Resurgent Zulu Nationalism, by Christopher Merrett – 23 April 2026

‘AS a popular political movement, Zulu nationalism is dead.’ [1] This was written twenty years ago in a survey of the first ten years of post-liberation politics in KwaZulu-Natal. There was strong empirical evidence to support the claim: it was a time when Jacob Zuma and the ANC were harnessing a Zulu ethnic vote at the expense of Inkatha. But the nationalism was not dead, simply diverted. A vote for the ANC did not necessarily mean a primary identity as South African. First, the ANC began to shed votes and Inkatha started a modest revival. Second, Zuma and the ANC parted company and the latter imploded in the province.

The situation today is very different and there is every likelihood that the future politics of KZN is domination by Zulu nationalism whatever may happen elsewhere in South Africa. There are several indicators although none of them is entirely new. One is anti-foreigner rhetoric directed at migrants from other African countries; another is a demand that the province’s name be changed to KwaZulu. Disturbingly they come from the Zulu king, Misuzulu kaZwelithini, who has associated with Louis Liebenberg, a dodgy diamond dealer currently facing multiple charges of theft, fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

Setting aside the bizarre suggestion that the name of a bantustan should be used for a province in post-apartheid South Africa, would it be historically valid? The heyday of the Zulu kingdom was short-lived, lasting no longer than the lifespan of a single individual, Shaka kaSenzangakhona who died in 1828. It is generally accepted that it extended from the Drakensberg to the Indian Ocean, from the Phongola to the Thukela, but its boundaries fluctuated. The Zulu had been Mthethwa vassals crushed by Zwide of the Ndwandwe, but under Shaka the Zulu reversed this outcome in 1819. His skill was to create a polity that tightly controlled economy and society, including reproduction, through age regiments; to which he added innovative military tactics.

Zulu armies ranged far and wide, southwards as far as the Mzimkhulu River. But there was no permanent presence on the margins; rather raids and extraction of tribute. Indeed, the Zulu polity reflected the meaning of the term izulu (heaven or sky; that is, above): it was based on a hierarchy of subjugated tribes over whom control diminished with distance. The ambitions of a conquest state ultimately weakened the Zulu. Shaka’s successor (and assassin) Dingane kaSenzangakhona relinquished direct ambitions south of the Thukela and the arrival of the Boers shifted the focus of the Zulu northward. On 5 October 1843, the British and Mpande kaSenzangakhona recognised the Thukela as the boundary with the colony of Natal.

Many of those subjugated by the Zulu continued to contest their identity, the Buthelezi being a particularly interesting case. Their land in the Babanango district was forcibly incorporated in the 1820s, a conquest documented by whites with their own agendas. There were multiple oral narratives including Shaka’s propaganda. As historian Mbongiseni Buthelezi argues, the voices of the conquered were smothered, their ancestry reinvented, and they were written out of history; particularly since Mangosuthu Buthelezi would play such a dominant role in Kwazulu bantustan politics in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Other groups raised comparable concerns at the Nhlapo Commission (2004): the Hlubi (Drakensberg), Nhlangwini (South Coast) and Thonga (Maputaland).

How justifiable is the assumption that all black African people of KZN are subjects of the Zulu king and see themselves as Zulu? It has been argued that a wider Zulu identity can be traced back no further than World War I. Ironically, one major impetus to Zulu identity was the colonial mania for simplistic categorisation and homogenisation: every African in the region was assumed to be Zulu. A second was the cynical betrayal of the Kholwa by white settlers, so that by the early twentieth century Africans aspiring to modernity were turning back towards a tribal identity. Indeed, retribalisation and patriarchal authority were colonial aims as means of control. Migrant labour on the Reef also fostered a regional solidarity around the term Zulu as workers struggled to survive in a harsh alien urban environment.

In 1924 the cultural body Inkatha was formed, although it soon faded from view to be revived in the mid-1970s. At this point an aggressive, chauvinistic Zuluness became increasingly apparent as part of the bantustan system that Mangosuthu Buthelezi played so adroitly. The homeland named KwaZulu co-operated wholeheartedly in the suppression of the anti-apartheid movement with the backing of Pretoria and many Inkatha leaders were found guilty of gross violations of human rights by the Truth Commission.

Zulu is the name of a language that, like English, has widespread currency; KwaZulu of an apartheid-era homeland. There was no colossal Zulu empire in south-eastern Africa. This was part of white colonial imagining and racist fear; of opportunistic politicians wishing to exploit ethnic nationalism; and now of money-making heritage promoters and tourist entrepreneurs selling simplistic history. Ethnicity is a moveable feast of contradiction and variable meaning; not something that is fixed, particularly in the modern world. And its symbols can mislead. For example, the triumph at Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 is not unnaturally celebrated as such; but was ultimately a pyrrhic victory that led to the destruction of the Zulu kingdom. Further back the role of Shaka, its duration in particular, is much exaggerated. The fact that so little is known about him made him an ideal symbol for a number of causes with which he had no connection.

Another controversy concerns the suggestion that a statue be erected for Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former president of Inkatha, in Durban. Some would argue that he was an astute politician adept at playing both ends against the middle. Others that he was a ruthless traditionalist happy to work with the apartheid regime. There is sufficient evidence of the latter: secret state funding and arming and training of special forces. Inkatha was more than familiar with strongarm methods as was shown during the Seven-Day War in the Edendale Valley of March 1990. Buthelezi was an egoist concerned above all about his political future and its legacy, acting in the name of ethnic nationalism. Unlike ANC luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo he was a highly divisive figure. In 1994, by allying Inkatha with various right-wing groups he all but derailed democratic elections.

Contemporary conflicts give clear evidence of the need to build bridges not walls between people; to foster individual rights rather than promote group identity that so easily results in patriarchy and wider forms of authoritarianism. There is a need to stress common South African identity; not hark back to the military events of two centuries ago. The examples of Northern Ireland and Kosovo are sufficient evidence.

The ANC is entirely correct to resist a name change from KwaZulu-Natal to KwaZulu; and we can do without a statue of Buthelezi.

Notes

[1] This article draws heavily on Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present edited by Benedict Carton, John Laband and Jabulani Sithole (Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, 2008); especially the contributions of Mbongiseni Buthelezi, Ben Carton, John Laband, Paul la Hausse, Thomas McClendon, Dingane Mthethwa, Laurence Piper, Jabulani Sithole and John Wright.

Christopher Merrett is a former academic librarian, university administrator and journalist based in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He has written on human rights in South Africa, particularly censorship and freedom of expression, and on the politics of sport. He writes a monthly opinion column, ‘Sharp Thoughts from the Thornveld’, on his blog From the Thornveld.

This article first appeared on From the Thornveld and is republished here with permission.

Resurgent Zulu Nationalism, by Christopher Merrett – 23 April 2026

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