07-14-2021, 09:57 PM
*** 15-Jul-21 World View -- South Africa tribal violence spreading and growing
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** South Africa tribal violence spreading and growing
****
![[Image: g210714b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g210714b.jpg)
Burning warehouse in Durban following riots gives rise to fears of food and fuel shortages (Reuters)
Communal violence is spreading in South Africa, led by members of the
Zulu tribe. More than 70 people have been killed and more than 1,200
people have been arrested, as the violence continues into the eighth
day.
Rioters have been looting shopping centers, stores and warehouses,
possibly emulating the antifa-blm looters in Portland and Chicago.
There are already pockets of hunger in South Africa, and it's feared
that the looting will make shortages of food and fuel worse.
The rioting was triggered by the jailing of South Africa's
ex-president Jacob Zuma, a charismatic and popular Zulu leader who was
ousted from his own ANC party over accusations of corruption and rape.
For several weeks, Zuma has been calling on his supporters to prevent
his arrest by locking arms and blocking the police from arresting
him. He has often been seen singing his favorite revolutionary song
"Umshini Wami" (Bring me my machine gun), often accompanied by him
swirling his hips and skillfully doing a traditional Zulu dance. He
used that song frequently during his political campaigns.
The two largest tribes in South Africa are the Zulu tribe and the
Xhosa tribe. Between them, they make up a third of South Africa’s 55
million people.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the only political party that
has won elections since South Africa's independence in 1994. Thus,
the leader of the ANC always goes on to become the president. Up
until recently, the Zulu and Xhosa tribes have dominated the ANC.
The ANC hero, Nelson Mandela, a Xhosa, became the first president of
the ANC and of South Africa in 1994. He was followed by Mandela's
hand-picked successor, Thabo Mbeki, another Xhosa. The ANC became
sharply divided in Decenber 2007, when when Mbeki lost a bruising
battle for ANC leadership with a Zulu, Jacob Zuma.
****
**** Xenophobic violence during Jacob Zuma's term
****
In 2008, xenophobic violence against immigrants from other African
countries, originating in Alexandria, a suburb of the capital city
Johannesburg, spread east into the Zulu heartland of Durban and west
into Cape Town. The violence was spurred by a poor economy and a lack
of jobs, with the accusations that other African immigrants were
taking the good jobs.
Tens of thousands of immigrants were forced to flee for their lives
from their homes and businesses, often with no time to collect their
belongings before their homes and businesses were looted and
destroyed. The violence and looting were generally perpetrated by
young South Africans from the Zulu and Xhosa tribes. (See "South Africa will create 'temporary shelters' for migrants, not 'refugee camps' (31-May-2008)"
)
The xenophobic violence was repeated in 2015 when thousands of people,
mostly foreigners from Zimbabwe and Malawi, fled for their lives,
after mobs with machetes attacked them in the city of Durban. Durban
is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal,
which is the heartland of the Zulu tribe. The anti-immigrant violence
spread to Johannesburg. It's believed that the attacks were triggered
by remarks made by Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, who said in a public
speech, "We are requesting those who come from outside to please go
back to their countries." ( "17-Apr-15 World View -- South African xenophobic violence echoes 1820s Mfecane Zulu massacre"
)
****
**** Cyril Ramaphosa, from the Venda tribe, becomes president
****
Jacob Zuma was ousted from the party before his second term ended in
2018. He is facing 16 charges of corruption, fraud, graft and
racketeering relating to a 1999 purchase of weapons and gear from
European arms firms when he was deputy president. In 2006, he was in
court for the alleged rape of a colleague's HIV-positive daughter. He
was acquited of those charges, but not before bragging that he had
unprotected sex with the woman, but avoided catching HIV by taking a
shower after sex.
A surprise candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa, won the ANC leadership in 2017,
in a close battle with the favored Zulu candidate. Ramaphosa is a
member of the Venda tribe, a small tribe with fewer than 700,000
people, living near the border with Zibabwe.
Ramaphosa became president in the hope that he could be relatively
neutral between the Zulus and Xhosas, and could resolve the
divisiveness between those two tribes. One businessman voter was
quoted as saying,
<QUOTE>"There are not enough Venda to hijack the country.
When Thabo Mbeki was president [from 1999 to 2008], you had to be
Xhosa to get anywhere. Under Zuma, the Zulus have led the way. I
am hoping that Cyril as a Venda will have to involve all South
Africans because his own people are so few."<END QUOTE>
There have been very divisive issues during Cyril Ramaphosa's term as
president, and Ramaphosa has been successful in defusing most of them.
The most explosive one was the proposal to confiscate the land of
white farmers without compensation. Ramaphosa found a way to mitigate
the land confiscation without compensation to make it less divisive.
However, probably the most explosive issue of all has been the jailing
of Jacob Zuma for corruption, and that has led to the current tribal
violence that appears to be increasing.
****
**** Brief generational history of South Africa
****
Human existence has forever been controlled by one major law: That the
population always grows more quickly than the food supply. This is
the reason why every society has to have an existential, genocidal war
every 80 years or so. The purpose of the war is to kill off enough
people so that the survivors have enough food to eat.
That appears to be what happened in southern Africa at the end of the
1700s. Population levels were increasing rapidly, and resources were
increasingly scarce. The introduction of corn by the Europeans had
the double effect of producing more food, but using more water to
grow. Corn became a major staple, but there was massive disruption
and suffering with declining rainfall at the end of the 1700s,
followed by a calamitous ten-year drought that began about 1800.
Presumably, this is the fault of "climate change."
Kingdoms that had existed side by side in peace for decades began to
fight each other for resources. The result was a massive war called
the Mfecane ("the crushing") that climaxed in 1828. The Mfecane gave
rise to Shaka, considered to be possibly the greatest African warrior
in history. Shaka introduced many new warfare techniques. One of the
best known was to use short spears, which required close combat with
the enemy, rather than long spears, which would be thrown but would
not always be effective.
By the mid-1820s, Shaka ruled a kingdom of more than 100,000 people
with a standing army of 40,000 men. The great Zulu Empire lasted for
decades, until it was destroyed by the British in 1879 in the bloody
Anglo-Zulu war. At the climax of that crisis war, the Zulus were
dispersed, and the Zulu nation ended.
South Africa's last generational Crisis war was World War II. Since
South Africa was part of the British Empire, it fought on the side of
the allies, although some tribal factions wished to side with the
Germans or stay neutral. The British colonists introduced Apartheid
during the 1940s, but it was abolished in the generational Awakening
era of the 1990s that led to South African independence, an Awakening
era climax.
When I talk about the world in today's generational Crisis era, I talk
about increasing nationalism and xenophobia in almost every nation.
The same is true on a tribal basis in South Africa. The Zulus have
become extremely nationalistic, and this is driving the current round
of looting and rioting. But this time the violence is directed at
membrs of other South African tribes, not just a "immigrants" from
other African countries, as occurred in 2008 and 2015.
As the world approaches a new world war, South Africa can be expected
to be involved in two different wars. One war will be as a
participant in the world war on the side of either China or the West
-- to be decided -- and the other will be an internal civil war,
refighting the battles of the Mfecane.
****
**** Rewriting the history of the Mfecane
****
Just as China blames all its failures on the 1840s Opium Wars, some
South African historians are blaming all their failures on the
Mfecane, and blaming the Mfecane on the Europeans.
In 1988, a historian named Julian Cobbing published a paper on "The
Mfecane As Alibi." He argued that the Mfecane was caused by the
European and Brazilian slave trade, and if it had been for the
Europeans, then the Mfecan would never have occurred.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is nonsense. As
we said, there was overpopulation and a calamitous drought at the
beginning of the 1800s, and this is exactly the formula for a
generational crisis war, a war of extermination, whose purpose is to
kill off enough people so that the survivors will have enough to eat.
So the Mfecane would have occurred with or without the Europeans.
The same thing is happening today, around the world. A report earlier
this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) says that "world hunger and malnutrition levels worsened
dramatically last year, with most of the increase likely due to the
COVID-19 pandemic." This continued and accelerated a trend that had
already been occurring prior to the pandemic.
According to the report, "Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to
expose weaknesses in our food systems, which threaten the lives and
livelihoods of people around the world. No region of the world has
been spared."
The increase in hunger and malnutrition means that there is less food
per capita in the world. For populations living on the margin, this
means that they will have to fight for enough food to feed themselves
and their families. This usually translates into anti-government
protests, such as the ones we see today in South Africa and Cuba,
and leads to either civil wars or external wars.
*** Cuba street protests at start of its generational Crisis era
Cuba's government is in turmoil in the face of large anti-government
protests that started over the weekend.
Analysts are blaming three factors:
Analysts are comparing this to the 1994 student protests, which
fizzled fairly quickly.
However, today's protests are different because this is the beginning
of a generational Crisis era.
Cuba's last generational crisis war was Fidel Castro's revolution that
climaxed in 1960. The new Crisis era began 58 years later, in 2018.
Prior to 2018, Cuba was in an Unraveling era, when many of the
Communist policies imposed by Fidel Castro began to unravel. They
moved hundreds of thousands of people from government employment to
private sector employment, including self-employment. They abandoned
the core principal of Marxist Socialism, "From each according to
abilities, to each according to needs." Instead, workers in the
private sector will be able to earn high salaries.
Today's new anti-government protests are larger and more widespread
than the 1994 student protests. Since this is the beginning of a
generational Crisis era, it's quite possible that it will spread, in
the following weeks and months, into a re-fighting of Castro's
revolution.
Sources:
Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, South Africa, Durban, Johnanessburg,
Jacob Zuma, Umshini Wami, Bring me my machine gun,
African National Congress, ANC,
KwaZulu-Natal, Goodwill Zwelithini, Cyril Ramaphosa,
Mfecane, Shaka, Julian Cobbing
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- South Africa tribal violence spreading and growing
- Xenophobic violence during Jacob Zuma's term
- Cyril Ramaphosa, from the Venda tribe, becomes president
- Brief generational history of South Africa
- Rewriting the history of the Mfecane
- Cuba street protests at start of its generational Crisis era
****
**** South Africa tribal violence spreading and growing
****
Burning warehouse in Durban following riots gives rise to fears of food and fuel shortages (Reuters)
Communal violence is spreading in South Africa, led by members of the
Zulu tribe. More than 70 people have been killed and more than 1,200
people have been arrested, as the violence continues into the eighth
day.
Rioters have been looting shopping centers, stores and warehouses,
possibly emulating the antifa-blm looters in Portland and Chicago.
There are already pockets of hunger in South Africa, and it's feared
that the looting will make shortages of food and fuel worse.
The rioting was triggered by the jailing of South Africa's
ex-president Jacob Zuma, a charismatic and popular Zulu leader who was
ousted from his own ANC party over accusations of corruption and rape.
For several weeks, Zuma has been calling on his supporters to prevent
his arrest by locking arms and blocking the police from arresting
him. He has often been seen singing his favorite revolutionary song
"Umshini Wami" (Bring me my machine gun), often accompanied by him
swirling his hips and skillfully doing a traditional Zulu dance. He
used that song frequently during his political campaigns.
The two largest tribes in South Africa are the Zulu tribe and the
Xhosa tribe. Between them, they make up a third of South Africa’s 55
million people.
The African National Congress (ANC) is the only political party that
has won elections since South Africa's independence in 1994. Thus,
the leader of the ANC always goes on to become the president. Up
until recently, the Zulu and Xhosa tribes have dominated the ANC.
The ANC hero, Nelson Mandela, a Xhosa, became the first president of
the ANC and of South Africa in 1994. He was followed by Mandela's
hand-picked successor, Thabo Mbeki, another Xhosa. The ANC became
sharply divided in Decenber 2007, when when Mbeki lost a bruising
battle for ANC leadership with a Zulu, Jacob Zuma.
****
**** Xenophobic violence during Jacob Zuma's term
****
In 2008, xenophobic violence against immigrants from other African
countries, originating in Alexandria, a suburb of the capital city
Johannesburg, spread east into the Zulu heartland of Durban and west
into Cape Town. The violence was spurred by a poor economy and a lack
of jobs, with the accusations that other African immigrants were
taking the good jobs.
Tens of thousands of immigrants were forced to flee for their lives
from their homes and businesses, often with no time to collect their
belongings before their homes and businesses were looted and
destroyed. The violence and looting were generally perpetrated by
young South Africans from the Zulu and Xhosa tribes. (See "South Africa will create 'temporary shelters' for migrants, not 'refugee camps' (31-May-2008)"
)
The xenophobic violence was repeated in 2015 when thousands of people,
mostly foreigners from Zimbabwe and Malawi, fled for their lives,
after mobs with machetes attacked them in the city of Durban. Durban
is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal,
which is the heartland of the Zulu tribe. The anti-immigrant violence
spread to Johannesburg. It's believed that the attacks were triggered
by remarks made by Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, who said in a public
speech, "We are requesting those who come from outside to please go
back to their countries." ( "17-Apr-15 World View -- South African xenophobic violence echoes 1820s Mfecane Zulu massacre"
)
****
**** Cyril Ramaphosa, from the Venda tribe, becomes president
****
Jacob Zuma was ousted from the party before his second term ended in
2018. He is facing 16 charges of corruption, fraud, graft and
racketeering relating to a 1999 purchase of weapons and gear from
European arms firms when he was deputy president. In 2006, he was in
court for the alleged rape of a colleague's HIV-positive daughter. He
was acquited of those charges, but not before bragging that he had
unprotected sex with the woman, but avoided catching HIV by taking a
shower after sex.
A surprise candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa, won the ANC leadership in 2017,
in a close battle with the favored Zulu candidate. Ramaphosa is a
member of the Venda tribe, a small tribe with fewer than 700,000
people, living near the border with Zibabwe.
Ramaphosa became president in the hope that he could be relatively
neutral between the Zulus and Xhosas, and could resolve the
divisiveness between those two tribes. One businessman voter was
quoted as saying,
<QUOTE>"There are not enough Venda to hijack the country.
When Thabo Mbeki was president [from 1999 to 2008], you had to be
Xhosa to get anywhere. Under Zuma, the Zulus have led the way. I
am hoping that Cyril as a Venda will have to involve all South
Africans because his own people are so few."<END QUOTE>
There have been very divisive issues during Cyril Ramaphosa's term as
president, and Ramaphosa has been successful in defusing most of them.
The most explosive one was the proposal to confiscate the land of
white farmers without compensation. Ramaphosa found a way to mitigate
the land confiscation without compensation to make it less divisive.
However, probably the most explosive issue of all has been the jailing
of Jacob Zuma for corruption, and that has led to the current tribal
violence that appears to be increasing.
****
**** Brief generational history of South Africa
****
Human existence has forever been controlled by one major law: That the
population always grows more quickly than the food supply. This is
the reason why every society has to have an existential, genocidal war
every 80 years or so. The purpose of the war is to kill off enough
people so that the survivors have enough food to eat.
That appears to be what happened in southern Africa at the end of the
1700s. Population levels were increasing rapidly, and resources were
increasingly scarce. The introduction of corn by the Europeans had
the double effect of producing more food, but using more water to
grow. Corn became a major staple, but there was massive disruption
and suffering with declining rainfall at the end of the 1700s,
followed by a calamitous ten-year drought that began about 1800.
Presumably, this is the fault of "climate change."
Kingdoms that had existed side by side in peace for decades began to
fight each other for resources. The result was a massive war called
the Mfecane ("the crushing") that climaxed in 1828. The Mfecane gave
rise to Shaka, considered to be possibly the greatest African warrior
in history. Shaka introduced many new warfare techniques. One of the
best known was to use short spears, which required close combat with
the enemy, rather than long spears, which would be thrown but would
not always be effective.
By the mid-1820s, Shaka ruled a kingdom of more than 100,000 people
with a standing army of 40,000 men. The great Zulu Empire lasted for
decades, until it was destroyed by the British in 1879 in the bloody
Anglo-Zulu war. At the climax of that crisis war, the Zulus were
dispersed, and the Zulu nation ended.
South Africa's last generational Crisis war was World War II. Since
South Africa was part of the British Empire, it fought on the side of
the allies, although some tribal factions wished to side with the
Germans or stay neutral. The British colonists introduced Apartheid
during the 1940s, but it was abolished in the generational Awakening
era of the 1990s that led to South African independence, an Awakening
era climax.
When I talk about the world in today's generational Crisis era, I talk
about increasing nationalism and xenophobia in almost every nation.
The same is true on a tribal basis in South Africa. The Zulus have
become extremely nationalistic, and this is driving the current round
of looting and rioting. But this time the violence is directed at
membrs of other South African tribes, not just a "immigrants" from
other African countries, as occurred in 2008 and 2015.
As the world approaches a new world war, South Africa can be expected
to be involved in two different wars. One war will be as a
participant in the world war on the side of either China or the West
-- to be decided -- and the other will be an internal civil war,
refighting the battles of the Mfecane.
****
**** Rewriting the history of the Mfecane
****
Just as China blames all its failures on the 1840s Opium Wars, some
South African historians are blaming all their failures on the
Mfecane, and blaming the Mfecane on the Europeans.
In 1988, a historian named Julian Cobbing published a paper on "The
Mfecane As Alibi." He argued that the Mfecane was caused by the
European and Brazilian slave trade, and if it had been for the
Europeans, then the Mfecan would never have occurred.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this is nonsense. As
we said, there was overpopulation and a calamitous drought at the
beginning of the 1800s, and this is exactly the formula for a
generational crisis war, a war of extermination, whose purpose is to
kill off enough people so that the survivors will have enough to eat.
So the Mfecane would have occurred with or without the Europeans.
The same thing is happening today, around the world. A report earlier
this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) says that "world hunger and malnutrition levels worsened
dramatically last year, with most of the increase likely due to the
COVID-19 pandemic." This continued and accelerated a trend that had
already been occurring prior to the pandemic.
According to the report, "Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to
expose weaknesses in our food systems, which threaten the lives and
livelihoods of people around the world. No region of the world has
been spared."
The increase in hunger and malnutrition means that there is less food
per capita in the world. For populations living on the margin, this
means that they will have to fight for enough food to feed themselves
and their families. This usually translates into anti-government
protests, such as the ones we see today in South Africa and Cuba,
and leads to either civil wars or external wars.
*** Cuba street protests at start of its generational Crisis era
Cuba's government is in turmoil in the face of large anti-government
protests that started over the weekend.
Analysts are blaming three factors:
- Mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, and lack of vital
medicines. (Cuba is supposed to be this great country for medical
research, but was not so great during the pandemic.)
- Bad economy -- growing inflation, blackouts, and shortages of
food, medicine and basic products.
- Access to internet social media, used to spread the news of the
protests.
Analysts are comparing this to the 1994 student protests, which
fizzled fairly quickly.
However, today's protests are different because this is the beginning
of a generational Crisis era.
Cuba's last generational crisis war was Fidel Castro's revolution that
climaxed in 1960. The new Crisis era began 58 years later, in 2018.
Prior to 2018, Cuba was in an Unraveling era, when many of the
Communist policies imposed by Fidel Castro began to unravel. They
moved hundreds of thousands of people from government employment to
private sector employment, including self-employment. They abandoned
the core principal of Marxist Socialism, "From each according to
abilities, to each according to needs." Instead, workers in the
private sector will be able to earn high salaries.
Today's new anti-government protests are larger and more widespread
than the 1994 student protests. Since this is the beginning of a
generational Crisis era, it's quite possible that it will spread, in
the following weeks and months, into a re-fighting of Castro's
revolution.
Sources:
- Worst violence in years spreads in South Africa as grievances boil over (Reuters, 13-Jul-2021)
- Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC election a win for Venda tribe (Washington Times, 19-Dec-2017)
- Venda, Tsonga / The torment of being a ‘questionable’ South African (Mail And Guardian, South Africa, 13-Sep-2019)
- Tsonga and Venda (Country Studies, 1994)
- History of South Africa - The Rise of African States (Mother Earth Travel, 1980s)
- State Formation in Nineteenth-century South Africa (SA History, 18-Jun-2019)
- The Mfecane As Alibi: Thoughts On Dithakongand Mbolompo By Julian Cobbing (Journal Of African History, PDF, 1988)
- The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo1 (Cambridge University, 22-Jan-2009)
- South Africa's Ramaphosa assures Zulu king, tribal leaders on land issue (Reuters, 6-Jul-2018)
- South Africa deploys military as protests turn violent in wake of Jacob Zuma’s jailing (Washington Post, 12-Jul-2021)
- Violent protests deal body blow to South Africa’s economy (Al-Jazeera, 13-Jul-2021)
- South Africa deploys military to tackle Zuma riots (BBC, 12-Jul-2021)
- 10 dead in South Africa riots over jailing of ex-leader Zuma (AP, 12-Jul-2021)
- South Africa's Largest Oil Refinery Shutters Operations Amid Ongoing Violence (Zero Hedge, 13-Jul-2021)
- Over 70 Killed As South Africa 'Crumbles' Despite Military (Zero Hedge, 14-Jul-2021)
- South Africa goes after social media as it cracks down on looting and protests (Quartz, 14-Jul-2021)
- Fears of food and fuel shortages as unrest rocks South Africa (Al-Jazeera, 14-Jul-2021)
- Zuma: South Africa's charismatic, yet divisive ex-president (AFP, 8-Jul-2021)
- South Africa / Opinion: Zuma, Zulu nationalism and the rule of law (New Era, 13-Jul-2021)
- UN report: Pandemic year marked by rise in world hunger (FAO, 12-Jul-2021)
- African National Congress (Britannica)
- Cuba: Thousands turn out to anti-government protests (Deutsche-Welle, 12-Jul-2021)
- Cuba protests: Three key issues that explain the rare unrest (BBC, 12-Jul-2021)
- Hundreds of people take to Tampa streets to show their support for protesters in Cuba (ABC, 12-Jul-2021)
Related Articles:
- Namibia may follow South Africa with land confiscation without compensation (03-Oct-2018)
- South Africa politics roiled by Trump tweet on killing white farmers (24-Aug-2018)
- South Africa announces plans for unpaid confiscation of white-owned farms (04-Aug-2018)
- Moving sharply left, South Africa calls for potentially disastrous land reform (01-Mar-2018)
- Xenophobic violence - Generational history of South Africa (31-May-2008)
- South African xenophobic violence echoes 1820s Mfecane Zulu massacre (17-Apr-2015)
- Cuba's seismic shift has global implications (16-Sep-2010)
- Cuba's new president Miguel Díaz-Canel makes delusional promise to continue Socialist revolution (20-Apr-2018)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, South Africa, Durban, Johnanessburg,
Jacob Zuma, Umshini Wami, Bring me my machine gun,
African National Congress, ANC,
KwaZulu-Natal, Goodwill Zwelithini, Cyril Ramaphosa,
Mfecane, Shaka, Julian Cobbing
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
