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A Quick Lesson Of Zulu History and Culture |
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Summary: For too many years many black people of America have been calling themselves African Americans. Yet they know not 1 word of any African language. People who call themselves Italian American know how to speak the language of their culture. People who call themselves Chinese or Korean know how to speak the language of their culture. Puerto Rican Americans speak Spanish and people of India speak their native tongue. When it comes to the African American, they speak not 1 word of their native or cultural tongue. They know how to "walk the walk" when it comes to dressing Afrocentric yet they cannot "talk the talk." So we've decided to help those out who don't want to look foolish claiming to represent a culture and can't speak not one word of the many languages spoken in Afrika.
The Zulu were originally a major clan in what is today Northern KwaZulu-Natal, founded ca. 1709 by Zulu kaNtombhela. In the Nguni languages, iZulu/iliZulu/liTulu means heaven, or sky. At that time, the area was occupied by many large Nguni communities and clans (also called isizwe=nation, people or isibongo=clan). Nguni communities had migrated down Africa's east coast over thousands of years, as part of the Bantu migrations probably arriving in what is now South Africa in about the 9th century A.D.
The Zulu formed a powerful state in 1816 under the leader Shaka. Shaka, like all the Zulu chiefs before him, gained a large amount of power over the tribe. A commander in the army of the powerful Mtweta Empire, he became leader of his mentor Dingiswayo's paramountcy and united what was once a confederation of tribes into an imposing empire under Zulu hegemony.
In 1975, Buthelezi revived the Inkatha YaKwaZulu, predecessor of the Inkatha Freedom Party. This organization was nominally a protest movement against apartheid, but held more conservative views than the ANC. For example, Inkatha was opposed to the armed struggle, and to sanctions against South Africa. Inkatha was initially on good terms with the ANC, but the two organizations came into increasing conflict beginning in 1979 in the aftermath of the Soweto Uprising.
Because its stances were more in accordance with the apartheid government's views, Inkatha was the only mass organization recognized as being representative of the views of black South Africans by the apartheid government (the ANC and other movements were banned). In the last years of apartheid, this acceptance extended to the covert provision of funds and guerrilla warfare training to Inkatha by the government. Yet unlike the leaders of the Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana and Venda bantustans, Buthelezi never accepted the pseudo-independence offered under the policy of Separate Development, despite strong pressure from the ruling white government
From 1985, members of opposing protest movements in what is now KwaZulu-Natal began engaging in bloody armed clashes, with combatants armed with AK-47's and machetes. This political violence occurred primarily between Inkatha and ANC members, and included atrocities committed by both sides. It was believed to be frequently instigated by a branch of the apartheid government's security forces, which became known as the "third force". The violence continued through the 1980s, and escalated in the 1990s in the build up to the first national elections in 1994.
The modern Zulu population is fairly evenly distributed in both urban and rural areas. Although KwaZulu-Natal is still their heartland, large numbers have been attracted to the relative economic prosperity of Gauteng province. Indeed, Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in the province, followed by Sotho. Zulu is also widely spoken in rural and small-town Mpumalanga province.
Zulus also play an important part in South African politics. Mangosuthu Buthelezi served a term as one of two Deputy Presidents in the government of national unity which came into power in 1994, when reduction of civil conflict between ANC and IFP followers was a key national issue. Within the ANC, both the immediate past (Jacob Zuma) and current (Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka) Deputy President of the country have been Zulu, in part to bolster the ANC's claim to be a pan-ethnic national party and refute IFP claims that it was primarily a Xhosa party.
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