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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-May-2008
Now it's South Africa's turn: ethnic violence spreads through Johannesburg

Web Log - May, 2008

Now it's South Africa's turn: ethnic violence spreads through Johannesburg

Mobs of mostly Zulu South Africans have attacked, raped and slaughtered mostly Zimbabweans during several days of violence, mostly in the poorer parts of Johannesburg and suburbs.

Foreigners from Mozambique and Malawi have been targeted as well, but foreigners from Zimbabwe have been special targets because up to 3 million have fled the violence by Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. The refugees fleeing Mugabe have been mostly from the Ndebele tribe, and the Zulu and Ndebele have had long-standing enmities since the massive Mfecane regional war in the 1820s. (Paragraph corrected - 21-May)

Update: The violence appears to be spreading into the Zulu heartland. Migrant workers in Durban, mostly from Zimbabwe, are being attacked. (Paragraph added - 21-May)

However, the current situation has been exacerbated by the worldwide meteoric rise in food and energy prices, which has increased poverty substantially around the world in a very short period of time.

The violence has been extremely brutal. Mobs armed with knives, clubs and jugs of gasoline torched shacks and beat migrant workers in Johannesburg squatter camps. At least 22 people have been killed. Hundreds have been wounded or raped.

This violence is extremely embarassing to African leaders, especially in view of the ongoing war in Darfur, and the recent violence in Kenya and Zimbabwe, because the violence feeds into the view of some people that Africans are more violent and uncivilized than the rest of the world. As I've written many times on this web site, Africans are no different from the rest of the world in terms of wars and generational timelines; but most of the rest of the world perpetrated most of its violence in World War II, while African crisis wars have been on different timelines.

Many South Africans are blaming South African president Thabo Mbeki for the violence. Mbeki is an old pal of Robert Mugabe, and Mbeki has refused to criticize Mugabe's violence and destruction of his own country. Thus, Mbeki is being blamed for the refugee crisis that's triggering the current violence.

Brief generational analysis of South Africa

Southern Africa, showing colonial names in red

Southern Africa, showing colonial names in red

South Africa has several different generational timelines, based on ethnic groups:

The British colonists were on the United Kingdom generational timeline.

The Zulus originally came from east of Transvaal. In my recent article on Zimbabwe, I described how the Zulu tribe went from obscurity to world renown thanks to one leader, Shaka, and the extremely bloody and brutal war of extermination he led against other tribes in that region. This war was the Mfecane ("the crushing"), and it climaxed in 1828.
The great Zulu Empire lasted for decades, until it was destroyed by the British in 1879 in the bloody Anglo-Zulu war. At the climax of that crisis war, the Zulus were dispersed, and the Zulu nation ended.

The Dutch settlers, mixing with French and German Protestants in the 1600s, took on a unique identity, Afrikaner, speaking a unique language, Afrikaans.
The 1830s-40s crisis war with the British drove the Afrikaners (also called Boers) to form other colonies -- Natalia, Transvaal, Orange Free State -- in a huge migration known as the Great Trek.
As we described in the recent article on Zimbabwe, the Great Trek displaced the Ndebele tribe members who had survived the Mfecane and drove them into what is now Zimbabwe, where they became a market-dominant minority after crushing to local Shona tribe.
The Boer wars, starting in the 1890s and ending in 1902, were a British conquest of the Afrikaners. This was a crisis war for the Afrikaners, but a non-crisis war for the British.

On May 10, 1910, the Union of South Africa was created from the Cape Colony, Natalia, Transvaal, and Orange Free State. South Africa became an active part of the world community, and with the Afrikaner and tribal (Zulu) timelines merging into common generational Awakening and Unraveling eras, there were sharp political divisions along racial lines. Both the Zulus and the Afrikaners became extremely nationalistic.

All of these different timelines merged in World War II. Different political factions wished to side with the British or with the Germans, or stay neutral. But since South Africa was part of the British empire, it fought on the side of the Allies. South Africa's fighting troops were all whites, but blacks served in non-fighting roles like drivers and guard duties.

Today, 63 years after the end of World War II, South Africa is well into a generational Crisis era.

Recall that other countries where violence has recently broken out are in different generational eras. When post-election tribal violence broke out in Kenya on January 1, I was able to predict that the violence would fizzle, because only 49 years have passed since Kenya's last crisis war, the Mau-Mau rebellion of 1959.

I had predicted the same thing when violence broke out in Burma (Myanmar) last September, because only 50 years have passed since Burma's last crisis war, the ethnic civil war that ended in 1958. In an article last week, I discussed those concepts further, especially how Cyclone Nargis might possibly have affected generational relationships.

But for South Africa, there are no such ambiguities. However, the fact that South Africa is in a generational Crisis era does not mean that the current violence will surely escalate right away. It means that South Africa is "attracted" to violence and civil war, and that a civil war has a high probability of beginning soon, when the proper triggering event occurs. (21-May-2008) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-May-2008 Now it's South Africa's turn: ethnic violence spreads through Johannesburg

Brief generational analysis of South Africa

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-May-2008
Now it's South Africa's turn: ethnic violence spreads through Johannesburg