Youth and Identity Politics in South Africa, 1990–1994.

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University and
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom.

Dlamini—a South African Zulu who moved to Canada in 1988—discusses the political thoughts and activities of young South African Zulus during the last four years of apartheid (1990–1994). The introduction summarizes what apartheid was and notes that the government tried to play the divide-and-rule game with South Africa’s much larger black population. Dlamini then discusses her methodology. She had intended to conduct her research in Pietermaritzburg, capital of Natal and her home prior to moving to Canada, but friends discouraged her. Pietermaritzburg was too dangerous; the number of deaths per day had increased from 20 in 1989 to 60 in 1992. Under the circumstances, she settled for Umlazi, near Durban. Soccer proved the key to understanding. One soccer contact led to others, as well as to people uninvolved in soccer.

Many schools for black South Africans insist that everyone speak English, in the playgrounds as well as the classrooms. The policy was unenforceable in the school Dlamini visited because Zulu was the first language for both teachers and students. When Dlamini asked 22 students whether they would prefer English or Afrikaans as the national language, a surprising 12 chose Afrikaans. Unlike English, the young Zulus said, Afrikaans was a South African language, and South Africans could develop the grammar and determine which words were acceptable. It was also important to know the language of the employers. Eight chose English, an international language, and two expressed no opinion.

Although more than a decade has elapsed since the end of apartheid, says Dlamini, South Africa faces enormous problems, and many of its black youth suffer a sense of hopelessness. Hardly any South Africans of European descent are poor, but a majority of black Africans are. Young people did manage to force President Thabo Mbeki to modify his eccentric stand on HIV/AIDS, and they rallied behind the discredited Winnie Mandela, whom they thought deserved better than the ongoing legal harassment to which she was subjected. However, “the gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase … [and] every thirty seconds a child is orphaned because of HIV/AIDS.”