Custom and the Politics of Sovereignty in South Africa

Abstract

Four eras of tribal and state formation have marked the modern history of South Africa. The conquest years of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of a colonial state and the reworking of ethnic identities tied to tribal political structures within an imperial context. The 1920s witnessed the rise of segregation and “retribalization” as set out in legislation such as the 1920 Native Affairs Act and the 1927 Native Administration Act. This and other legislation further bureaucraticized state administration of Africans and moved the country towards territorial segregation in what one scholar has described as a system of “decentralized despotism.” 1 In the 1950s, with legislation such as the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act, the third era began with the Bantustan policies of grand apartheid, wherein the former reserves would become sovereign nation-states. Apartheid was many things, but most obviously it was a system of tribalist social engineering and bureaucratic authoritarianism. The fourth era of ethnic and state formation began roughly a decade ago with South Africa’s first democratic elections. The new government inherited colonialtribalstructures,somewelloveracenturyold.Politicianswereacutelyaware that reconstructing the state in the former homelands would be a formidable undertaking. They inherited a weakened economy, diminished state resources, and a host of seemingly intractable problems. Considerable political instability and continued institutional collapse marked the Transkei and other rural areas. Just a few years after the 1994 elections, the government considered calling in the army into parts of the Transkei to restore order, a clear indication of political involution and the tenuousness of their grip on the former homeland. In one part of the former homeland, none other than Chief Matanzima, the former and considerably-hated Bantustan leader, headed a tribal court where people appeared before him as “Transkei citizens,” citizens of a polity that no longer existed. Apartheid, it seems, has had many deaths, some rather more drawn out than others. The situation in Kwa-Zulu/Natal posed acute challenges to the African National Congress. The 1994 political settlement between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party, in which the ANC in effect conceded the ill-begotten IFP victory, also resulted in a recognition—however begrudgingly—of the political salience of tribalism in rural areas of the country. Earlier, in the late 1980s, “traditional” rulers had formed the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (CONTRELESA). In the 1990s, during the negotiations for a new constitution, CONTRELESA lobbied for an important role of traditional authorities within the new South Africa. More generally, polling seemed to suggest that there existedwidespreadsupportfor“traditionalrulers”intheformerhomelands. 2 Given