‘Freedom’ for a rural slum

Press, 16 June 1982, Page 25

‘Freedom’ for a rural slum

From

ALLISTER SPARKS

in Johannesburg

South Africa's tribal homelands policy is about to achieve a new level of absurdity.

The miniscule homeland of Kwa-Ndebele. created two years ago out of 16 farms about 70 miles north of Pretoria. is to be granted independence. The homeland is for the Ndebele tribe, an offshoot of the famous Zulus. Most Ndebeles made their way into Zimbabwe in the nineteenth century, where today they form the basis of Joshua Nkomos support, but fragments were left behind in the northern Transvaal.

The creation of a homeland for them is entirely artificial. In fact. Kwa-Nde-bele is little more' than a dumping ground for economically redundant blacks being evicted from South Africa’s towns and cities. Its main feature is a chain of 12 resettlement camps in which an estimated 180,000 people have been dumped over the last two years, more than doubling’ the area's original population. There is no economic development. According to the authoritative Institute of Race Relations. 2640 people are employed in the homeland. or 1.6 per cent of the official population. A further 35,000, or 21 per cent, work in nearby white towns. The rest are unemployed. Apart from the resettlement camps, there is only one town. Siyabuswa, specially built as a capital. It has a legislative assembly, government offices, a school a teachers' training college, and a few business establishments. most of which belong to members of the homeland Cabinet.

The thriving liquor store is owned by Chief Minister, Simon Skosana, a former vegetable seller who failed to complete primary school. None of the Cabinet attended high school. Yet, this month, a delegation from this artificiallycreated rural slum called on the South African Minister in charge of African affairs. Dr Piet Koornhof, to announce their desire to' become an independent republic.

Dr Koornhof said afterwards the talks had been “very positive and constructive.". An interim committee will be set up to prepare the

way for independence and draw up development and consolidation plans. "If it were not so tragic it would be hilarious, pure music-hall comedy," was the comment of Mrs’ Ina Perlman. regional secretary of the Institute of Race Raia tions. The comedy is in ihe homeland's everyday hl<- as well as in its aspirations to national viability. Foi ex ample, the Assistant Chief Magistrate, Johannes Mahlangu, is currently on the run from a group of tribal traditionalists in charge of an initiation school who have discovered he was not circumcised as a youth. According to tribal traditions, all males must go through an initiation ceremony. including circumcision without anaesthetic, by the tribal elders; to be acknowledged as men. Modern, educated Africans reject such antiquated customs, but the South African Government’s policy is to preserve ethnic "cultures" and so they find encouragement in the homelands. When members of the initiation school arrived outside the magistrate’s office in Siyabuswa, Mahlangu abandoned the case he was hearing and fled. The Parliamentary Secretary, Theta Masombuka, was less fortunate; he was captured and taken to the initiation school. “Where else in the world," asks the black magazine “Drum,” “could a country's legislative and judicial machinery grind to a halt because key bureaucrats are in possession of their foreskins?"

Independance for the homelands suits the South African Government because as each homeland becomes independent, all. Africans belonging to the tribe concerned are stripped of their South African citizenship and made citizens of the new State;, whether they live in it or not. When Kwa-Ndebele becomes independent, not only the 166,000 or more inhabitants of the homeland but also the 274,000 members of the Ndebele tribe who live elsewhere in South Africa, will aIL lose their South African citizenship and become Kwa-Ndebele citizens.