AFRICA’S BLACK KINGS

Press, 29 December 1979, Page 13

AFRICA’S BLACK KINGS

Path of Blood: The Rise of Mzilikazi. Rule of Fear: The Life of Dingane. Both by Peter Becker. Penguin, 1979. $4.15 each. (Reviewed by Naylor Hillary) The appearance of the autocratic Zulu kingdoms of southern Africa has fascinated European observers for 150 years. Shaka made the Zulu a great, nation just at the point where European penetration of the country was beginning. In the wave of war, migration and flight set off by Shaka two other kings emerged, equally powerful: Dingane, successor to Shaka, and Mzilikazi, the Zulu rebel who wandered the velt for 20 years before settling his Matabele people as the founders of the Ndebele tribe in what is now Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

The dark deeds and great battles of the period from about 1815 to 1840 have often been described, but seldom with more vigour than by Dr Becker, a South African with an intimate knowledge of tribal languages and customs. He is constrained by the limited records and chance accounts of European missionaries, traders, and adventurers. But as far as the record allows he has assembled coherent biographies of Dingane and Mzilikazi, rival kings whose impis clashed several times. but who never succeeded in defeating one another. Dr Becker first wrote nearly 20 years ago. The reappearance of his books is especially timely. The successor of the line of Shaka and Dingane. Chief Gatsha Buthelezi of KwaZulu, is one of the most enigmatic political figures in modern South Africa. His hostility to white policies is well known and freely expressed; he commands a greater following than any other black South African for the Zulus are still a dominant tribe. He has elected to work within the system o f apartheid, or “separate development,” in so far as he believes it offers a means for the evolution of something better. Mzilikazi’s successors are also still making history. The conquest of the Ndebele by Cecil Rhodes 80 years ago gave Rhodesia its name and led

directly to the unhappy contemporary events there. The Ndebele still exist; they are represented among the guerrillas by .Joshua Nkomo and his followers, and among legal political groups by the Reverend Sithole who has recently been at odds with Bishop Muzorewa within the Rhodesian political system. Mzilikazi’s warriors conquered the more numerous pastoral tribes north of the Limpopo well over a century ago. That has not been forgotten by either side. At the moment it is the Mashona, old victims of the Ndebele, who are coming out on top in Salisbury and among the guerrillas. Tribal loyalties and rivalries are at least as important as race or ideology in deciding events in Rhodesia today.