NH, Heinemann, 2001)
4. P. Chabal and J.P. Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford, James Currey, 1999)
5. M. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (London, James Currey, 1996).
6. E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983)
7. L. Vail, (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989).
8. W. Beinart (1994), Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994)
9. W. Beinart and C. Bundy, Hidden Struggles in Rural South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987).
10. It is recognised that the terminology around traditional leaders is contentious and that the use of terms such as traditional authorities and chiefs have been questioned and debated in South Africa. In KZN the vernacular Zulu terms inkosi (chief) and amakhosi (chiefs) are used. The Zulu term for the institution of chieftainship is ubukhosi. When the discussion is not focused exclusively on KwaZulu-Natal the terms 'traditional leaders' and 'chiefs' are used interchangeably, here stripped of pejorative connotations.
11. N. Cope, To Bind the Nation: Solomon kaDinuzulu and Zulu Nationalism 1913-1933 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1993)
12. S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906-1908 Disturbances in Natal (London, Clarendon Press, 1970)
13. S. Marks, The Ambiguities of Dependence in South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1986)
14. S. Marks, 'Patriotism, Patriarchy and Purity: Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness', in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), pp. 215-40.
15. R. Taylor, 'Justice Denied: Political Violence in KwaZulu-Natal After 1994', African Affairs, 101 (2002), pp. 473-508.
16. A conservative estimate, calculated from the number of houses known to have been destroyed between 1987 and 1989, is that at least 10,500 people must have been displaced from their homes during this period alone (A. Jeffrey, The Natal Story: Sixteen Years of Conflict (Johannesburg, South African Institute of Race Relations, 1997).
17. A more recent estimate is that between 200,000 and 500,000 refugees fled political conflict in KZN in the period from 1984 to 1994. See E. Mariño, 'The 1994 Emergency in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Statements and Observations from the International Observer to the Emergency', Durban-Johannesburg, April-July, 1994.
18. Taylor, 'Justice Denied', p. 504.
19. Buthelezi was at first given the role of Deputy President, later ceded to Jacob Zuma, one of the few high-ranking Zulu members of the ANC. At the time of writing it was not clear where Buthelezi would be accommodated following the 2004 election.
20. The other was Western Cape Province. In 1994 nine provinces were created out of the four provinces of so-called 'white South Africa' and the ten former ethnically defined 'homelands' or 'bantustans' created under the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 and the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act in 1959.
21. This was provoked by changes in national legislation allowing incumbent elected politicians to switch party allegiances mid-term. The legislation was designed by the ANC-led national government to address, in its favour, problems being encountered at local government level in the Western Cape but the situation in KZN could not be excluded from this legislation although the implications are more ambiguous.
22. At the time, it led to the firing of three ANC Members from the Executive Committee (MECs) by the IFP Provincial Premier, Lionel Mtshali (Sunday Times, 13 April 2003).
23. While on the surface such goings on might seem nothing more than political shenanigans, they were invariably watched with some anxiety in KZN, where fears of renewed political violence lay just below the surface. Such latent fear helps explain why politically neutral commentators prefer a coalition government to narrow majorities (Mail and Guardian, 11-16 April 2003).
24. http://iafrica.com/news/saelectionfocus/news/316632.htm (last accessed 20 December 2005).
25. Sunday Times, 13 April 2003. In the Zulu language this represents a graver insult than might be conveyed in English.
26. D.C. North, 'The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development', in J. Harriss, J. Hunter and C.M. Lewis (eds), The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development (London, Routledge, 1995), pp. 17-26.
27. D.C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990).
28. J. Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992).
29. T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, An Economic Study of Institutions (New York, Macmillan, 1902).
30. M. Douglas, How Institutions Think (London, Routledge and Kegan, 1986).
31. A. Giddens, The Constitution of Society (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1984), p. 25.
32. R.H. Bates, 'Social Dilemmas and Rational Individuals: An Assessment of the New Institutionalism', in J. Harriss, J. Hunter and C.M. Lewis (eds), The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development (London, Routledge, 1995), pp. 27-48.
33. There are a few women chiefs or regents in KZN.
34. The Shepstone System was not dissimilar to indirect rule practised by the colonial administrations of Lugard in Northern Nigeria and Cameroon in British East Africa.
35. M. Butler, 'Traditional Authorities: Know Where to Land. Traditional Authority and Land in KwaZulu-Natal', Report for the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) (Pietermaritzburg, AFRA, 2002).
36. J. Laband, Rape of Sand: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 1995).
37. P. Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990), p. 170.
38. Butler, 'Traditional Authorities: Know Where to Land', p. 6.
39. Between the late eighteenth century and the mid-nineteenth century a period of political centralisation and state formation under the ascendancy of Shaka Zulu saw the rise of the Zulu kingdom. In stronger chieftaincies both hierarchies and the power of the inkosi increased, while conflict led to the flight or subjugation of weaker chiefdoms. This process is known as the mfecane (the crushing) and is the subject of much scholarly attention (see J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1982)
40. C. Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention (Cape Town, David Philip Publishers, 1998)
41. J. Wright and C. Hamilton, 'Ethnicity and Political Change Before 1840', in R. Morrell (ed.), Political Economy and Identities in KwaZulu-Natal, Historical and Social Perspectives (Durban, Indicator Press, 1996).
42. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, p. 63.
43. Baas boy is a South African term for an 'Uncle Tom' or someone who does the bidding of a white boss.
44. Informal justice systems that operate outside of a formal legal framework.
45. G. Mbeki, South Africa: The Peasants' Revolt (Baltimore, Penguin Books, 1964).
46. Beinart and Bundy, Hidden Struggles.
47. Buthelezi is an inkosi and claims royal lineage as King Cetshwayo kaMpande was his maternal great grandfather. On his father's side, he also asserts that his paternal great grandfather served the same king, as prime minister, and was a commander-in-chief of the Zulu army.
48. G. Maré and G. Hamilton, An Appetite for Power: Buthelezi's Inkatha and the Politics of 'Loyal Resistance' (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987), p. 195.
49. The appropriation of symbols extended to national resistance culture so that the yellow, green and black colours of the ANC were also the colours of Inkatha, while the Zulu shield was the symbol of Umkonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, as well as Inkatha.
50. Marks, Ambiguities of Dependence.
51. G. Maré, Brothers Born of Warrior Blood: Politics and Ethnicity in South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1992).
52. Document 65: 'Nobel Peace Prize Address' by Chief A.J. Luthuli, 11 December 1961.
53. Published in T. Karis and G.M. Gerhart, 'Volume Three: Challenge and Violence, 1953-1964'
54. in T. Karis and G. Carter (eds), From Protest to Challenge (Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1977), p. 710.
55. The 1913 Land Act confined the majority of black South Africans to 'native reserves', later to become the 'self-governing homelands'.
56. S. Jacobs, 'The Politics of Traditional Leadership', E-Politics, 11 (Cape Town, Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa, 2000), p. 1.
57. Ibid.
58. When placed in comparative perspective, the system adopted in South Africa at the national and provincial levels is close to that of Ghana, where traditional authorities have advisory, ceremonial and extra-constitutional powers and are confined to matters of the chieftaincy. At local level, however, the system veers closer to countries where traditional authorities have been incorporated into the processes of modern government such as Botswana and Zimbabwe.
59. KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Free State, Mpumalanga, North West Province and Limpopo.
60. The Municipal Structures Act (Act No. 117 of 1998) served to entrench the focus on the role of traditional authorities in local development, but still firmly under the authority of municipal councils.
61. N. Levy and C. Tapscott, 'Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa: The Challenges of Co-operative Government', in N. Levy and C. Tapscott (eds), Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa: The Challenges of Co-operative Government (Cape Town, Institute for a Democratic Alternative in South Africa, 2001), pp. 1-21.
62. Jacobs, 'The Politics of Traditional Leadership, p. 1.
63. C. Goodenough, Traditional Leaders, A KwaZulu-Natal Study, 1999 to 2001 (Durban, Independent Projects Trust, 2002), p. 20.
64. Natal Witness, 25 February 2004.
65. J. Beall, 'Decentralizing Government and De-centering Gender: Lessons from Local Government Reform in South Africa', Politics and Society, 33, 2 (June 2005), pp. 253-76.
66. M. Kentridge, An Unofficial War: Inside the Conflict in Pietermaritzburg (Cape Town, David Philip, 1990), p. 52.
67. For example, predominantly English-speaking white Natalians hesitated to join the Union of South Africa in 1910, railed against South Africa becoming a Republic in 1961, mourned the departure from the Commonwealth and relished their self-styled identity as 'The Last Outpost' of the British Empire (see J. Beall, J. Grest, H. Hughes and G. Maré, 'The Natal Option: Regional Distinctiveness within the National Reform Process', (paper presented at the Seventeenth Annual Congress of the Association for Sociology in Southern Africa, University of Natal, Durban, 1986).
68. Natal Mercury, 18 March 2002.
69. Ulundi was the capital of the self-governing territory of KwaZulu and Buthelezi's power base, Pietermaritzburg was the capital of Natal Province also a centre of ANC support, while Mtshali controversially lives in the main urban centre Durban where much bureaucratic business gets done, but insists on still keeping both provincial capitals. Vast amounts of money are spent on flying the Premier, Lionel Mtshali, and members of the Provincial Assembly from one capital to another in a Lear jet bought especially for the purpose.
70. There were subsequent amendments: KwaZulu Amakhosi and Iziphakanyiswa Amendment Act, No. 9 of 1991
71. KwaZulu Amakhosi and Iziphakanyiswa Amendment Act, No. 3 of 1992
72. KwaZulu Amakhosi and Iziphakanyiswa Amendment Act, No. 7 of 1993
73. and KwaZulu Amakhosi and Iziphakanyiswa Amendment Act, No. 19 of 1993 (Goodenough, Traditional Leaders, p. 30).
74. L. Mbatha, 'Democratising Local Government: Problems and Opportunities in the Advancement of Gender Equality in South Africa', in A.M. Goetz and S. Hassim (eds), No Shortcuts to Power: African Women in Politics and Policy Making (London, Zed Books, 2003), pp. 188-212, p. 191.
75. Cited in Goodenough, Traditional Leaders, p. 36.
76. 2 and constitutes 2 per cent of the total area of KZN. It has a population of over three million people, almost a third of the total provincial population of 9,426,017 (Stats South Africa, Republic of South Africa Census [Pretoria, Government Printer, 2001]).
77. These traditional authority areas formerly fell under the Ilembe Regional Council, a transitional governance structure that had been set up after the 1996 local government elections to cover the peri-urban area lying between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The tribal authority areas, characterised by communal land tenure arrangements, were formerly administered by the KwaZulu homeland government, which failed to develop them.
78. It was set up under the Municipal Demarcation Act (Act No. 27 of 1998) and reduced the number of municipalities from 843 to 284 (Goodenough, Traditional Leaders, p. 40). The intention was in part to engineer an element of redistribution across former white and black areas but some commentators claim that there were gerrymandering motivations involved as well, to ensure that Durban remained firmly in the hands of the ANC.
79. South African Cities Network, The State of South African Cities - 2004 (Johannesburg, The South African Cities Network [SACN], 2004).
80. S. Mkhize, P. Sithole and S. Vawda, 'Governance, Democracy and the Subject of the Traditional Authorities in the eThekweni (Durban) Metropolitan Region' (unpublished mimeo, 2001).
81. The Act allowed traditional authorities observer status in municipal councils and 20 per cent representation, but traditional authorities were given no special status over and above anyone else.
82. Traditional leaders participate in eThekwini Metro's council meetings but they cannot comprise more than 20 per cent representation on municipal councils and do not have voting rights, nor can they deal with the budget.
83. Personal Communication, Michael Sutcliffe, April 2003.
84. J. Beall with S. Mkhize and S. Vawda, 'Navigating Tradition: Traditional Authorities and Governance in eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa', International Development Planning Review, 26, 4 (2004), pp. 457-76.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid.
87. J. Beall, 'Exit, Voice and Tradition: Loyalty to Chieftainship and Democracy in Metropolitan Durban, South Africa', Crisis States Programme Working Paper No. 59 (London, Crisis States Development Research Centre, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics, January 2005).
88. Personal communication Michael Sutcliffe, April 2003.
89. Beall, 'Exit, Voice and Tradition'.
90. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
91. Bates, 'Social Dilemmas and Rational Individuals'.
92. Beall, Mkhize and Vawda, 'Navigating Tradition'
93. Beall, 'Exit, Voice and Tradition'.
94. P.A. Hall and R.C.R. Taylor, 'Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms', Political Studies, 33 (1996) pp. 13-19.
95. A. Whitehead and D. Tzikata, 'Policy Discourses on Women's Land Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re-turn to the Customary', Journal of Agrarian Change, 3, 1/2 (January and April 2003), pp. 67-112.