/ 18 July 1997

New culture of hope in KwaZulu

Political rivals could be discovering a way to peace through a growing sense of Zulu nationalism, writes Eddie Koch

IT may just be that the troubled people of KwaZulu-Natal will find their peace not through delicate diplomacy or a tough approach to law and order, but because the ebb and flow of two less tangible forces is soothing their land: history and heritage.

That a Zulu renaissance is flowing through parts of the province, bringing old enemies together in a new exploration of their common traditions, was first suggested to me during a chance meeting with an old colleague recently in Durban.

“It is unbelievable,” said Enoch Mthembu, a young reporter who worked on many of our newspaper’s investigations into the causes of KwaZulu-Natal’s violence. “There was a time when I did not tell people I belonged to the Shembe Church. I was ashamed and thought what its followers did was weird and primitive.

“Now there is a branch of Shembe at Ngoye University. You can hear them beating their drums and they dance around on campus dressed in animal skins. This was unthinkable in our day. We were taught to look down on tribalism. Now many of us are seeing how important it is to link up with our ancestors and history and religion.”

Mthembu went on to tell, with great pride, about the stabbing spear that his grandfather used in the battle of Isandlwana. It was still leaning against a wall in his parents’ home near Empangeni.

And he was spending a lot of time thinking, he said, about the day his grandad was buried in full battle regalia. “I didn’t think of it at the time. But maybe it would have been nice to keep that leopard skin.”

Was this a quirky response from a young man who has seen too much violence and is worn down by the trauma of it all? Or was his zest for an off-beat religion and the history of his ancestors the sign that a Promethean movement is at play in the province, providing its people with the spirit they need to cope with their past?

Mi Hlatshwayo, the worker-poet who became famous in the 1980s for exhorting his comrades on the barricades, answers with an anecdote.

“I have just come from Hlabisa [near the Umfolozi Game Reserve] where they make beautiful baskets and beads. I bought a drum and a shield there. And I took them home with pride,” says Hlatshwayo.

“There was a time when these things were associated with a particular political perspective and had a negative meaning. There is more pride and creativity now as violence has subsided and some cultural freedom has been guaranteed.”

There are other signs of cultural renewal in the province.

The women weavers of Hlabisa, for example, are beginning to weave beautiful patterns into their beer baskets that tell the legends and lore of their communities. Says Hlatshwayo: “Craft-workers all over the province are realising that the more authentic their creations are the more interesting they will be to their clients.”

Township theatre groups in some parts of the country are blending praise poems and the memories of their elders into their drama. This trend is being encouraged at the Playhouse Theatre in Durban where – according to Ari Sitas, poet and dean of arts at the University of Natal – a “left Zulu nationalism” can be discerned in its work.

And dance troupes in some of the most remote corners of the province are incorporating old war dances into their repertoire. “We’ve got this cultural group here in Mboza [a village on the Pongola River near the border with Mozambique],” said development worker Clive Poultney.

“Its members were into this Sarafina stuff until we told them, `Hey, people can watch that crap on TV. People are more likely to be interested in you if you use the dance styles of your Maputaland [the region around Mboza]’.”

Jacob Luvuno, development manager for Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, believes the new mood holds enormous prospects for peace and economic revival in his region.

“Just a short while ago we found the African National Congress trying to discredit the Inkatha Freedom Party because its members carried traditional weapons. And the IFP was using these weapons to push their own objectives,” Luvuno said.

“Now we find places where the youth are talking to traditional leaders about setting up cultural events and starting heritage sites that will form the basis of a new tourism industry in their areas. Both parties are saying `Hey! There are new businesses to be had’, and are beginning to co-operate around their common culture.”

The causes of KwaZulu-Natal’s new nationalism are dispersed and complex. Mthembu believes members of his generation have been given the lead by ANC leaders like Jacob Zuma and Jeff Radebe who pitch up at political meetings these days dressed in traditional garb and shouting “Bayete”.

Hlatshwayo’s organisation, the KwaZulu-Natal Arts and Culture Council, is self- consciously encouraging a revival of a non- partisan Zulu culture. “In the 1970s and 1980s the cultural heritage of the Zulus was degraded by politics and we did not see the goodness of culture as pure culture,” he says.

“With democracy a new culture is emerging in which we are all seeing that tradition is beautiful and neutral and that we can all identify with it outside politics.”

But as Zulu pride is being depoliticised, it may also be creating something new in the political mood of the province.

Mthembu says the divide between militant youth and conservative traditional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal – the single most important factor underlying the sectarian violence of the 1980s – is being bridged as young people find comfort and value in the wisdom of their elders.

The peace talks between Inkatha and the ANC, which some commentators say are heading for a merger between the one-time rivals, centre around a growing sense of Zulu nationalism. One of the symptoms is that – as their colleagues delve into their common roots – white members of both parties are increasingly finding themselves out on a limb.

Hlatshwayo is more cautious: “Traditional leaders have always recognised their culture as something ideal. Now the youth are coming back and there is common room where meetings and discussions take place. What happens with that closeness, that coming together, is still a question.”

Sitas believes there are still many fragments in the new movement. The shantytowns around Durban, where the realities of penury and neglect continue to make life harsh and brutish, show little signs of healing through heritage.

“You cannot eat shards of a rainbow at the moment,” he says. “This thing is still very vague. We must wait to see how it defines the present.”