In his inaugural speech as the 9th King of the Zulus, King MisuZulu Ka Zwelithini spoke of the renewal, rebuilding, and unity of 'Isizwe sa MaZulu'. The platitudes in his speech were codes. Only those interior to the actual issues surrounding the contestation for the throne would have a decoding capability and respond accordingly.
In the emerging consensus that 'democracy should be defined as the arrangements with which a society agrees to govern or rule itself,' the Zulu Kingdom can arguably be classified as a democracy to the extent that those who are called Zulus have accepted the various authorities converging in the position of King. As a democracy-type or form, the Zulu Kingdom has, over the years it existed, carried the structures and systems of 'isizwe sa Mazulu' through time. It has built common interests that have become the currency of its politics and thus shaped those that share a common membership to it as a society and has established what a future of that Kingdom should look like in respect of its theories, values, and purposes.
Inaugurated into a contested throne, and like many human development matters, at any point of institution building, such as creating a kingdom continuity system, humans will start with some pre-existing custom to influence any new departure. Historical accounts of similar moments in the history of Zulus show that such contests were resolved through battles, some of which were violent and bloody. The immediate recent ones were outcomes of political shrewdness by those the King called 'abavikel'shlalo' (defenders of the throne).
The battle for the Zulu throne, arguably the biggest monarchy in Southern Africa, if not the Southern Hemisphere, can easily qualify as a 'proxy battle' for the soul of South Africa's largest ethnic group and, by extension South Africa itself. In a country where a tradition of operating as a nation with common interests, the instability of one of the largest ethnic groups, which arguably sees itself as a distinct nation, will impact the overall stability of South Africa as both a democracy and an aspirant nation. The growth of ethnicity as a vector of political power analysis amongst Africans points to a need to find a balance between the growing into a determinant substrate of South Africanness by Zuluness and the need to entrench the resolve to deal with the national question outside the limitations of race and ethnicity.
In the Zulu, diversities which existed, in history, as the keynotes of social condition and opinion were resolved through conquest by King Shaka Ka Senzangakhona. To be Zulu today includes having common membership to Zuluness and accepting specific rules which enable the Kingdom to hold together. Having their diversities resolved or settled, in whatever way, does not mean new ones will not arise when the opportunity presents itself. It will be the differential character of the political system, its economics and political economy, and the ambitions of individuals to pursue their interests that will be sufficient to ensure that no society or nation is ever uniform or even in its texture. This we have seen in the build-up to the inauguration of King MisuZulu.
In the spaces of being Zulu, cultural or otherwise, the authority over the Kingdom is the arena of politics, the prize of politics, and the residue of past politics, notwithstanding that there are parts of these politics that are too interior to the kingdom which we will not see, even if we were Zulus. The arrangements of the bloodline determining who qualifies to be the convergence point of the Kingdom's authorities in absolute terms are issues whose intersections with other aspects of societal development confirm that government alone is not tantamount to politics. In addition to governing, there is ruling, requiring an establishment whose power directs both. In the King MisuZulu inauguration, we saw how interests within a royal family became embodiments of active diversities in the Zulu Kingdom as a political system.
King MisuZulu is the convergence point of ruling and governing in the Zulu Kingdom. His person has become one of the maces of African Kingdoms.
With the South African population being predominantly youthful, coupled with a narrative that institutions of traditional leadership do not attract the endearment of the youth, it was expected that the inauguration would have attracted the older generations. Mixed as the audience was, a preponderance of youth was identified as a departure point of this specific inauguration. It was surprising to observe social media interest, as an accepted barometer of youth interest in any matter, in the inauguration itself. The authority that the position of King represents might well be what South African society is starved of, given the outcomes that electoral democracy seems to be churning out at its set regular intervals. This might be a subject of another rendition, but the point is that there was an aura of youth embracing the cultural and consciousness significance of the inauguration. A cultural tower and lighthouse for 'uZulu omnyama' was also inaugurated.
The cultural conflicts of interests were decidedly registered, resolved, altered, and maintained in that one single event of inaugurating the King of 'uZulu omnyama.' The title of King we saw, the ritualization that undergirded it, and the institutional arrangements that went with it embodied the ultimate imaginable power by the African Kingdom in a democracy whose essence might be about its erosion. Not only did the event display the coercive cultural power to punish the hegemonic tendencies that juniorise African knowledge and power systems in certain spheres. To naysayers, the inauguration, as a proxy for all other African Kingdoms, was an event of interest because the power possessed by the office of the Zulu King, matters in politics, and its durability might be what sustains us beyond the economic dispossession led to castration of our political economy prowess.
Given that building a stable order has been one of the illusive projects of post-apartheid South Africa, any disorder or instability within its core components might render the project an impossibility whose management might procure for hermetically defined federalist models of democracy design. Let's agree that a democratic tradition connotes a set of deeply rooted, historically conditioned attitudes about the nature of a democracy, the role of that democracy in society and polity, and the proper organization and operation of democracy. We should then accept that the Zulu Kingdom's democratic tradition should be studied in respect of its way, how it was created, how it finds expression in non-Zulu spaces, how it can be of general applicability, and whether it has aspects we need to perfect into the broader democracy of South Africa.
With the hindsight of the rarity of a stable order amongst Zulus when succession to the throne contestations begin, we should already know that stability in the Zulu Kingdom might have to arise out of a severe convulsion that might not necessarily come with something new from what is known. Occurring in a duality of constitutional democracy and a traditional leadership democracy, it would require not only a broad acceptance of influences and rules that govern the conduct of those whose hands certain authority vests from both systems but also skillful statecraft to calibrate a new order. What has to date underpinned the balance of power for the period King Goodwill Zwelithini reigned is now wrought with imbalances, and the institutional mechanisms that sustained it might be unable to 'openly' operate in a constitutional democracy whose logic of law might be at variance with what had obtained in the succession battle resolution space.
Under normal circumstances, the royal household would have managed this succession without the undue influence of faltering wills and ambitions of those that had to work it in a context where the King as an incumbent, facilitated the succession. In this vortex, those responsible for upholding the order, notwithstanding what they might know was the will of the then King, would make costly mistakes. Save for the effects of the duality referred to earlier, other variables have expired some of the core succession rituals and power-grabbing methods such that as a beyond Zulus society, we have to recognize that what we know worked in the Zulu Kingdom 'democracy' is never coming back and efforts to resurrect it will be in vain.
In his speech, and almost speaking into the factional tensions within the Zulu Palace and the African National Palace established by the governing elite of the African National Congress, The King of 'uZulu omnyama' warned of those that will grow the wedge in the nation. He used code language to confirm that interests in 'umhlaba we Nkosi' might be at the center of Palace Politics. He then stated that as they talk to and about the Kingdom, we must hear them but not listen to them. It would therefore be ideal for thinkers to decode what are those other things in our country that we should start 'hearing what others say, but we should not listen to them because they don't work. An off-the-cuff list might include 'hearing what they say' about,
- Energy sovereignty
- Water sovereignty
- Food sovereignty
- Economic Sovereignty
- Cultural sovereignty
- National Security
If we can only hear and not listen, we must be sure what we hear can be disciplined enough to listen to what we need as a society. We must develop solutions of South Africa and not for South Africa. To that we can say 'bayede, wena we ndlovu, sizobezwa and a ngeke sibalalele'. CUT!!!
🤷🏿♂️Hi ta vatwa, hi nge hingiseli
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