Good way for a bad royal to leave us alone

THERE is no comfortable way of saying this but the French probably did have the correct approach – the only effective way to deal with the monarchy is to place as much distance as possible between their heads and the rest of their bodies.

Unfortunately we live in a supposedly progressive, rights-driven age and these days the despatch of members of royalty before a baying mob in the town square to advance the republican cause is considered a somewhat vulgar course of action.

The stroke of an executive pen, however, has proven to be as effective as any guillotine blade. And so it was, in July 2010, that, following the recommendations of the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims, South Africa lost six of its royal families.

Despite this promising start, government soon lost interest in the initiative and abandoned it, seemingly to once again remind the country that a job half-done is perhaps better than none at all. The upshot here is that we still have seven of these embarrassments, so-called royal houses, cluttering the place.

They have no purpose whatsoever – although one of them, the abaThembu’s King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, appears to have volunteered his services as a lap dog for Jacob Zuma.

This wasn’t always the case. Readers will recall that Dalindyebo once delighted in insulting the president, and in 2013 called him “the liar who doesn’t use condoms” and “a Zulu boy” – which prompted the abaThembu royal family to write to Zuma, suggesting he withdraw their monarch’s “recognition certificate” forthwith.

Zuma did consider this – so much so that Dalindyebo, perhaps in a lucid moment between flaming bowls of Transkei’s finest, dashed off to Nkandla for a craven grovel. As the Presidency’s Mac Maharaj put it: “The king came to apologise to President Zuma and said he had come to ‘humble himself before the president as a son to a father’ for his recent utterances.”

Which brings us to the recent utterances of our biggest parasite, the amaZulu’s King Goodwill Zwelithini. Here now is a shameful waste of space.

Illwill, as he’s known at the Mahogany Ridge, is being investigated by the South African Human Rights Commission following his recent call for the deportation of foreign nationals residing in the country.

He had been addressing a “moral regeneration” event in Pongola. This in itself is cause for concern. Whenever “traditional leaders” prone to wearing dead animals talk of morals, it’s not long before the vigilantes come to the party.

Sometimes it’s women who must be stripped naked and beaten because they wear mini skirts at the taxi rank. But in this case it was foreigners in Isipingo who were driven from their homes and their businesses looted.

But what had apparently so incensed the king was the quality of goods sold at these places. As he put it, “When you walk in the street you cannot recognise a shop that you used to know because it has been taken over by foreigners, who then mess it up by hanging amanikiniki (rags).”

Don’t forget that when it comes to clothing, Illwill knows the cut of his cloth. In 2013, he spent R2.8 million of our money on imported military regalia for his wives, children and himself so the family could attend the opening of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature dressed as Michael Jackson.

With that sort of extravagance, it’s no wonder that he ploughed through his massive R54m budget last year, bankrupting his royal household trust, and had to be bailed out with a R2m fillip from the KZN provincial coffers. His budget is expected to increase to R63m in 2017.

That’s a lot of tom – and it prompts the question: how do we get it back? Obviously he can’t stay on and be king. Even those who believe the monarchy is a good thing must agree that he’s pretty rubbish at it.

So, once we’ve dealt with his “royal certificate” – before we burn it, we can have it trundled about a television studio on a ceremonial tumbril – how should Illwill pay back the money? (This is not an unfamiliar refrain, I gather.)

Perhaps he could be a tourist attraction. The Chinese, I believe, have expressed a keen interest in our traditional ways. They would pay handsomely for an audience with this old Ryder Haggard throwback.

And it’s not as if we’re asking him to throw his back out or anything. He could just squat there, glowering like an extra from the early Conan movies, while they snap away with their smartphones.

He wouldn’t even have to say anything. In fact, better he didn’t.