What a difference a decade makes. Ten short years and Bheki Mtolo has morphed from being the ANC Youth League hothead who led his comrades on an election campaign to the home of the then IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi — a challenge that Buthelezi and the IFP found provocative — into being the nonageranian’s greatest praise-singer.
In 2011 Mtolo almost single-handedly plunged relations between the IFP and the ANC into a new crisis when he insisted on leading his comrades to Mahlabathini, in Zululand, where they said they planned to canvass for votes, even at the home of the Inkatha leader. IFP supporters reacted by blockading the road leading to Buthelezi’s homestead, threatening dire consequences for anyone who dared try to force their way to the house.
At the time Mtolo was the ANC Youth League provincial secretary and, like many in the ANC then, must have seen Buthelezi as a spent force — the IFP had lost much of its traditional support base to a Jacob Zuma-led ANC and to the breakaway National Freedom Party.
Things have clearly changed, because when Buthelezi celebrated his 94th birthday last week, Mtolo — who is now ANC provincial secretary — was falling over himself to sing the Inkatha founder’s praises.
If you were irked at the level of state pampering for King Zwelithini, I have news for you: King Misuzulu is in a better position than his father to demand even more
“Our father,” Mtolo called Buthelezi in a statement he issued on the day. He went on to describe him as a “flame that can never be extinguished” and said his “exemplary leadership is what all of us in leadership positions must [strive] to emulate”.
No mention of the two decades of conflict between the ANC and Buthelezi that led to the deaths of thousands of people between 1983 and the mid-1990s.
Buthelezi was clearly pleased — he called Mtolo’s statement a “deeply encouraging gesture” by the new KwaZulu-Natal ANC leadership and gushed that he liked it so much that “I almost read it twice”.
There have been many attempts to mend relations between the two parties and all have fallen flat.
Buthelezi would be naïve to think that the latest round of talks will yield any results. Mtolo and the rest of the new leadership of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal are no fans of the IFP veteran.
Mtolo is now the provincial head of an ANC that is not only haemorrhaging support, but also losing its credibility as a leader of society.
The party’s internal analysis of the decline points to its poor relationship with traditional leaders — specifically the Zulu royal family. The late King Goodwill Zwelithini did not mince his words about his unhappiness with the ANC government before his death. He had a number of grievances, but at the top of the list was the recommendation of the high-level review panel led by former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe that the Ingonyama Trust be scrapped. The trust controls almost 30% of the land in the province.
The king also regarded his state salary and other perks as inadequate. This, and the unhappiness of the Shembe church about how the courts have handled disputes involving it, has led the ANC in province to believe these grievances could sink its prospects of retaining control of the province in 2024.
Hence the new leaders of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal are falling over themselves to be seen to be on the right side of the new monarch, King Misuzulu kaZwelithini. If you were irked at the level of state pampering for King Zwelithini, I have news for you: King Misuzulu is in a better position than his father to demand even more.
But to get to King Misuzulu, the ANC has to compete with Buthelezi, whose position as traditional prime minister gives him unlimited access to the throne. Thus the ANC’s new provincial leaders are resorting to sometimes desperate measures that are frowned upon by others in the governing party.
They have gone all out to give King Misuzulu exalted status and be seen as his loudest cheerleaders. When it was reported that the ANC integrity commission’s annual report had recommended that the Ingonyama Trust Act be repealed, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal was quick to reject the proposal and declare it was not ANC policy.
When the royal family faction that supports King Misuzulu conducted a traditional ceremony to introduce him to the ancestors as the new monarch, ANC leaders turned out in their droves, all dressed in leopard-skin regalia and chanting Zulu war cries louder than Buthelezi.
Even more worrying is the language ANC leaders use in public. It is becoming extremely difficult to tell if the voice you’re hearing is that of an ANC leader or of some cultural organisation formed to advance Zulu nationalism
And then, as the cherry on top, the province’s new education MEC Mbali Frazer recommended that all schools should celebrate King Misuzulu’s ascendance to the throne by wearing traditional regalia last Tuesday — a gesture that seemingly couldn’t wait for Heritage Day.
It all smacked of Ubuntu-botho, a subject the IFP introduced in KwaZulu homeland schools in the apartheid era that was intended to instil party values. Instead of instilling progressive ideas in our schoolchildren — such as taking pride first and foremost in a national South African identity — Frazer’s initiative only served to indoctrinate a regressive Zulu nationalism.
Even more worrying is the language ANC leaders use in public. It is becoming extremely difficult to tell if the voice you’re hearing is that of an ANC leader or of some cultural organisation formed to advance Zulu nationalism.
The perceived Zulufication of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal goes against the objectives of the party founders who met in Bloemfontein 110 years ago. Then there was a realisation among black leaders that the wars against oppression that had been fought by individual tribes would have been won if Africans had put their differences aside and formed a single movement. Of course this did not bury the demon of tribalism, which survives across the country to this day, but it created a vision of the SA we aspire to live in.
The contemporary challenge facing the ANC is how to unite all South Africans behind the idea of creating one nation — and not the elevation of some tribal enclaves over others. Our continent is awash with examples of how neighbours turned against each other because they identified as a different tribe.
This country has many problems. Race relations are at an all-time low.
There remains tension between Africans and Indians in the Durban area following the July riots last year in which more than 300 people were killed in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. The new leadership of the ANC is yet to outline ways of addressing the underlying issues that erupted into violence in Phoenix last year.
Instead, divisions deepened when the party failed to choose a single non-African leader for its provincial executive committee in July. To rub salt into the wound, Ravi Pillay, the only Indian MEC, lost his post in a recent reshuffle of the provincial cabinet.
Concern about the exclusion of minorities from positions of power in that province has been met with an arrogant and dismissive attitude of “Why bother? Minority groups generally vote for the opposition.”
This is the short-sightedness of the new leadership of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal. Minorities have not shunned the ANC because of its policies, they have done so because of its failure to run a competent government. Instead of wrestling the IFP for a seat at King Misuzulu’s table, the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal should direct its energies towards improving its performance in government. It can do so by appointing competent, qualified administrators and dealing decisively with those accused of stealing state resources — instead of marching in their support.
The march to Zulu nationalism will only strain relations within the society that the ANC claims to lead.
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