No to Zulu golden era

IN 1876 THE Battle of Little Bighorn was the US military’s worst disaster.

Commonly known as Custer’s Last Stand, it also killed any possibility of compromise with the native Americans.

With subsequent overwhelming force, they were cleansed from ancestral lands and confined to desolate reservations. In 1879, British forces made an unprovoked attack on the Zulu kingdom where their overconfidence resulted in another “last stand” at Isandlwana. In a similar finale, Zulu independence was buried at Ulundi by that potent symbol of British imperialism, the machine gun.

Subsequently, even though they had to endure 50 years of apartheid, the Zulus have been remarkably successful, for under President Jacob Zuma they now effectively run South Africa.

In the US this would be the same as a member of the Sioux becoming President. Just as native Americans certainly haven’t forgotten or forgiven the foreigners who killed their families and stole their land, is it reasonable to expect the Zulus to be any different?

For, when it comes to cultural traditions, 140 years is like an evening gone – it means nothing. It is no wonder that our government has no time for the rule of law or other democratic niceties.

Shaka’s Zulu nation certainly didn’t have them. Under apartheid they only applied among Europeans. Today they are flung against the ANC by sell-outs and “clever” people who speak with a forked tongue. But the current attempt to take South Africa back to some sort of Zulu golden age cannot work either.

The world has moved on and societies, like fish, cannot swim backwards. If nothing else, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has shown us that.

Mandela’s curse was that he made forgiveness look so easy. With his embrace of the good in Western culture and African ubuntu, we thought he had steered us through the rapids and that a placid lake was round the corner. But now he’s gone and Europeans hear only the roar of the Victoria Falls.

Another Exodus will not help, for, as any musician knows, a piano can only make music by using all the keys. James Cunningham

Camps Bay