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strategies can only prow out of analysis of local conditions, needs and Interests. The teachers* position is intimately bound up with the expectations of their role-SBt. Therefore, the development of strategies needs to take into account the expectations and the roles of pupils, parents, col leagues and authorities. Teachers can undertake to increase the communlcations between oil members of the role-set In order to de-escalata the levels of conflict end than encourage co-operation. A working criteria could be to open up communications between all members of the role—sat. 2. The slat of education for transformation must be that of helping pupils, other teachers, parents and themselves to understand the material and social world around them. As many educationalists believe, it Is not the content but the educational process which is aost important. The organisation of the school and of the clsssrooa should therefore proaote critical understanding. Participation in tha educational process should be encouraged. Gelpi, the current head of UNESCO's Lifelong Education unit, believes that self-directed learning by Individuals and groups should be promoted as 'it is s danger for every repressive force, and it's upon self-direct ion that we aust insist*. He goes on, '(r)adlcel change in social, aorel, aesthetic and political affairs is often the out COM of a process of self directed learning in opposition to tha educational message imposed f rcai el thout * * Several writers who are concerned with education al transformation insist that the development of critical thinking Is fundamental to the task. This means that trying to indoctrinate pupils with an alternative Ideology is the worst way of progressing• A dialectical educational philosophy needs to farm tiie cornerstone for change. Education needs to enhance the chances for a genuinely democratic and participatory society. Tha second working criteria could therefore be a ooaatltSKsnt to the development of e critical and dlalectlcel educational philosophy. If criteria like the above were accepted as key principles in the strategies adoptmd'by teachers. perhaps a constructive start could be made to the building of a unified community of teachers, where "divergant-typ*< thinking is encouraged and teachers are able to play an important role In facilitating positive educational developments, which both begins to meat the present needs and can also contribute to the foundations Qr * future, more desirable education system. CONCLUSION THE teacher in this article is treated as one in opposition. Therefore strategies which are projected need to be concerned with "re-def inition• , relatively small-scale, low-cost, and ones which draw primarily on teachers' Own resources. Shirley "alters Note: The author of this article has developed ideas that serve as background to the strategies discussed in the erticla above, in an U Ed dissertation at the University of Manchester. Readers who might be interested in this dissertation are asked to contact Shirley Baiters through the editors of IP (address on the index page of this publication). subscribe to IAPRIGA PEBSPEGTIVE t«mwiewAMowt, •wAmJwwM emekft met mm sen fwmwml subscriptions »«*ettwW*tw4hr4«* (MO fur I ^ M M W— emmVJi IA, mm pwataft imMmmalCettadhe. COUKITVE tettVtCTfvt fctAAJrftWTZIN, 2D17 ETHNICITY AND CLASS IN GAZANKULU IF there is agreement about anything regarding Gazankulu, it is a sense of surprise at the bantustan's very existence. Cos Desmond, who visited the Northern Transvaal in 1969, wrote that the Tswanastan belles the idea of a nation* state In that its sections are often hundreds of miles apart. But the Vendastan and T&ongastan woke the idea of creating a viable nation-state even less plausible. Vet only three years later. Commissioner- General EF Potgieter ems able to tell the Gazankulu legislative assembly that I very much realise that there was a time when you were grouped together with the Bavende on the one side and with the Besutho on the other and that you eere not a people as you are today in this meeting hall. The decision to create Gerankuiu as a separate political entity for the Tsonga/9*angoen ethnic group was almost an afterthought in the South African state's grand scheme of 'separate development' Ihus, the problem which this article addresses Itself to can be stated quite simply: how is it that in little over a decade, ethnic consciousness has been aroused to the extent thet Gazankulu is nom well on the way to bentustan * independence*? as an analytical category, ethnicity or nationalism has always presented a massive problem to materialist writers. In an important article, John Saul writes that 'progressive writers on Africa generally approach the Issue of "tribalism* as one mould approach a minefield - and with good reason'. Saul makes the point that It Is useless to slogenisa ethnit consciousness away as 'false consciousness** • The vary fact that ethnic consciousness has so often been mobilised into e powerful political platform demands an explanation of the availability of t*xje «V
page 2& •officiant nuebers of the population to erxept such identification. Thus, atilla It la arang to regard ethnic conacioueneea a* an independent aetaphyelcel 'for* 1 , It la politically and intellectually absurd to disregard lta existence entirely, anat needs to ba dona is to link tha polltlcleatlun of athnlc . dlffarancaa to tha procaaa of claaa foraatlon and to traat tha changing political and aconoalc aignlficanca of ethnicity historically, lhan aa apply thla projact to tha caaa of Bazankulu, tha eolution to tha problaa of athnlcity la eurprielngly streightforeard: politiciaad athnlcity - though by no aeons tha naatly peckaged product of a cynical conapiracy aaongst tha doainant * olaaaaa - la undarlald by aany claar aatarlal concarne. It ia therefore tha teak of this artlcla to axaapllfy and analyaa thoaa aatarlal forcaa which hava maturated tha development of politiciaad athnlcity In Gezankulu. A Taonoo/Shangaan 'Tribe'? ACCORDING to South African govornaont sources, thara aara In 1975 aoaa 7de 400 Teonge in tha Northam Tranavaal of ahoa only 266 100 actually llvad in Gezankulu. Tha Taonga orlglnatad in Uocaabloua, balng aim or laaa bataaan tha 21at and 27th dagraaa latitude. Thay arrived in tha Northam Tranavaal throughout tha 14th cantury In a nueber of aavaa of iaadgratlon. Tha flrat aava of laalgration Into tha Tranavaal aaa a raault of claahaa with Ngunl rafugaa laadara (ilka Qhoanangana), aho flad praaant day Natal aa a raault of tha tffecane. A aacond aava of Taonga iaadgratlon froa Hocanbiqua occurrad In 1850-6?, dua to a auccaaalon diaputa bataaan tao of ahoahangana*a aona. A third atraaa of rafugaaa arrived In tha Tranavaal bataaan 1646 and 1900 aa a raault of tha Portugueee destruction of tha Gaza kingdom. Tha othar coaponant of Tranavaal Taonga arrivad In small groupa aftar baing aaployad aa algrant labourara on tha Tranavaal alnee. Tha crucial laportanca of tha foregoing auaawry ia that tha Taonga In tha Tranavaal aara navar | coaprlaad of unlfiad tribaa alth poaarful chiefs. Thay aara distributed over a alda geographical araa and aara concerned only to find a place to live under the protection of whatever chief aould give thaa) land. Aa a raault, Taongaa have been ecettared throughout tha Tranavaal, living eulnly amongst Venda- and Sotho-speafcera. Aa the govarneemt ethnologiet, NJ van aaraalo* put it In 1935, Tha Taonga In tha Tranavaal ara, eith aoae exceptions, not organlaad into tribes at all, but represent a larga fonaleee population, the aaka-up of ahlch elmoet defies anelyela.... tha bulk of thaa live under haadaan of no real rank or atandlng or alee fora part, sometimes even the greater part, of tha folloeing of Sotho and Vande chiefs of high end loa degree. 3 Tha concept of a Taonga tribe aaa conceived largaly aa a raault of the aortt of the anthropologist HA Junod in the early 20th cantury. According to Patrick Harriee, Junod, trapped in tha 19th century European Ideology of the nation-etata, attaapted •to creoto clarity ahere clarity did not axlat* by classifying the Taonga aa a group* Tha araa knoen today aa Gezankulu has eleaya bean noticeably devoid of poaarful Shangaen chlefe, and unlike tha caaa of the KeaZulu or the Tranaksi, thara hee never been a paramount Shangean chief. Yet deaplte tha abaanca of any clearly defined Taonga or Shengaan nation, the Promotion of Bantu Self Governeaint Act of 1969 racognlaad the Taonga/ Shengaan aa a separate population group • Thla Act aaa folloaad in 1962 eith tha craation of a llaahangana tarritorlal authority and the subsequent granting of a legislative aaseably in 1971. In t972, tha nee* Gazankulu aaa coined, and In 1973 the nee bentuatan aaa daclared a aalf-governing tarritory eeelting * Independence •. It 1* not, hoaever, tha concern of thie contribution to explain the declalone of the South African stata in lta creetlon of Gazankulu. Aa in tha case of the other 8 bantuatana, a conplex matrix of Nationalist ideology, tha need to export tfie reeervo aray of unemployed, atteepte to fragaant afrlcana * politically, etc, all played foraatlve rolaa in the craation of tha bantuatana. Bather than diacuaaing thla aspect of bentuatan craation, it la our concern to explain hoe ethnic nationalise has been aoblliasd within Gazankulu aa a neceeeary precondition to the aucceasful execution of the hoaxtlend strategy. Class and Ethnicity IN recent atudiaa of the poet-colonial atata in Africa, it hee been coaaonly argued (eith varying degreee of sophietlcation) that nationalise) haa been the cleaa projact of tha Indigenous petty bourgeolelo in lta atteepte to eecure political and economic doalnence. Thie la qualified with the proviso that no claaa aver consplrea in unlaon to conceive an ideological bluaprint for clasa domination. Tha caaa of Gazankulu broadly aupporta thla theela. It hea In feet bean precisely because tha petty bourgeolala believee lte oen ideology that lta ideology haa gained auch force. David Dieon note* that Gezankulu's formtlon haa bean unique beceuae of the fact that a aeparata Shengaan entity aaa rmtv envisaged in tha original plan to balkaniaa South Africa. It did not groe up in tha *claaalc hoaaland aould' 7 - out of pertlaa made up of chiefs and their eupportera. Rather, its foraatlon aaa mediated through e group of &tangean buslnasaaisn, taechera and bureaucrats, under the leadership of Professor Hudaon Ntsane/iei of tha Unlvaralty of the North, and former moderator of the Taonga Presbyterian church. Olaon pernaps overetatee tha unlojuanaaa of tha foraatlon of Gazankulu. Aa ee shell praeantly aaa, the rola of chiefe and hsaoaen aalarlad by the Couth African atata haa baan a oruclal factor in Gezankulu'a craation, Navarthalaaa, It la to tha rola of tha entrepeneurial patty bourgeolala that aa should turn to flrat. During ay visit to Gazankulu in Oacaabar 1961, I apoke to only tao ehopfcaepere at any length, Intereetingly. both readily aacrlbed their eaitarial advancaasnt to the craation of Gazankulu. Evan aura lntereatlngly, both buelnssaaan edeltted that they aara tha flrat paople to live in their raepective arees. Since both thaaa bualnssaaan aara living in areas neely oocupied by raaattled paopla, the
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