Newsmaker: King Goodwill Zwelithini

The outspoken Zulu leader, who has been accused of catalysing the xenophobic violence that hit South Africa this week, remains a powerful yet divisive figure in his homeland.

Kagan McLeod for The National

In the modern democracy of South Africa, he’s king of the Zulus in name only, one of half a dozen traditional tribal leaders maintained by the state as cultural figureheads, shorn of all real power. But as the events of the past week have shown, anyone who dismisses 66-year-old King Goodwill Zwelithini as an anachronistic curiosity reckons without the pride of the Zulu people and their allegiance to a hereditary leader whose authority was forged by his forebears in the blood of old enemies, including the British and the Boers.

He may be a powerless ceremonial leader on paper. But for the Zulus, Zwelithini is the beloved leader of a 10 million-strong country within a country. One word from him, no matter how ill-considered, and a people for whom the shield and assegai remain the potent symbols of national pride will spring into action.

The evidence of this has been seen in a series of ugly xenophobic attacks that have cast a dark shadow over the so-called Rainbow Nation, apparently provoked by a speech in which the king called on foreigners to pack their bags and leave the country.

Zwelithini has since claimed that his words were misrepresented. But even as he addressed a rally in Durban on Monday, urging an end to the attacks, he couldn’t resist alluding to the power he wields.

“If it was true I said people must kill each other,” he said, “the whole country would be reduced to ashes.”

It fell to the Swaziland Solidarity Network to point out that the king’s six wives included two Swazis, who in keeping with his message ought to be deported.

Black-on-black violence is nothing new in the factional South Africa, and Zwelithini is no stranger to accusations that he has provoked it. In September 1985, at the height of internecine squabbling between the Zulu Inkatha movement and the United Democratic Front, he whipped a rally into a frenzy of hatred directed at members of the UDF and the African National Congress – in exile at the time – whom he accused of trying to divide the Zulus.

“Let me tell them,” he said, “that if they came here today, the people would hiss and then usuthu [the Zulu war cry] would rise … from tens of thousands of throats.”

Within hours, four people had been killed in fighting between the rival groups, and more would die in the following days.

This isn’t the first time the king has encouraged poor, unemployed Zulus to look with distrust at their foreign neighbours. “Let us not give jobs to foreigners while our children and my people starve and remain poor,” he demanded during a speech to a Zulu rally in Durban in 2013.

The king also has a record of insisting that the media has distorted his words. In 2012, he was quoted as having condemned same-sex relationships as “rotten” and “unacceptable”.

The remarks, according to one newspaper editorial, were “ironic for a man who frequently looks like Michael Jackson on steroids” – a reference to his penchant for extravagantly decorated and brocaded faux-military tailoring.

Later, the royal household claimed the media had mistranslated the speech.

Zwelithini, who in December will celebrate his 44th jubilee, is the longest-serving of the eight kings to rule the Zulu nation since 1816. He succeeded his father, King Cyprian, in 1968, but was not crowned until 1971, having spent three years in exile in St Helena for fear of assassination.

Life has never been straightforward for Zwelithini, who must constantly juggle the expectations of his subjects with the realities of the modern world – a world dominated during his reign first by the white apartheid government and, since 1994, by the frequently bloody internal politics of the ANC.

The direct descendant of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, who founded the Zulu nation by conquest in 1816, his family tree also includes Cetshwayo kaMpande, whose rule from 1872 to 1879 gave his people their finest hour, with the defeat of the British at the Battle of Isandlwana.

They’re tough acts to follow. The Zulus hold on tight to their heritage and warrior DNA, and under the circumstances, Zwelithini has proved to be an adroit politician. But in seeking to reconcile the demands of the 21st century with his role as the keeper of the flame, he has, from time to time, put a foot wrong.

In 2011, he spoke out against the poaching of endangered rhinos in KwaZulu-Natal, warning the guilty among a gathering of clans that he would “personally hunt you down”. But the impact of the royal concern for one endangered species was diminished somewhat by the sight of the ceremonial leopard skins draped over the shoulders of the king and his royal entourage.

Zwelithini and his large family are no strangers to an extravagance funded by the taxpayer, made all the more obvious by the extreme poverty of many of his subjects.

In 2012, there was outrage at the “unexplained extravagance and whimsical splurges” of the royal family when parliament was presented with a financial report by the government’s Royal Household Department, which manages the king’s ­finances on behalf of the state.

Newspapers were quick to point out that eight in 10 South African taxpayers weren’t Zulus, owed no allegiance to the king and resented their share of the vast stipend bestowed upon the royal family. Zwelithini was quick to counter-attack, blaming the Royal Household Department for his chaotic ­finances.

Last month, The Times of South Africa exposed the minutiae of Zwelithini's spending, such as the 10,000 South African rand (Dh2,999) he spent on his own birthday cake and the "2.8 million [rand] on imported military regalia for his wives and children".

Zwelithini has even found himself wrong-footed over his support for Zulu traditions, such as the ancient reed dance ceremony, which the king revived in 1984 in an attempt to protect tribal culture.

Every year, thousands of young Zulu women dance topless before the king, displaying, in the words of Ndela Ntshangase, a Zulu studies lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, “their beauty, innocence, purity, virginity and good health”.

Some see it as a badly needed bulwark for a culture eroded by centuries of white oppression. Others, however, condemn the ceremony, during which the women must submit to having their virginity tested, as “an affront to women’s rights”.

Occasionally, the king’s enthusiasm for all things authentically Zulu has found bizarre expression. When the new King Shaka International Airport opened in Durban in 2010, pride of place was given to an imposing statue of Zwelithini’s forebear, which had been commissioned by the government from the noted white South African sculptor Andries Botha.

Zwelithini took offence to the bucolic, rather than warlike, depiction of Shaka, cast surrounded by cattle. The warrior king, he said, should have been depicted with a shield and spear. Shaka was promptly removed from the tableau for a quick makeover which has yet to take place.

Inevitably, this king of a fiercely proud people, who find themselves reduced in the main to occupying menial roles in a post-apartheid South Africa still awaiting the promised end of poverty and inequality, sharply divides opinion in a country where only a minority owes him allegiance.

In anticipation of his 64th birthday in July 2012, the ANC paid tribute to "the role that the king plays in promoting tourism, trade and unity in KwaZulu-­Natal". In the Daily News, a less enamoured editorial asked: "Why do we have to maintain this king with millions of rand when thousands of destitute South Africans are being left by the government to fend for ­themselves?"

Next year, Zulus will celebrate the bicentennial of their royal family. Whether that lineage continues, wrote the former royal adviser Ivusi Shongwe in 2011, depends largely on whether the king can mollify his critics while remaining true to his people.

Crucially, “the monarchy should work its magic to bring all races in KwaZulu-Natal to a sense of fellowship with the rest of the province”.

But judging by the bitter events of the past few weeks, the king finds it far easier to conjure up divisiveness than fellowship.

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