Conference on the History of Opposition in Southern Africa

The Inkatha movement has received, large publicity over the few years since its revival and especially recently with the formation of an alliance between Inkatha, the ("Coloured") labour Party and the ("Indian") Reform Party, Thi3 paper was done to suggest a possible approach, for discussion, to the analysis of current political, ideological and economic developments in the reserve areas of the South African social formation. More specifically the paper hopes to provide information that could be relevant to an analysis of developments in the kwaZulu region. An elaboration of the hints at an approach, integration of factors relating to the stage of capitalism in the South African social formation and class struggle would have made this a more satisfactory paper for discussion. The approach adopted has to be extremely tentative at this stage, both because of the immediate and obvious problems associated with contemporary research and analysis (It is even less possible to approach the subject with "objectivity", to "distance oneself from it", than is the case with topics that can more properly be called "history") but also because of the dearth of material available on the reserve "homeland" areas and the difficult y of doing research in these areas. (Wages Commission research into conditions on wattle plantations, Cosmas Desmond and others and their work on resettlement etc., and subsequent responses to these investigations, give some idea of the sensitivity of thin work), In the first section I will introduce certain concepts relating to an analysis of the "homelands" through some recent writing on these areas. References will be to the kwaZulu region. The second section deal.3 specifically with the Inkatha movement. Information relating to this movement is provided and one issue is presented in greater detail, hut no rigorous attempt is mado to apply the mode of analysis of the first section to the issues around the position of 'Inkatha. Indicators exist but with so many dynamics operative they can be no more than that. However, I do not believe that it is possible to understand the political, economic and ideological developments in the "homelands" without keeping the questions raised in the first section in mind - and definitely impossible to come to an adequate understanding if these areas are looked at in isolation, ie if apparently "internal" events and processes are not situated within a context broadly defined by the specific stage of the development of capitalism in South Africa (monopoly dominance), and without keeping in mind the history of class struggle within the social formation.Class formation in the South African reserve areas: Inkatha - a stud