Land movement grows in South Africa

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33189, 31 March 1973, Page 18

Land movement grows in South Africa

j (By

JEROME CAMINADA,

of "The Times." through N.Z.P.A )

DURBAN, Mar. 30. The centre of opposition to the South African Government rests now with the black eastern part of the country, rather than with the official political white Opposition in Parliament in Cape Town. The political leaders of the Zulus north and south of Durban and of the 10 Xhosaspeaking tribes farther south are deliberately challenging the Government, one by almost daily controversial (speeches and the other by a (quieter but obstinate refusal to co-operate. i Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, the chief executive officer of (Kwazulu (“at the place of the (Zulus”) is the vocal rebel, (and Paramount Chief K. D. (Natanzima, Chief Minister of (the Transkei, is the more silent one. I Their effect on the busy 'and developing white areas of South Africa is small so (far, but they have been talk- ( ing vaguely of a federation of (the two Homelands which, (if it came to pass, would lie ■ uncomfortably round the heart of Natal. REFUSAL TO GOVT. Land is the basic argument between the two chiefs and the Government. They allege an historical right for their peoples to considerably more areas than those allotted them, and declare that they will not take the full independence offered them until they get that land. The Government refuses this request. It says that areas now called Homelands are getting aboijt 15. million more acres. These were provided for under an act passed in 1936, and that is jail that can be done. I This does not satisfy the 'claims to areas either on the borders or within the borders' of the present Transkei, which is split mainly into two parts. The same applies to Kwazulu, which, under the latest proposals, is to be! mainly a patchwork of five, separated black areas.

| From the white viewpoint, 'what matters is not how; jmuch land any race possesses, (but the use that is made of! (it. Why, they ask, does the! i sugarcane for example look (poor as soon as you move) from any one part of white! Natal into a part of Kwazula? MOVING TRIBE Their answer is. that the) African is not interested in' iimproving his methods of! (cultivation or in diligently! (tending the soil. Tradi-) (tionallv, he always moved on i (with his cattle" and other (possessions when the land) (around him was worked out ( and when he was not at war (with other tribes. ( Zululand is glorious ( (country: Its huts are less neat) (and well shaped than those) (in the Transkei, half of those) (outside mud walls are painted ! white, but gradually the) ; Zulus are changing to the! isame design. Their land is! 'even more intensely agricultural than the Transkei’s. Yet (at the African University of (Zululand, established by thel (Government in 1960 ' near (Empangeni, there is no 'faculty of agriculture. An agricultural college nearby matches up to the) Zulu demand, except for a (few students who take agriculture at the older University of Fort Hare, in the (Ciseki, south of the Transkei. Zululand’s university) (stands on a hill where, in: (the last century, one of! (Chaka's regiments was I ( placed. Its Zulu name means ( “He who eats and does not; (get satisfied." Some say the) (“eat” means killing, because) (Chaka’s men cried out “I (eat,” “I eat,” as they stabbed; (with their short spear. What-) (ever the legend, to eat is as! (obviously essential now as it I |was then, yet the Zulu goes! (his own way still in produc-! ing food. ALL GOD’S CHILDREN After land, the subject of) wages has become the knobIkierrie (war club) which i ißuthelezi wields as he goes] ! from one speaking platform '■ to another. “The wealth of South Africa belongs to all God’s children,” he said in Durban recently. This week, in Johannes-., burg, he argued that the Zulus were originally self-'

sufficient, with an abundance of food and land, but were coerced to go to the cities as a source of cheap labour. This line of attack again does not captivate the whites of South Africa, if it is to them that he is addressing his words. The self-sufficiency of which he speaks could, in their opinion have lasted only as long as there was land left to seize or waste. They would rather he made better use of what he has than ask for more. In the towns, white employers are thinking earnestly about the wage gap. but they nut forward the same arguments. Lack of continuity is the problem with African labour, they say. Last year, there was a 38 per cent turnover in the municipal labour in Durban. I pointed out that if the Africans were migrants from the Homelands allowed into the urban areas for a stipulated period only, it was not their fault if they had to move on. This was accepted by the officials and businessmen in a lively debate, but they said the same restlessness, the same inborn tendency to live only for today, was found among the permanent urban dwellers. “Bantu women are better at business,” one man said. They were more farsighted and thrifty and held the family together. Most of the African men who had succeeded in opening up a business had not lasted, for want of organisation and prudence, they said. ANOTHER LUTHER KING None of these remarks applied to the Indians, who were unmistakably closing the earnings gap between themselves and the whites. The blacks, too, were improving, but much more slowly. After hearing what the whites think of Chief Buthelezi, I asked an Indian who knows him how he regarded him. “He has developed a religious fervour as if he were a man with a mission,” was! his reply. “He won’t agree' that he has now said enough, i He seems to be convincec he’s another Martin Lnthei King.”