Workers and Warriors: Inkatha’s Politics of Masculinity in the 1980s

For the purpose of Zulu nationbuilding there is no denying that Inkatha has had a wealth of masculinist symbols, histories and practices upon which to draw. However, the availability of such an endowment does not explain the reasons for, nor the manner of, its deployment. The present authors argue that Inkatha’s masculinist narratives should not be attributed to Zulu tradition, but are best understood as constructed against modern, contemporary social realities. They explore how gender figured in the institutional realities that mediated South Africa’s political economy of migrant labour and the division between urban and rural, custom and tradition, and manhood as husband and homestead head and manhood as worker. An analysis of the masculinist content of Buthelezi’s speeches – the invocation of kings, warriors, and worker discipline – reveals that his concern with Zulu manhood should be located in the contemporary dilemma of recruiting male peasant-proletarians existing, both socially and geographically, on the fringes of Inkatha’s centre of power. Bibliogr., notes.