By William Beinart, Custom Contested
It may seem mischievous
to suggest that Jacob Zuma’s thinking on chiefs and traditional authority
echoes that of the infamous apartheid leader H.F. Verwoerd. But, oddly enough,
the two men had similar decisions to make about the future of rural South
Africa, and the path Zuma is choosing is not all that different from the one
his white predecessor trod.
In 1956, the apartheid
government was presented with the report of the Tomlinson Commission. It was an
ambitious prospectus for the development of the African reserves, which this
Stellenbosch professor of Agricultural Economics believed was essential if
apartheid was to succeed. Only through
massive state investment in rural development could the prospective homelands
ever take off. Only in this way could
the surge of African migration to the major cities be stopped Tomlinson was clear about the alternatives: either his plan was implemented or apartheid
would fail.
He suggested investment
of over £100 million (73 times that much now). Three amongst many key proposals
stand out. African landholding should be consolidated and privatised. Private investment, including foreign
investment, should be allowed. And rapid
rural industrialisation should be funded by the state.
It is often thought that
Tomlinson shaped homeland policy, but this is only partly true. Verwoerd had then been Minister of Native
Affairs for six years. Hugely energetic,
he had expanded his department to become a state within a state. He resented this well-publicised commission,
appointed by his predecessor, which was not directly under his control. Verwoerd is often seen as an ideologue and
relentless protagonist for ‘separate development’. But he was also a pragmatist concerned about
power.
Verwoerd rejected these three
central recommendations partly because he thought they went too far for the
white electorate, but also because the vision of individual landholdings would
have put paid to his policy of devolving power to African chiefs. He believed
that apartheid could best be built around a conservative, traditionalist rural
hierarchy and wanted to keep chiefs as his clients. They were to be the primary
mechanism through which the Afrikaner nationalists would control black rural
South Africa and secure compliant satellite statelets.
Tomlinson’s proposals
would have been very disruptive, possibly created much poverty in the short
term by undercutting access to land for hundreds of thousands of families. It is doubtful that the state could ever have
invested sufficient to secure systematic industrialisation. But at least Tomlinson saw the potential of
the rural areas and offered a route to modernity and development. Verwoerd won,
entrenching an ossified traditional leadership, customary law and a
semi-functional and patriarchal system of local government.
Today, the African
National Congress talks a great deal about the legacy of the Bantustans and the
poverty it has left in the countryside. Yet one of the most important and
underestimated legacies was the entrenchment of chiefs. Here the ANC’s thinking is more ambivalent
and it does not ask the question of whether chiefs were part of the legacy of
poverty and failed development. The ANC
has changed direction of late in ways which previous leaders and especially
activists may have found disturbing.
The ANC had a house of
chiefs at its origins, but this fell away as it became a mass movement and went
into exile. It found some heroic chiefs
such as Albert Luthuli, President in the 1950s and early 1960s, and Sabata
Dalindyebo, the ‘Comrade King’ of the Thembu who was deposed by Matanzima and
went into exile. Chiefs and Kings seemed
to be there at most for some traditionalist legitimacy and not as part of government. Luthuli himself was adamantly opposed to
tribal authorities and committed to democratic practices: ‘Inside this closed world [Bantustans] there
is no hint, not the remotest suggestion, of democratic rule. There is provision
only for the march back to tribalism – but in a far more dictatorial form than
Shaka dreamed of. The modes of government … are neither democratic nor
African.’
But the founding of the
Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) in 1987 provided a
vehicle for chiefs within the ANC alliance.
Some older national leaders like Nelson Mandela respected the
institution and preferred to have chiefs on his side. In 1990 Patekile Holomisa became president of
Contralesa and helped to shed the image of chiefs as sell-outs. Mandela
supported Contralesa’s presence at the negotiations and believed that houses of
traditional leaders would ensure that they became non-partisan servants of the
people. After 1994, Mangosuthu Buthelezi
and the IFP were able to protect chiefs in the government of national unity as
well as in KwaZulu-Natal. Some read
lessons from Mozambique where the abolition of chiefs was seen to have
undermined local government and to have fed support for the Renamo rebel
movement. The ANC government agreed to continue paying the chiefs and passed a
Remuneration of Traditional Leaders Act in 1995.
The 1996 constitution was
vague about traditional leaders. The ANC
initially seemed to favour a system of local government that largely excluded
them. Although there was some disagreement,
the dominant view was that chiefs should be non-political and merely represent
a certain element of African identity and history. But in addition to receiving direct payment,
those who consider themselves traditional authorities have been keen to remain
as gatekeepers at a local level so that they can be conduits for resources from
the state. In a number of areas they have been successful in maintaining a
parallel administrative structure at the village level. During the homeland period (c. 1950s to
1994), chiefs and headmen were often accused of corruption or of keeping
resources to themselves and their supporters.
This was one of the causes of the Mpondoland revolt in 1960 and of the
Ciskeian insurrections in the 1980s.
However, since the transition to democracy, chiefs have pointed to the
corruption of elected local office-holders and argued that they represent a
better alternative. Even if not popular, many have retained some authority at
the local and regional level.
The central government
has secured some of the old tribal authority boundaries and institutions
through the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act of 2003. Critically, it provides for the potential
extension of the areas under traditional authorities. The Communal Land Rights Act of 2004 (which
has not been implemented as declared unconstitutional) and the Traditional
Courts Bill of 2012 indicated further the changing balance of power and opinion
within the government. Although some of
these measures were promulgated under President Mbeki, President Zuma has
emphasised the role of chiefs. The ANC
has come to see chiefs as able to deliver a block rural vote. The movement has consistently gained its
highest percentage vote in rural provinces such as Limpopo and Mpumalanga, as
well as parts of the Eastern Cape, not in the cities. In fact, it is by no means clear that
traditional authorities play a significant role in mobilising rural votes.
And so, there has been a
remarkable turnaround. Under the
Afrikaner nationalists, there were two key poles of power in the rural areas:
white commercial farmers and African chiefs.
Both played to relatively narrow interests. The transition to democracy seemed to offer
new political space and new promise for a different kind of rural
development. Now, under President Zuma,
the ANC seems to be consolidating chiefly power, or at least providing strong
opportunities for the chiefs to operate politically and administratively. Some are well-organised and believe very strongly
in their legitimacy and their role. Like
Verwoerd, President Zuma seems to believe that supporting the chiefs is a good
way to tap rural support. In so doing, the ANC is opening the way for a
reassertion of undemocratic, patriarchal forms of government.
In Bafokeng and elsewhere
royal groups have gained control of massive new resources through mining. The recent reopening of restitution claims,
which President Zuma strongly backs, may be one of the most significant new
measures for extension of the chiefs’ power.
The Zulu royal house has already indicated that it wishes to lodge a
major new ethnic land claim. There are
other chieftaincy claims brewing in KZN. In the first round of restitution,
land claims were made on an individual basis or by local communities. The ANC specifically tried to rule out ethnic
claims by large groups of people precisely because they would undermine
hard-won national identities. Now the
route seems to be open to major claims led by chiefs. The scope for patronage, should any of these
be won, is enormous, as are the dangers of ethnic mobilisation and ethnic
competition.
Chieftaincy and communal
tenure may creep outwards from the former homelands. Have South Africans debated whether they want
wall-to-wall chiefs? Things may rapidly
go in this direction. Have they debated
whether chiefs were and are part of the problem of rural poverty? Opinions may be divided in the rural areas
but are these the legacies that South Africa wishes to promote? Is President Zuma having his Verwoerd moment
– seeing in the chiefs a conservative base for rural support at a time when the
ANC may feel threatened by increasingly significant (though diverse) new forces
– a rising black middle class, radical workers action and the EFF?
