The government of South Africa has taken bold constitutional
steps to reduce tension, but the continuing ethnic and religious
conflicts raise questions about the effectiveness of these
mechanisms. Ethnic conflict has been at the heart of both South
Africa’s development problems. Politicised ethnicity has been
detrimental to national unity and socio-economic well-being. It
is important to note that most of these ethnic conflicts were
caused by colonialism, which compounded inter-ethnic conflict by
capitalising on the isolation of ethnic groups. The divide-and-
conquer method was used to pit ethnicities against each other,
thus keeping the people from rising up against the colonisers.
Distribution of economic resources was often skewed to favour a
particular group, pushing marginalized groups to use their
ethnicity to mobilise for equality. These are the seeds of
conflict. There are some common conflict patterns. They include:
1. The demand for ethnic and cultural autonomy, 2. Competing
demands for land, money a