Mangosuthu Buthelezi
IT’S HARD to miss the symbolism of the Jesus Dome burning down on Tuesday night. This massive auditorium of the Durban Christian Centre is an iconic landmark. Thousands of people gather there to worship, to pray for our country and to seek the Lord. As flames engulfed this house of prayer, one thought dominated my mind: our nation is burning.
Forty years ago, a similar fire was raging in South Africa. It was the height of apartheid and the oppressed masses were mobilising for change. For several years, since the banning of the ANC, SACP and other organisations, we experienced a hiatus in political activity.
But in 1975, on the advice of Dr Kenneth Kaunda, the first President of Zambia, and with the agreement of the ANC’s leadership in exile, Inkatha yeNkululeko yeSizwe was born.
Once again our people had a home, a centre of political mobilisation that drew together all oppressed South Africans. Suddenly political activity increased and the fight for freedom was strengthened.
But the voice of liberation movements outside South Africa and the voice of Inkatha was not always the same. Inkatha understood the ideological imperatives and we sought the same outcome of liberation and political enfranchisement. We felt the distress of our people and we heard their cries. We understood that people needed hope and relief as much as they needed to fight.
Inkatha therefore focused on building something better in the midst of the storm. We fought with one hand and built with the other. We took a long-term view and chose to protect the country our people would inherit. It made no sense to destroy South Africa and inherit a country in ashes.
The message from outside, however, was different. From exile, the leaders of liberation organisations called on South Africa’s oppressed to destroy the country. The campaign of making it ungovernable included burning schools and destroying property, violently protesting the inferiority of infrastructure provided to black South Africa.
Across our country, classrooms burned. Lessons stopped and children wandered the streets absorbing the message that education has no value against politics. There was only one place black children could be found at school, learning and securing their future, and that was in KwaZulu.
For in KwaZulu, Inkatha replaced the slogan “Liberation Now, Education Later” with the clarion call “Education for Liberation”. Ignorance provides no leverage against oppression. Only knowledge and education can upset the balance and bring change.
Inkatha had to defend this position, particularly after 1979 when our refusal to engage in an armed struggle made us the target of vilification by the ANC’s mission-in-exile. But no amount of propaganda could change our position. We knew, and we warned, that if a culture of lawlessness and destruction took root during our struggle, it would continue to bear fruit long after liberation.
Fast forward to June 2016, and we see Durban CBD shut down by protesters as they block streets and damage cars, while in Vuwani about 20 schools lie in ashes.
On university campuses across the country buildings have been burned, artworks destroyed and buses set alight. There have been shootings. Lectures have been stalled and exams postponed.
There is no indication of where this will end, for in Vuwani we saw schools burning even after interventions by national leaders and government ministers.
There is no will among the people to stop the destruction, and so it continues.
We know that much is related to the #FeesMustFall campaign, which is part of a broader debate on political promises that have never been met.
When protests first began escalating, the message at their core was anger over service delivery. But now protests encompass dissatisfaction over municipal demarcation and anger over ANC candidates’ lists. Thus councillors’ houses are torched and candidates murdered.
So, yes, our nation is burning. The roots of this culture of destruction lie deep in the soil of the past. This generation is doing what it saw its parents’ generation do when faced with oppression and injustice. Have we learned nothing from the past?
The writer George Orwell said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
We have made a choice. We are doing this to ourselves. We have chosen destruction and mayhem as a response to hardship. But it can