Interpreting violence: The struggle to understand the Natal conflict

On Monday 2 July 1990 there was a massive stayaway in the major industrial areas of South Africa. According to a representative of the South African Chamber of Business who was quoted on SATV that night, the stayaway cost the economy about 750 million rands. The action. which was called for by COSATU, the ANC and the UDF, was directed at putting pressure on the business community, and through them the State, to disarm the Inkatha movement of Chief M G Buthelezi (by removing the K\ncaZulu police from his control and by ensuring non-partisan policing). The call for a stayaway, which was turned by its detractors into a test of the ANC's nationwide support, is particularly interesting because it only makes sense if one particular interpretation of the Natal conflict is accepted as being soundly based namely that the conflict is largely a political one.