Bending the knee to the Zulu king will do little to heal SA

ON Heritage Day, President Jacob Zuma — supposedly the personification of our nationhood — decided to attend not the main function celebrating the occasion but a sectional, even exclusionary, gathering of Zulus.

South Africa, despite 22 years of democracy, remains a fiercely divided country. Division, the currency of our past and for years routinely chiselled into our being at birth, is almost second nature to us, a tradition and a scar on our psyche. We’ve yet to snap out of it in spite of our constant devotion to unity.

These divisions — racial, ethnic, et cetera — won’t go away simply because there are some who profit from them. Zuma, as head of state, should be at the forefront of healing wounds and building bridges, not accentuating such divisions.

But last Saturday he sent Cyril Ramaphosa, his deputy, to Kimberley while he headed for Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium to bend a knee to King Goodwill Zwelithini in what was billed as the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Zulu nation. On such a symbolic day for national unity, Zuma chose to honour a gathering that celebrated the heritage and achievements of one section of the population. He may be of Zulu extraction, but he is president of the whole country.

The place was redolent with the history and culture of the Zulus: colourful regalia, traditional weapons, some of terrifying variety; even the language at times seemed obscure and inaccessible to outsiders. Zuma at least made one allowance. He didn’t partake in the fashion of the day. He wore a suit.

There is nothing wrong with different communities celebrating Heritage Day in whatever way they choose. That is the point. The ultimate aim is to stitch together the different fabrics into one beautiful garment that is South Africa.

Probably Zuma missed Ramaphosa’s message to his audience at Galeshewe, Kimberley, to condemn attitudes, practices and institutions that perpetuated social exclusion. But even Ramaphosa couldn’t avoid turning a blind eye to one obvious case. In paying tribute to liberation stalwarts such as Nelson Mandela, Sol Plaatje, et cetera, he failed to mention the man who loomed larger than anybody in a place like Kimberley.

Robert Sobukwe, leader of the PAC and the man behind the events that led to the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, spent the last days of his life in Galeshewe, where he was banished and where he died in 1978. You have to wear ANC colours to be a liberation stalwart, apparently.

Leaders have to be mindful all the time that words matter. You can send a powerful signal by what you say, or what you choose not to say.

Failure to properly recognise people like Sobukwe does not only amount to ignoring the man; it excludes — and could even be trivialising — what he represents. Unity thus becomes that much more difficult to achieve.

It was, however, heart-warming that Credo Mutwa got a mention. A rare and quintessential African griot, Mutwa created the African cultural village at Oppenheimer Park in Soweto but was hounded and almost killed by ANC-aligned hotheads who saw African culture and his utterances as promotion of tribalism. Ignorance can be fatal.

The village was burnt to the ground — not for the first time — along with a trove of manuscripts which Mutwa had painstakingly buried in its belly. He himself escaped by the skin of his teeth, but his son wasn’t so lucky. He sought refuge in Lucas Mangope’s Bophuthatswana where he started afresh to rebuild his life’s mission.

Now that African culture is hip again, Mutwa, now 95, is no longer an outcast. But he hasn’t changed; it’s his erstwhile enemies who have. In their ignorance, they have failed to recognise the national treasure that he is.

Culture is a double-edged sword. It can unite as well as divide; uniting those who share or identify with the culture but excluding everybody else.

But Zuma, as the embodiment of our nationhood, should always associate with and promote those symbols which seek to unite us. He needs to sail above it all. His office demands that.

Heritage Day was initiated by the IFP some years ago as Shaka’s Day to commemorate the birth of King Shaka on September 24. As part of the compromise at Codesa, the day was retained as a public holiday for all. But it has remained as Shaka’s Day in KwaZulu-Natal.

There has always been the feeling or the grievance that the Zulu “nation” should have got more from Codesa. Mangosuthu Buthelezi initially boycotted the negotiations because King Zwelithini was not allowed to take part. But with King Zwelithini, it’s always been about who paid the piper. At the time Buthelezi controlled the purse strings.

As if to make up for what his people “lost” at Codesa, King Zwelithini now wants to make a huge land claim that seeks to recover land taken from the Zulus as far back as 1838. If successful, it could completely Balkanise the country.

As president, Zuma must be careful not to lend the power and legitimacy of his office to actions or gestures that could be divisive.