Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The ambiguities of dependence: John L. Dube of Natal

1975; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 1; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057077508707931

1465-3893

Shula Marks,

South African History and Culture

From the age of Bambatha to that of Buthelezi, some of the most dramatic grassroots resistance to white rule in 20th century South Africa has come from Natal as has some of the most ambiguous patterns of leadership. In Natal the contradictions between theory and practice, between the exploitation, expropriation and political suppression of Africans on the one hand, and the ideology of separate development, paternalism and trusteeship on the other, have probably been more blatant than in any other part of South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century. A colony which probably experienced the most concentrated missionary effort in Africa, Natal has also been the scene, for morethan ahundred years, ofthe most sophisticated attempts to rule through 'traditional authorities'. Despite the unification of South African colonies in 1910, the divergent policies which set the framework for colonial rule in each, and the differing economic structures and ways of thought which resulted from the impact of specific administrators, settlers and missionaries on local societies, did not disappear overnight.' Thus, although many of the African national leaders in the twentieth century has come from Natal,2 there has also been a strong tendency on the part of many of these same leaders to hive off and run their own show in the province, where a somewhat different political context 'set the limits within which they operated, amassed influence and acquired power'.3 To look at the interaction of the growing union-wide political economy, the Natal sub-system and African political consciousness is a massive and long-term project. Even in microcosm its complexity was brought home to me in a recent visit to John Dube's 'Zulu Christian Industrial School' established at Ohlangein 190 1.4 Within a stone's throw of Ohlange is the Phoenix settlement where Gandhi started the newspaper, Indian Opinion, while nearby sprawls the dense religious settlement of the Amanazaretha, founded by the prophet Shembe.