ABSTRACT
The low-intensity conflict (LIC) that has become the stereotypical face of war over the last two decades of the twentieth century has generated steady demand for relief efforts. But LIC is a poor fit with common definitions and understandings of war. The struggle of Black South Africans, led by the African National Congress, to bring majority rule—Black rule in the place of apartheid—to their country was long and hard. But they did it their way: They sang and danced their way to power. Tribal and ethnic animosities were not invented by colonial and neocolonial powers; but those powers have often played upon them and exacerbated them to their own considerable advantage. In fact, where social stratification or political centralization did not in itself provide a Herodian class, or co-optable elite, colonial or neocolonial powers often found it necessary to rule through a racial or ethnic minority.
