Paper short abstract:

The Amadiba struggle against Australia’s Mining Commodities' attempts to mine on South Africa’s East Coast expose contradictions between democracy and autocratic rule, the environment and mining, broad-based development and profit, where tradition is manipulated in pursuit of accumulation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper critically analyses the struggles of the Amadiba against Australia's Mining Commodities (MRC). The MRC is infamous for its attempts to mine heavy sands in Xolobeni, in the Amadiba area of Mpondoland on South Africa's East Coast. Vested interests include traditional leaders, Black Economic Empowerment entrepreneurs, elected municipal councillors and the MRC. The Amadiba are amaMpondo inserted into a complex mix of "modern" local government - brought into being by the new democratic dispensation after 1994 - and traditional authorities which precede capitalist South Africa but which were re-shaped by intervening forms of white rule - colonialism, segregation and apartheid. The amaMpondo have a king, several chiefs and a system of headmen and tribal authorities - which have custodial rights over land allocation. All of these have had a history of contestation over jurisdiction and succession before the MRC mining intervention. That intervention has exacerbated these and precipitated further divisions. Overlaying these has been the national and provincial governments, concerned with seeking rural allies.

Amadiba are a poor community. They have self-organised to challenge their oppression and to place their own agency at the centre of any "development". They do not trust government or political parties. They are not an undifferentiated mass enthralled to "tradition" and traditional ways of living. Tradition has already been re-shaped for decades and the activists already experience the dialectical tension between very modern practises and older traditions. And they know that both the state and the companies have cynically manipulated "tradition" to suit their agendas.