LEADERSHIP VACUUM
AUBREY MATSHIQI: KwaZulu-Natal adds to its history of factional fights
When we were growing up we would hear of men being killed in Johannesburg because of what was called "faction fighting" in what is now KwaZulu-Natal. In part, the faction fighting had its roots in the problems that came with land dispossession. Rural people found themselves having less access to their land after the passing of the 1913 Land Act. Disputes between villages erupted over grazing land, as animals encroached onto land the villagers did not realise was no longer theirs. The disputes over grazing land became violent and different communities found themselves in the middle of "faction fights" or izimpi zezigodi, which, loosely translated, means battles between warring villages. As time went on, izimpi zezigodi became politicised.In the battle between the ANC and IFP, for instance, two warring villages would simply divide between the IFP and the ANC. What was essentially a party political dispute would then become impi yezigodi by other means. The urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal...
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