Is South Africa a country of one nation or is it an amalgamation of many nations? I ask because these days it seems fashionable for ethnic groups — be they Amazulu, AbaThembu or even Bapedi — to declare themselves nations.
South Africa as one nation is what the three liberation movements of this country — the ANC, the PAC and the Black Consciousness Movement — aspired and fought for.
The idea of many nations is what the colonial and apartheid regimes wanted us to be: many nations, each united by ethnic and language affiliation; and where such characteristics were assumed to make us all so incompatible that we each had to have our own little country and government.
Except that whites — despite the different languages and cultures between the English, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese and the Afrikaans speaking group — were to remain one white nation in one united country.
Whereas the gospel of divide and rule preached that Vhavenda and Vatsonga, Bapedi, Batswana and Basotho, Amazulu and Amaxhosa, were so different that each “nation” had to have its own mickey mouse republic like Transkei, Ciskei, Venda and Bophuthatswana, the others were presumed to have been on their way to nationhood.
It was in fighting these imaginary divisions that all three liberation movements spoke of one country with one nation. The gathering of the clergy, intellectuals and chiefs on January 8 1912 in Mangaung to form the then South African Native Congress, the formation of the PAC in 1959 and the emergence of the BCM in 1967, were all based on the notion of one nation. The BCM slogan captured it succinctly as “One Azania, One Nation”.
The idea of many nations is what the colonial and apartheid regimes wanted us to be: many nations, each united by ethnic and language affiliation; and where such characteristics were assumed to make us all so incompatible that we each had to have our own little country and government.
Whether it was the “non racialism” of the ANC, or the “one human race” of the PAC’s Mangaliso Sobukwe, or the “anti racist, no minorities and no majorities” of Steve Biko, they were all centred on the oneness of this nation. And save for the beneficiaries of the Bantustan system, both white and non white, the rest of us all accepted that we were one people.
So where do the Zulu, Abathembu or Bapedi nations now in vogue come from?
When King Zwelithini died in 2021, the airwaves were full of this king of the Zulu nation talk. Even the president and ministers spoke of the Zulu nation. The Bapedi of Ga-Sekhukhune recently announced they were now a nation and that former premier, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, had been appointed their prime minister.
This week, with the very interesting new friend of the Zionist state of Israel, King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, returning from a visit to occupied Palestine, he is being described as King of the AbaThembu nation. In fact the royal houses of AbaThembu issued a statement sanctioning Dalindyebo, saying “he is not bigger than the AbaThembu nation”.
Since when have we accepted the divisive apartheid terminology of describing ethnic groups as nations. From journalists, some very senior broadcasters, to leaders in government, people have joined the rush to the bottom, ditching the language of progress and embracing the terminology of regression.
People nonchalantly adopt and use words that embody the seeds of division while speaking of a rainbow nation (not nations) united in diversity. How does Ramatlhodi, who boasts of having worked in OR Tambo’s office in Lusaka, square the circle of now being a prime minister of an ethnic group that he deems a nation? Was he a premier of many nations in Limpopo back then?
This is one country, with one nation, and the absurdity of the alleged multiplicity of nations in one nation has to stop. If not, are we saying that Chief Patrick Mphephu was right in defining me as part of the imaginary Venda nation to the exclusion of my rights to the rest of the country?
The trend of ethnic-based political parties is already showing: the National Coloured Congress is a good example, even though they clothe their character as regional parties. Are we now going to see parties emerge and mobilise on a purely ethnic basis supposedly given that they are nations in their own right?
The distance between ethnic pride and tribalism is very slim, with the latter being strong loyalty and devotion to one’s own ethnic group over others and actually being hostile to those outside. Ask Nigerians who are old enough to remember Biafra, it starts with accentuating ethnicity into nationhood.
It has got to stop and the start is for the media and leaders of our country to stop pandering to ethnic chauvinists whose aim is to destroy the unity of this nation.
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