BY MR MB GWALA MPP
KWAZULU NATAL PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT
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PIETERMARITZBURG: 19 JULY 2007 Honourable SpeakerI would like to pay tribute to Inkosi Albert Luthuli by making three distinctive points. Firstly, Inkosi's role as an international icon in the fight against apartheid is both monumental and indisputable. In his time, Luthuli was - without doubt - the most widely known and respected African leader on the continent. This fact was duly recognised in 1960 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize website aptly describes Luthuli as "a man of noble bearing, charitable, intolerant of hatred, and adamant in his demands for equality and peace among all men". As such, Luthuli is credited with forging a philosophical compatibility between two cultures - the Zulu culture of his native Africa and the Christian-democratic culture of Europe. It was Luthuli's public support for the 1952 Defiance Campaign that finally brought him into direct conflict with the South African government whose representatives demanded that he either resign from the ANC, which he joined in the previous decade, or be dismissed from his elected post as Inkosi. In his famous response, Luthuli issued a statement with the title "The Road to Freedom is via the Cross", in which he condemned apartheid as degrading to all who are party to it and expressed both his belief in non-violence and an optimism that whites would sooner or later accept a shared society. Needless to say, in the end, his vision prevailed over the one that enlisted armed struggle in the fight against apartheid. Secondly, it is well-known practice that individuals, organisations and institutions - and political parties in particular - adopt prominent people as political symbols. Such adoptions inevitably produce conflicting memories and images of the chosen symbols. University of KwaZulu Natal academics Jabulani Sithole and Sibongiseni Mkhize argue in their joint disputation that multiple representations of celebrated public figures should not only be viewed in terms of a choice between 'truths' and 'lies.' Using the case of Inkosi Albert Luthuli, they further argue that secrets and silences about aspects of his political life would make it difficult for anyone to establish the veracity of competing memories which have been produced around his name since his death in 1967. Sithole and Mkhize conclude that many 'Luthulis' were produced for different, not least political, purposes and at different times during this period. They therefore suggest that to understand the motives for the making of the various propaganda images of Luthuli one needs to explore in some depth the contexts in which they were made. Honourable Speaker, let me apply this thinking to a notorious example of the ANC's treatment of recent South African history. The ANC have consistently airbrushed certain inconvenient circumstances of Inkosi Luthuli's political career as well as his fundamental beliefs to suit their immediate purpose. For example, in December 1961 - without Inkosi Luthuli's sanction - Nelson Mandela, then of the Transvaal Provincial ANC, publicly launched the organisation's armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe at a gathering here in Pietermaritzburg where delegates from several movements had convened to discuss possible co-operation. The fact remains that Nelson Mandela's charisma and the global publicity surrounding his Treason Trial and subsequent imprisonment upstaged Inkosi Luthuli who grew increasingly despondent in isolation of his banishment at Stanger. None of this, however, has prevented the ANC from claiming, even today, Inkosi Luthuli's post-humous support for their current policies. Honourable Speaker, as an admirer of Inkosi Luthuli's timeless humanism, I find it hard to believe that Inkosi would have lent his credence to such inhumane policies as the ruling party's virtual denial of the HIV/Aids pandemic or their indifference to the suffering of people under a brutal dictatorship. After all, Luthuli was born near Bulawayo in what was then Southern Rhodesia. But it is Inkosi Luthuli's life-long commitment to non-violence that once separated him from his own political home, the ANC, and, at the same time, brought him very close to the founding values of my own political organisation, the Inkatha Freedom Party. This theme also brings me to my last point. Thirdly, Inkosi Luthuli's home in KwaDukuza was a famous meeting place for people linked to South Africa's freedom struggle during the years of his banishment by the South African government. One of the frequent visitors to Luthuli's home was Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Whenever banning orders were re-imposed on Inkosi Luthuli, he and his wife would reciprocate and visit Prince Buthelezi and his family at their KwaPhindangene home. It is another historical fact - often conveniently forgotten by the ruling party - that Inkosi Luthuli and other ANC leaders persuaded Prince Buthelezi to abandon his law articles and take up his hereditary position as an Inkosi. They believed that this would be in the interests of the liberation struggle. No less character than Cleopas Nsibande, the former Gauteng leader of the ANC, revealed at the unveiling of Oliver Tambo's tombstone that he was present when Inkosi Luthuli and Oliver Tambo sent Prince Buthelezi a message through his late sister, Princess Morgina Dotwana. The message was that the Prince should lead his people within the framework of the separate development structure if those very people elected him. One particular myth dating back to the immediate post-Luthuli era and perpetuated by the ANC to this day is that it was their organisation that prompted Prince Buthelezi to revive Inkatha in mid-seventies to raise a credible black voice after more than a decade since the ANC itself was silenced by the South African government. The truth is that the founding of Inkatha was Prince Buthelezi's own initiative which was merely, if whole-heartedly, supported by the ANC. Honourable Speaker, it is on account of this deep inter-racial and inter-cultural understanding, this rife awareness of the political reality and, above all, this uncompromising commitment to non-violence, that Inkosi Albert Luthuli is today celebrated across all political parties as the iconic politician who forged the philosophical and political compatibility among South Africa's multiple cultures. I thank you. Contact: Blessed Gwala, 078 690 5777 |