A year or so ago a “gentleman’s club” — or, more specifically, a club where women take off their clothes for men in return for money — plastered large promotional posters all over bus stops in Cape Town.
The exhibited draw card was a stereotypical arrangement: a group of gaudy women propped up around a centrally placed, seated man holding the required thick cigar between his fingers. There have been many movie posters promoting similar images — sometimes tongue in cheek, usually not. And every fifth music video on MTV or VH1 show a male rapper with golden rings, chains and teeth, accompanied by a decorative herd of females in various stages of undress.
In a patriarchal, capitalist society powerful men’s status is currently again indicated by an accompanying collection of ultra-feminine women — along with money, cars or, in the world of the super rich, private jets. Nowadays we can see the “indigenous” version: Jacob Zuma and his group of spouses posing at last year’s parliamentary opening have activated a fashion among wealthy businessmen.
The polygamists pose for photos that the media eagerly publish — a visual repetition of the “thorn among the roses”.
True to the symbolism of the collection of women as a sign of masculine potency, Zuma has since his acquittal in his rape trial in 2006 married two young women (33 and 37 years old) and got engaged to another. If he marries her, she will be his fourth current wife and it will be his sixth wedding. The recent revelation of his sexual interaction with another friend’s daughter confirms the pattern.
As I have previously argued, Zuma’s contribution to his ideologically motley coalition of forces is ethnic and patriarchal chauvinism. It had to have a popular effect, given South Africans’ obsessive following of “leaders”.
It is also not a surprise that the effect can partly be seen in the form of setbacks to women’s human rights. After all, Zuma’s rise is due to conservative groupings’ increasingly vocal and growing resistance to the claiming of the right to autonomy by many women.
Culture is a popular cloak with which to hide the undermining of women’s rights because black and white progressives can easily be silenced with it. A black feminist has to choose between solidarity with her black “brothers” or solidarity with white feminists — not much of a choice in a country where the latter, because of their whiteness, can (frequently opportunistically) be linked with the former class of oppressors and therefore be dismissed.
But, as a black feminist once remarked to me, it is noticeable that some black people justify certain practices as “African culture” but totally forget about “African culture” while they revel in the perks of Western individualism and capitalism.
Why “should” some practices continue because they are “cultural” while other cultural practices and attitudes (such as putting the welfare of the group before that of the individual) can be chucked in the pursuit of personal enrichment, as we have seen in this country since 1994?
The ideological use of “culture” today becomes clearer when we read Ugandan thinker Mahmood Mamdani’s work.
He points out in his highly regarded book Citizen and Subject (1996) that what has been sold on this continent as African culture is in fact merely the authoritarian aspects of pre-colonial systems.
British colonial bureaucrats specifically chose the most repressive form of government to ensure the sustainability of the British system of indirect rule. Male traditional leaders were elevated to local despots by concentrating the executive, legislative and judicial powers in their area in their hands, based on ethnicised identities.
This is how the sphere of customary law came into existence. It was totally separate from the sphere of civil law within which a racially defined hierarchy of citizens (including the settlers) enjoyed civil rights.
According to Mamdani there were also democratic forms of government in pre-colonial Africa where women were not just participants in decision-making but, in some places, rulers. The British were not interested in these systems; the traditional leader had to rule the rights-less subjects of the British Empire with an iron fist. The NP policy of separate development in “homelands” took this scheme further.
To some South African black women the colonial system provided the possibility of escape from local patriarchy — into the arms of Western patriarchy, which made their lives contradictory. Chiefs and other local men felt their grip on “their” women slipping.
These men advocated the strengthening of patriarchal arrangements in customary law, according to the sociologist Cherryl Walker in the book Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945. This must have contributed to the pinning down of black women as “perpetual minors” in the Black Administration Act of 1927.
In a chapter in William Gumede and Leslie Dikeni’s recent book The Poverty of Ideas, Mamdani writes how the ANC has moved from rejecting African traditionalism as “undemocratic” to embracing it. The obvious reason is the wooing of traditional leaders to ensure their underlings’ electoral support.
The ironic consequence, says Mamdani, is that democratic South Africa remains saddled with a dualistic legal system — just like apartheid South Africa. Civil law and rights have been deracialised but exist side by side with an ethnicised customary law applied by ethnicised authorities. HF Verwoerd would have smiled.
According to Mamdani, mainstream nationalists’ reproduction of the dualistic colonial legal system has been a pattern across Africa after independence. But this time round it is aimed as a benefit to the “indigenous” citizens, as opposed to the “non-indigenous” citizens.
If you are “indigenous”, you get a “bonus”: along with your newly acquired civil rights you also enjoy the rights associated with the African customary law regime.
The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998, which applies only to “indigenous Africans”, would be an example of this. But, as we will see in my next blog, in this case only black men get to enjoy the “bonus” customary rights conferred upon “indigenous” South Africans by the colonial and apartheid systems.
*A different version of this article appeared in Media24′s By supplement on 23 January 2010.
Christie your argument makes sense and as always its about power, however i would like to ask you this….
Whilst the patriarchal and authoritative rule was seaked out and reinforced by the colonial regime (referring to indirect rule here), that colonial paradigm was of course a reflection of the prevailing attitude in the colonial homeland at the time..
now i will speak simplistically and say that what zuma is practicing (polygamy-men only) is not happening in the former colonial powers today, right? (of course they are still sexist, i mean its where capitalism comes from right!)
now how did they manage to move away from their thinking into something that i guess we would attempt to call ‘modern’ (i.e. no ‘primitive polygamy’)today?…how did that progression occur?for some reason i basically think that they had the space and resources and sovereignty to dictate the direction of their ‘nations’..I think things here could have been very different if we were allowed the space to develop at our pace and our own terms, i mean the possibilities are simply endless (eg.no nation state, no capitalism, no racism (as we know these today) just to name a few) i mean for all we know polygamy could have earned one the death sentence bynow!
“The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998, which applies only to “indigenous Africans”, would be an example of this. But, as we will see in my next blog, in this case only black men get to enjoy the “bonus” customary rights conferred upon “indigenous” South Africans by the colonial and apartheid systems.”
Does this mean that muslims can have 4 wives or does it only count for “Black African” cultures?
You are right Christi- remove the offending words “Indiginous africans” from the Customary marriages act of 1988. Who exactly is indeginous are coloreds indeginous.
let any person who wants to marry more than one person have the right to do so. Tiger woods John terry and john edwards would immigrate to SA . Imagine John Terry in Bafana Bafana huh?.
Men seem to be by nature polygamous.For some like Zuma its reality- others like us simply fantasize about it.
May Zuma continue to have a strong backbone. he has his work cut out for him
Spot on as usual Christi!
and in the interests of equality, how about legalising polyandry?
What Zuma is doing is not “African Culture” its his own fabricated culture. I dont know why when black men do disgusting things hide behind “African Culture”.Zuma is just a disgrace to all of us. He should just confess that he is a sex addict and go and seek help. Manyala fela. SIS.
Did your husband give you permission to spread these dangerous ideas?
So at what point does one become indigenous?
Even if someone read this opinion piece to Jacob Zuma himself, he wouldn’t have a clue what you’re on about. Neither would he care even one hoot, let alone two. So, what’s the point?
Excellent article! It has always amused me that African leaders selectively choose those aspects of their ‘culture’ that suit them whilst also enthusiastically embracing those aspects of ‘Western’ culture that are attractive. Mugabe’s Savile Row suits amd Zuma’s private jet are perfect examples. This all the while berating the West for ‘not doing enough for Africa’ and criticising its values . Whilst all this is blindly admired by the masses, to any thinking person it is completely transparent. This goes for Zuma’s obsession with sex as well. If he spent as much time thinking about the country as he does about his next conquest, South Africa may be able to avoid ending up like all the other failed post independence states of Africa. But that wouldn’t be popular would it?
Now THIS is thought leadership! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this, I for one will definitely be following up on the books you have referenced. Can’t wait for you next post!
Having escaped from the brutal iron-fisted grip of the British Empire, the leaders of Singapore spend their time luring the world’s best brains into their science parks to support them in applied research and joint business ventures. Whenever you hear them speak in public, they focus on their few failures and how they propose to correct them.
Having escaped from the brutal iron-fisted grip of the British Empire, the leader of South Africa spends his time screwing his friends daughters together with anything else that moves. And when he speaks in public, it is to lecture others on morality and the need for others to uplift the poor.
In other words, if you are a good boy you get special privileges. A good girl’s role is to help these boys achieve this. Straight out of the Good Victorian Household manual.
You use the word ultra-feminism. Although I know what you mean in this instance(racoon eyes, skunk hairdo, swollen cherry lips and python & gold netting scarce outfit), the word feminist makes me see red every time. To separate male and female on an other than purely reproductive level is to say that there is a difference between male and female brains. The Victorians (male)loved this concept, their psychologists (who were mostly very disturbed people) endorsed it, which lead to the uber-patriarchal society, and it did not take them long after landing on African shores to extend this myth to “black brains” either. What really gets my goat is women not only believing this fantasy but endorsing it. “Female power” – super slave?
And the blogs go on and on and on.
Cool! Really cool.
Maybe, just maybe, Zuma will resign out of shame and embarrassment. What are the odds?
“Progressives” are a funny lot
“…it is noticeable that some black people justify certain practices as “African culture” but totally forget about “African culture”…”
Isn’t this what all societies do, all the time? It certainly isn’t unique to Africans. All peoples have a moral framework which they, at least try to pretend to, live by. The fact that they might not stick to it as fastidiously as you seem to expect is irrelevant. We all pick and choose what it is about “our way of life” to observe and what to quietly ignore. It’s human nature.
Now, this is why I think “progressives” are funny. If we were talking about gay rights, most of you, I presume, would give it the -consenting adults, etc etc- mantra. But when it comes to polygamy, suddenly consenting adults are not to be allowed to make their own life choices. What’s up with that? Can someone please explain to me why these men and women should not be “allowed” to live their lives according to what their own conscience dictates (and please don’t give me that “false consciousness” nonsense!).
I am getting sick an tired of this a related sex stories.
Men have always been screwing around in any culture. indigenous or not.
Zuma is no different.
Thanks for a well written and powerful piece. I’ve copied it for myself and students.
Perhaps we ought to to take leaf out Oprah’s show last night where she interviwed women working in aid relief in the Congo. Over two thirds of local women have been raped. From discussion with them and other guests, the message we need to proritise the proctection and support of women and girl children all over the globe. One guest said the treatment of women is as shameful as slavery or totalitarianism, but does not get the same energy devoted to its elimination.
Zuma’s behaviour and use of the culture card is not that far away from encouraging the view of women as objects to demonstrate and express male prowess and potency. That view is not that far from women being seen as the objects as part of the spoils of war, or victims of rape in so called peace time, in our own country.
Zuma discriminates – he should take white and coloured women too…
Good article indeed. Its a bit of a two steps forward one back (or or is that three?) scenario…
I am getting sick an tired of these JZ related sex stories.
Men have always been screwing around in any culture. Indigenous or not. In secret or in private.
Zuma is no different.
Please people, grow up!!
Its interesting how the evolution of African culture should always be explained in relation to western influence.
We know how much colonization completely arrested the black African’s self determination, and that the effects would still be felt long after so called African independence.
However, what this article fails to point out is that there was culture among Africans long before any outside influence.
What would be really interesting is to understand this culture in its unadulteretd form, and without comparing it to anything else.
We can then challenge the pretentious bigots based on what we know to be true African culture.
And by the way, we all keep talking about this issue as if the women involved have absolutely no say. Last time i checked, some of the ladies involved actually hold university degrees modelled around western civilisation.
Why is it that the conduct of these ‘educated’ women is not being questioned? After all, we all know that JZ did not spend that much time in a classroom.
Lets talk about these women for a change
@Sue Krige perhaps the fault does not just lie with men but with women’s perception that they are helpless to protect themself. Often the man’s right to do as he wish is protected by the older woman in the society, once victims themself. A vicious circle. I know someone who teaches abused woman and children self defence, with some success. The biggest obstacle being the cultural one. Yes, woman are allowed to fight back. No, it is not unladylike to carry a knife to protect yourself.
In this whole debacle, I have yet to hear Zuma’s wifes’ opinion. Are they not allowed to tell us what they think? From the little I have read about Sizakele Khumalo she appears to be a level-headed, strong person who share my interest in vegetable gardening and I would very much like to hear her viewpoint on Zulu culture, and as it pertains to polygamy.
Isn’t it time we “Eurocentrics” are let into the secrets of not just Zulu culture but all the other cultures so that we can understand better? Culture should be taught as a subject in this country.
@Jody: I agree with your last point. See the second instalment of this blog next week.
@Foom: This law only applies to “indigenous Africans” engaged in “traditional African” practices, therefore not to Muslims. As far as I know, a law is being drafted to attend to Muslim marriages.
@X Cepting: Interesting thoughts but pse note I was referring to “ultra-feminine”.
@jairo: The selection of which bits of (African/Western/Arab etc) culture to hang on to, and which to forget, is an expression of power, and if this is reactionary, it should be confronted, which is what this blog does.
Regarding LGBTI human rights, the “justification” is that human rights are indivisible, i.e. lesbians and gays have exactly the same human rights as you. Along the same line of thinking, women have a right not to be culturally bulldozed into marriages with unequal power relations. The issue of “consent” has been subjected to extensive criticism. How does a woman “consent” if her agency is limited by patriarchy disguised as oppressive “cultural” practices?
@Christi – So you did. See, I even see the beginning of the word and I see red, which obscures my vision
Your article simply digs up irrelevant “laws” from the past in a weak attempt at shoring up your untenable argument.
Our Constitution does NOT outlaw polygamy or polyandry!
I can understand why you, as a feminist, feel threatened by these ancient practices based on you societal conditioning strongly influenced by the warped cultural values derived from old Victorian sexual mores of your ancestors – puritanical, repressive and moralistic. Yet another unfortunate side-effect of apartheid’s Christian indoctrination. It may be wise to remember, you now live in an African country, governed by the majority and not the white minority anymore!
“Along the same line of thinking, women have a right not to be culturally bulldozed into marriages with unequal power relations. The issue of “consent” has been subjected to extensive criticism. How does a woman “consent” if her agency is limited by patriarchy disguised as oppressive “cultural” practices?”
So you are saying that these women do not know their own minds and “we” should save them from themselves? If you ever decide to share this insight with any of these women, I’d like to listen in on the conversation.
Actually, thinking about it a bit more (not that that’s saying much, as I’m only an African and probably don’t know what’s good for myself) I could say what you just said about any choice anyone makes which I do not agree with. ie, you’ve been culturally bulldozed and have not the ability to make an informed choice. Not meaning to be rude here but when you say that people have a “right to choose”, it doesn’t mean that they can only make choices that YOU agree with. As long as no one else is harmed…etc etc.
You’ve now put me in a situation where I seem like i’m defending polygamy when I really wouldn’t go for it myself. I just don’t see what business it is of some when others (ie, consenting adults) do it. I’m really quite surprised at the puritanism of modern feminism.
“…The issue of “consent” has been subjected to extensive criticism. How does a woman “consent” if her agency is limited by patriarchy disguised as oppressive “cultural” practices?”…”
Thinking about it a bit more…What exactly are you saying here? What if someone makes that choice? Are you suggesting that people’s personal choices be limited by legislative diktat? Do you really want to set off down that road?
In my blog “I want three wives!”(September 2008) I questioned which South African males are legally allowed to marry more than one woman. The response was interesting!
Don’t believe the hype the fool isjust horny. I am Zulu and nowhere in my culture is this thing of marrying more than 2 wives. Polygamy was a fixer in a situation where man died in war. Men dont die in war no more so ZZUMA is abusing the culture….
Brilliant and excellent analysis, I am looking forward to part 2.
Christi. I think your article open a whole new debate and questions like: what is acceptable norms, Africanization of laws, when are you a indigenous African, etc, etc, comes to mind.
For example do we want the narrow social guidelines that were pushed down on us by the previous protestant orientated governments that you described in your very good book “White Power & the Rise and Fall of the National Party” or do we want society to move forward and evolve and assimilate new social norms?
Africanization of tthe legal system. We also had the so-called Native laws under the ols regime and that was definately nor acceptabble. The ANC promised us that they will be doing away with the traditional laws and powers of the chiefs, etc, but now we find they acctually have MORE power and all these African traditions are now written into law!
When are you an African? After 11 generations in Africa and accepting and voting for the “new SA” still exclude me as a African and many priviledges that indigenous Africans recife.
Thera are noumerous more aspects that can be included into theis debate and I would appreciate if you can maybe look at some of these aspects in your future articles
Your statement “gaudy women” says more about your predudice and makes the rest of the article and your ideas questionable. Women are beautiful, even those you describe as “gaudy”.
Actually Christi, Zuma is not practicing African polygamy at all, but promiscuity, which is why the blacks themselves are so upset.
In Zulu culture a woman who has a child out of wedlock brings shame on her family; which is why the man has to pay damages to her father.
Also in Zulu culture the child of your friend is your child. Zuma by sleeping with a friend’s daughter, twice, has committed incest in their eyes.
Which is why Irwin Khosa is so upset, and T don’t think the fathers of Zuma’s wives are happy either.
This aspect of African culture is why there is so much fraud and corruption, and why almost all their graduates emigrate.
Zuma has a large family, but much larger if you consider that any of the children of his fallen comrades can call upon him as father. Remember Zuma’s daughter said at the rape trial that there were always people at his house asking for money. That is why he could not stay within his income, and why he needed the Shaiks
If you have a job and won’t help a family member of this extended family you are ostracised – so often when the don’t have money they give them jobs (which they are not qualified for) instead.
Then the graduates can’t get jobs; and if they can the whole family descend on them.
If you are going to be ostracised anyhow, you might as well emigrate.
And the Arab slave traders started colonising Africa from the 9th century. They wiped out almost all pre-existing cultures. Half the black tribes they armed with weapons to catch the other half of the black tribes as slaves, then they took them through the Sahara and sold them as slaves in Mediterranean Africa. They had many children by their slave girls, and themselves became black.
When the Europeans arrived on the West Coast almost 1000 years later the Arabs brought slaves to those ports as well and sold them to them for a little over 100 years. Then Europe banned the slave trade (which did not stop the Arabs).
The main slave ships were from Brazil and America. The British navy went from Simonstown to catch these ships, and brought them back to Cape Town, where the slaves were indentured for a year to learn a trade and the language.
There was no ideal pre-existing culture. That is a myth made up in the slave diaspora, mainly in America, and has prevaded all their literature.
Google “Kwanza” and read up about it.
I have a problem with feminists such as the author of this blog. How dare you critisize JZ for being poligomous when women involved are quite abgout their relationship with him? You must be aware that what JZ does is no different to what Mandela has been practicing except that, rather keep all three wives, he would hop from one to the other, in accordance to what the feminists would , I suppose regard as civility. FW de Klerk has done the same, he switched from the first wife to the second, leaving the first one high and dry. JZ should be left alone to enjoy his many wives and a legion of sons and daughters. In fact, my country Lesotho would not have been to we are now, a soverirn country in the middle of South African had it not been of ke polygomous Kings Mohlomi, Moshoeshoe, Letsie, Lerotholi and their neigbour and ally, King Oetsi oa the Makholokoe. In fact, King David and the partriach Araham are the most famous men of God, whose descendents rule the present day world under the vail of International Community (The Western World).
Would Zuma’s wives dare to publicly disapprove of his behavior? That is the question. That they would be cowed into an answer that benefited the smirking Zuma, is just further proof that they have no power in this world to defy the status of chattel that men like Zuma have ensured for them.
There is nothing wrong with opposing polygamy, even if the law allows it. As it has dissappeared from other lands and cultures, so it will also be dustbinned from ours as well in time to come. With this certainty, why prolong its inevitable death.
Stand up and defy the culture vultures; – shoo them away.
Dave Harris, are you paid to recycle the same grinding manure day after day. Thanks for your tripe, cos it causes most of us to be more resolute in our belief that you and your type of mentality must be opposed with greater effort than otherwise would be. Perhaps you are the double agent provocateur. Doing a great job, keep it up.
@setloholo – democracy is all about daring. I have spoken to quite a few inhabitants of Lesotho who would like Lesotho to become a part of South Africa again because they wish to live in a democracy. Bantustans were the brainchild of the previous apartheid government. I suppose being a serf of the king you would find the behaviour of individuals with rights in a democracy strange indeed. We dare, Setloholo, because we are free men and woman.
Frankly, i’d welcome all my white brothers to share in this “cultural” perk….i’ll be damned if i let more than one woman noose me. Xhosa women are a force to be reckon with
but then again maybe a white woman will steal my heart and save me lobola…or i just wont’ marry at all….the institution seems less and less appealing to me these days. i’m approaching 30 and i just don’t see the excite ment these days
Foom
There is no such thing as a society without rules – but usually the men twist the rules to suit themselves (as Zuma is doing).
In Muslim culture the Koran actually only allows polgyamy in times of war to protect widows and orphans, and only if the man can treat them all the same. The Muslim world must think themselves permanently at war – and they are NOT marrying widows to protect orphans! Also modern Imams say that a man can not treat multiple women the same and equally so the Koran actually means only one wife.
Jairo
Take “concent” out of the SA context and think of footbinding in China and female genital mutilation in North Africa. The woman do this to the children -or the men won’t marry their daughters. Footbinding means breaking the bones of the foot at age about 5 and breaking them continually every few months. The feet are permanently bound in cloth and permanently suppurating (the men never see them without the bandages)
FGM means cutting off the labia and clitoris at age 5. If the child does not die from the proceedure, she has a 500% higher risk than any other woman of dying in childbirth.
Sethoholo
King David was a Jew. Christ said only one wife. Abraham had only one wife, Sarah, and a child by her servant girl Hagar (with his wife’s permission because she was childless)
X-cepting
The Homelands were not started by the Apartheid Nats; but by the Brits and the Missionaries to keep the black chiefs from selling the land to the boers.
This was after the Griqua sold the vast area granted them to Rhodes (which included all the diamond fields). Now the ANC is moaning about the cost of the Griqua land claims – they don’t even know the history! Are they going to pay for the land twice?
And the Homelands included Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland which the boers expected were going to be incorporated into the Union of SA but the Brits said No. Only Botswana took the advice of the missionaries and has been the most successful democracy in Africa since its independence – until it slipped to second with the vast cost of the Aids epidemic.
The Nats bought more land and expanded the homelands for their bantustan policies.
And when the area of Zululand was defined – it was 8000 acres per family!
Foom
The Koran forbids mutilation of the body so the Imams should discourage not encourage Female Genital Mutilation (they say they don’t iterfere with “cultural practices”)
Also the Koran forbids slavery but only of other Muslims – which is why the Arab slave traders only converted half the tribes and armed them to catch the other half to be slaves (because they were not Muslim – neat trick was it not?)
The Arabic word for “slave” and “black” are the same word by the way.
“Take “concent” out of the SA context and think of footbinding in China and female genital mutilation in North Africa. The woman do this to the children -or the men won’t marry their daughters. Footbinding means breaking the bones of the foot at age about 5 and breaking them continually every few months. The feet are permanently bound in cloth and permanently suppurating (the men never see them without the bandages)”
Unless you are comparing grown African women with 5 year old Chinese girls, I don’t see the relevance of this. Can you not differentiate what an adult does of their own free will and what is done to a child?
Jairo
The adult woman does it to the girl child or no man will marry her when she grows up.
That is how cultural suppression of women always works.
And the men say “it is women’s business”
Ask any man in Egypt about FGM and that is the answer you will get.
That is why cultures try and build in protections. In Zulu culture the “my child is your child” protection is the taboo that Zuma has broken – twice.
X cepting
Lesotho is not a Bantustan, and it has never been one, in fact, it played a major role in the liberation of south Africa. Jeff Radebe, Prof. Ndebele and the late Chris Hani can witness this.
Your facts about Abraham are totally distorted. Genesis 25 is very clear that Abraham had many wives, prominent amongst them was Keturah who bore him seven children.
I still maintain that, the case of Zuma having many wives and sleeping with the daughter of his friend is only drummed up, negatively by bitter man and women who are jealous of him.
I am surprised the ANC Womens League is not vocal about the president’s behaviour. My conclusion if that, it is because there is no clause in the party constitution against extra marital affairs and polygamy.
I, for one, am a grandson of a man that had four wives, all of them, from one family. My father had two and I am a product of the second marriage.
the world needs polygamy to reduce adultery, due to the scarcity of men, unless one accepts prostitution as a way of life.
@Lyndell Beddy – If the Brits’ noble intention was to stop the landgrabs by boere so as to protect native land, why is that so much South African recources went to Britain, unpaid for? As someone pointed out: “whatever happened to the Cullinan diamond? I can believe you about the missionaries, they did do a lot of good in Africa that I saw with my own eyes. If the apartheid govt didn’t mastermind the idea, then surely the Brits were responsible for apartheid (separate development) not so?
x-cepting
Abraham only married those other wives after Sarah had died; then he repented and sent all their sons away – far from Isaac.
The excuse for polygamy is that it reduces adultery – but it is not doing so in Zuma’s case is it?
I don’t mind if Zuma practices polygamy, but I do mind him pretending to be a Christian (Matthew 19: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and the TWO will become ONE – NOT the 4 become one) I do mind Zuma having unprotected sex with women not his wives, and I do mind his many children when we need family planning. These are bad examples for the youth.
X-cepting
The Cullinan diamond was on Griqua land which the Brits had granted them, and which their leaders SOLD to the mining magnates, which is WHY the Homelands were formed (so that the boers could not buy and the chiefs not sell)
No the Brits were keeping the boers from taking all the land. Nothing to do with apartheid at all. The missionaries were teaching in those homelands – and they taught people like John Dube and other to a level of education far higher than the Afrikaner had at that time – which meant the Afrikaner could not compete when jobs became scarce.
Lyndall “The Cullinan diamond was on Griqua land which the Brits had granted them, and which their leaders SOLD to the mining magnates, which is WHY the Homelands were formed (so that the boers could not buy and the chiefs not sell)”
This is a pathetic, illogical attempt at justification of colonialism. How did it come that the Brits were in a position to grant the land in the first place? Were they God or did they first have to take the land from the Griqua? And if the land belonged to the Griqua then surely they were entitled to sell it if they so wished? And which Boers were mining magnates before they accidentally stumbled across some diamonds? You can’t seriously believe that if the British thought there were diamonds they would have simply handed over land to the natives. But, oh, I forget, they did actually go to war against the Transvaal in order to hand the goldfields over to the deserving Sothos – or was it the Na’vi?
Richard
Don’t be a fool. They would have still sold the land, however they acquired it.
Read Jean-Paul Ngoupande, a former prime minister of the Central African Republic, and author of some very good books on contempory Africa. No books written in the black Diaspora are worth reading – they are all full of the Kwanza mythology.
Ngoupande wrote:
There is practically no country or civilization in the world which has not been someone else’s colony at some point in its history: France under the Romans for six centuries, Spain under the Arabs etc…I don’t think it can explain, for example, the destruction of a country like the Ivory Coast, which had got off to a good start…It is the Africans of today who are responsible”
And the clincher in SA and Zimbabwe is that BOTH black and white were colonialists – the indigeneous people were the Khoisan (whom the blacks killed like animals, and the whites protected). Never mind all the tribes that Shaka Zulu enslaved; and the Mfengu (Fingo) that the Xhosa enslaved.
The blacks migrated here from the Congo basin; and the whites from Europe.