ABSTRACT
Why the concepts of ethnicity and ethnic mobilisation and why re-examine these phenomena? In redefining race into constituent ethnic nations, apartheid called on dubious examples, but of common-sense relevance. At the time of the 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act, M.C. de Wet Nel, Bantu Affairs minister at the time, decried ‘black nationalism’ as ‘ “the monster which may perhaps destroy all the best things in Africa” ’ and instead proposed ‘positive cultural nationalism’ (Moodie 1975: 265). He suggested, as part of his argument to convince Parliament, that the most powerful bonds among black people in South Africa were ‘ “their colour” ’ and ‘ “their hatred of the white man” ’. His proposal to foreground cultural solidarity as political goal would mean that ‘ “the Bantu too [as with other such nationalisms, like that of the Afrikaner, obviously] will be linked together by traditional and emotional bonds, by their own language, their own culture, their ethnic particularities” ’. The essence of what was being proposed for apartheid rule, said the minister:
The Zulu is proud to be a Zulu and the Xhosa proud to be a Xhosa and the Venda is proud to be a Venda, just as proud as they were a hundred years ago. The lesson we have learnt from history during the past three hundred years is that these ethnic groups, the whites as well as the Bantu, sought their greatest fulfillment, their greatest happiness and the best mutual relations on the basis of separate and individual development … the only basis on which peace, happiness and mutual confidence could be built up (in Moodie 1975: 266).
