So Baba is gone.
Well, I need no answer to that question, I know he’s gone. That much is not the problem. The main problem here is how are we to define ourselves without him?
I mean, I know we going to eat, drink and study-I mean even be rich. But how on earth am I and my family going to define ourselves without him?
I am not sure if you going to see the comparison but, it is sort of like ‘How is South Africa to define itself without him-President Dr Nelson Mandela-I mean? Are these people of ours still going to associate themselves with the old man’s ideology, are we, the people still to remain seeing ourselves as did the Icons of our country? Are we to carry out and carry over the things, the values and pangs that Mandela and our fathers stood for?
The King of the Zulu sees no enemy in the now Zulu Briton,the ideal Mandela sees no enemy in DeKlerk’s people and the Swazi see no profit in pursuing the wrongs of the British to their country, Swaziland.
Mean while the Zulu is content with his statehood remaining as is. The once upon a time rumbling and tumbling Kingdom of the Zulu, etched stiff in memory but only a fabled dream in reality.Is the proud African white still to hold still his blood in its cry for self determinism or is he to let it run as free as an angry and warring Zulu warrior. Blind to death and the uncertainty of things that comes with it? Are we the people to remain South African or is each soon to run to his perceived own?
The answers to this questions are many and too theatrical. It is therefore quite wasteful to answer them all right now but to us and the many who love many a sad things I dare say let’s start talking and pointing the fingers.
Here goes:
1. The Afrikaner and The People’s Council
These (the Afrikaner) are a people born, bred and bared by the hills and valleys of Africa in all manner of the words but one. They happen to be of European decent. They, along with the major players in South Africa’s history-bad means or not- built this country. They fought the mistreatment and cruel rule of the British, lost 26000 people to the Anglo-Boere war and suffered phi-dogs living conditions in British war camps around the country. They worked hard enough to-by 1960s- have moved from running the Free State and Transvaal Republic to running Zimbabwe, Namibia and old mother South Africa herself. They achieved this using various means: some diplomatic, some deceitful and inhumane and some downright human degrading in nature and purpose. They end result was a strong dualistic state capable of great innovative inventions. It was heaven for most of the white but hell for the morally tortured white and especially the Black man who sought life in the cities.
Due to the call for a multicultural-political state, the Afrikaner inspired state died-well in many respects-and we became one people under democratic South Africa.
We however, who hunt and see things we shouldn’t are aware of the People’s Council; an Afrikaner movement which became notable in 2011, September. They are calling for a separate state for the Afrikaner people, state where they hope to rekindle their nation, culture and tradition. They hoped to start the discussion for such a dream with the government of RSA late last year (August 2014).
And so here comes fracture number one dear mother South Africa.
Go to www.volksraad.co.za for more.
2. The Zulu Nation
The Zulu are a people born of so called Negro people of Africa. Well that is according to the so called Africanist researchers of Europe. Our tradition however dictates that we are Bantu of the Nguni stock born of South Egypt and Nubia. We came to South Africa a thousand years ago via the Mountain of Asembo (Embo) in Kenya, and left a trail of evidence along the way, from Egypt to modern day KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
We, along with the Boere and British are among the role players of South Africa’s history. Shaka Zulu our main founding king united many a chiefdoms, clans and tribes into one rumbling thunder of a nation…Our domain went from a tiny spec of dominance to rivaling, the then mighty Mthethwa nation, Zwide kaMashobana kingdom of the Ndwandwe to shocking the world when we defeated the mighty British war machine at Isandlwana. We lost our dominance over a very large portion of land in South Africa not because of the British but through the ingenuity of the Afrikaner commandos who divided the main House and thus pitted brother against brother in a series of bloody and fruitless wars and finally razing down the Ulundi Royal Palace and taking our last militarily mighty king (His Majesty king Cetshwayo of Ondini) to exile in the Island of St. Helena. We were left with no king but thousands of warring chiefs who had no means to fight the British and their then Afrikaner partners. Thus was the mighty giant put to sleep-with all its viciousness, splendor and power.
We have been in such a state ever since those days. We lost our customs, our traditions and mostly our way of life.
Even though we have a king, we fear we are not ever to regain our statehood, our young are more adept to the English tongue than to using their own, politicians have ravaged our chiefdoms in their aim to get more votes in this new South Africa, they have done so in the king’s name and that of ending poverty. We are a dying people: our nationhood is constantly being attacked and degraded to a tribe’s level, our girls are frowned upon when they go to virginity test, our Umhlanga-reed dance ceremony is a hot bad for molesters, our chiefdoms are being reduced into puppets by local municipalities and our chiefs are now referred as local leaders-as if they were some nameless soul picketing over the building of toilets instead of houses.
Although it has never been uttered in the media, the general feeling among the Zulu chiefdoms is not entirely that of loyalty to the government of the day. Many a Zulu are loyal to their chief and their king. But the advent of politics is slowly but surely corroding this in such a way that soon enough we will be Zulu only by name. It is good for the unity of the country geographically and maybe politically but the returning of mainly the ceremony of Ukweshwama/Incwala and uMhlanga in truth means that the Zulu are reviving their nationhood. This I say because Incwana/Ukweshwama and uMhlanga ceremony are ceremonies meant to concentrate the king’s power over the people and also to confer unity among the chiefs, tribes, clans and families.
So long as the king does this, our people are verily marching to nationhood oh and the king is slowly but surely becoming independent of the RSA government’s funds…guess what is next. Well I’ll tell you: the Ingwenyama Trust Board is a board developed to protect the land of the people living in KwaZulu-Natal. It looks after and protects much of the which used to be Zululand. Now, the black African being hungry for land-and the New South Africa’s founding fathers’ mistake in not adequately dealing with the difference between conquered land and stolen land-forced the ANC led government to re-open land claims. The Ingwenyama trust took it upon itself to quantify land lost to Zulu kingdom and also submit the land claim on behalf of the king and his people. The claim is to be submitted March this year(2015)…Oh so we here.
The king, His Majesty Zwelithi has as of yet not being heard saying any thing about this land claim on radio or TV. As such, we are in no postion to verify or falsify this news but Ukhozi FM did tell us that there might be such a claim last year(2014). If true, it would seem the Zulu are well on their way to becoming a nation with its own land; beautiful and all boarded. A big chunk of South Africa gone. Be it ends up so or not, this spells out one huge crack, can Mandela’s cement hold it?
Oh and we are livid over the changing of King Shaka’s Day into this Heritage Day of theirs. Why? Well who is the Zulu without his father, the Great King of the Zulu nation?
Here comes prospective fracture number two.
3. The ANC
Ah the hero of modern day Republic of South Africa. The ANC is a popular and very strong political party that is currently the government’s ruling party.
It is multicultural, adaptive to the times and has traditionally very strong leaders as its head. Examples are, Nelson Mandela, Chief Luthuli, Pixie (?) KaSeme and many others… The ANC has a very long history, they moved from a movement of Black African Southern African kings like king Sobhuza of Swaziland, king Dalindyebo(?) of KwaXhosa, African elites and many others to being a movement of the people almost across Southern Africa and not just South Africa.
Its crowning glory is the Freedom Charter and its statement; “South Africa Belongs to All who live in it”. The party has endured many a tribulations, from being horridly persecuted by the then apartheid government to its members being at odds with the Inkatha Freedom Party(IFP). 1994 was the year the ANC became the ruling party of South Africa. It took the people to the world, gave them peace, gave them land and houses of their own, promoted the opening of universities to African blacks and many more Indian Africans, free education to the black African and many more opportunities previously closed to us African blacks. They made many promises two.
The issue of land is a big head-ache for the ANC. Why? Well, because many a black Africans deem themselves a people with no land-well we Zulus retained much of ours. They still see themselves as sojourners right in the land of their birth. Because of the Afrikaner, they, today have no land. Their land along with their graves, kraals, and main house ruins are under the control and mercy of the hateful Afrikaner…Even today: in new democratic South Africa.
It does not stop there. To make matter even worse, the Agreed upon “willing seller willing buyer” land repatriation principle adopted by the ANC to bring people their land is very much a head-ache to the ANC. On one side is the African black, very much in love with his ancestral land, on the other is the Afrikaner who sees himself not as a colonialist or even conqueror of the land but verily the discoverer and founder of that very same land the African black wants.
The willing buyer, willing seller principle is therefore not an easy exercise for poor ANC.
Then comes dear old money and its so called economy. Much of South Africa’s economy and therefore money, banks and everything was made by the Briton and the Afrikaner off the breaking back bone of the African black, South Africa today is a democracy, that being so, means little to us the poor of this country besides off course that me still in money terms still as we were back then when we toiled and bled under the National Party and its apartheid.
On top of that is the poor delivery of the syllabus by mostly the poor schools, unruly and often very scary school children and their hopeless hurts and love for short cuts. Oh, and the EFF is pushing for not just Nationalization of mines but also for the removal of Mr. President Jacob Zuma from the presidential seat. They did this right in parliament when they asked the president to “Pay back the money” used by the state to secure and upgrade his home at Nkandla.
Ah dear crack, the ANC affiliated speaker used the so called white shirted police to remove the EFF out of parliament. Oh and somebody used a portable military grade signal jammer to disrupt mobile phones, radio and TV signals-when are them soldiers coming in dear crack?
The above are but only signs that the country as is, is in trouble. I am no politician; I simply wish not to go back to the old days: back when living in my country, on my mother land KwaZulu-Natal was a horrible thing. So Babe is gone, I know we are still going to eat, drink and even be rich. But how are we going to define ourselves without him? President Madiba is gone, how we South Africans going to define ourselves without him?
Fix these cracks or verily the rainbow colors will simply go their separate ways.
