Movies I Have Loved - Zulu (1964) *Deep Dive
A conversation on Colonialism, Race, and Honor in Distinction
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This article is the result of over 100 Hours of Research, Writing and Editing!
Zulu (1964)
This film stands a tribute to British courage, discipline, and the civilizing mission of empire. The film recounts the defense of Rorke’s Drift, where a mere 150 soldiers of the 24th Regiment held their ground against overwhelming numbers (3-4000) of Zulu warriors, demonstrating the superiority of British military and cultural might. Though acknowledging the bravery of the Zulus, the story ultimately reaffirms the justness of Britain’s presence in southern Africa. The empire seen as a force of order, progress, and stability against the backdrop of tribal aggression.
The question of the colonial presence of Europeans in Southern Africa being morally right or wrong is strongly in debate. But anyone who believes that white colonists didn’t have a Right to occupy those lands and explore those places is fundamentally ignorant of the history we all belong to and the historical conditions of that region itself. More about this topic can be found in the article below, which focuses more on the modern issue of white replacement/white genocide.
Content of this Article
Movie 1 - Zulu (1964)
History of the Zulu:
Original People
SHAKA
The Zulu Kingdom
War with Britannia!
British Rule
Union of South Africa Rule
Apartheid
*The Zulu are only one of the black nations in South Africa, but I focus on them for this article specifically. I also weave in the history of those who lived in Southern Africa before the Zulu, and the how the Zulu came to be from the same stock as most other non-native South African blacks. I also convey the story of South Africa’s development generally as it relates to interaction with the Zulu’s.
South Africa Today
In Context
Movie 2 - The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
Let’s dive in…
I really loved this movie.
The question of the morality of the British colonizing South Africa doesn’t matter one wit. If it weren’t for an agenda to brainwash all of humanity, kill off white people and history, and make a global mongrel slave society, nobody would care that the British set a colony up in a generally disused wilderness area of the African continent.
At some point, one just has to ask oneself whether they will participate in the mind games the parasitical faction puts in front of us.
Think of all the wars, the territorial shifts, the endless slave trains, the conquered and the conquerors, fractalizing through all human history between father and son, mother and daughter. So, in the midst of the totality of shifting territorial claims, does it really matter that the British landed in a place they could, and did, occupy, conquer, domesticate, and civilize, and did so?
How many people are getting into vicious morality arguments over Alexander the Great conquering Persia, Genghis Khan brutally conquering all of fucking Asia, or Shaka Zulu himself practicing total war against rival Nguni-speaking chiefdoms in the KwaZulu-Natal region and causing utter chaos in the Mfecane?
Consider the History
Original People
The earliest known occupants of the areas later occupied by the Zulu and Swazi and the British, and the Boers, that being today’s KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and Swaziland, were the San & Khoisan. These were hunter-gatherers (San) and pastoral peoples (Khoikhoi). These people were still making rock art as seen below even into the 19th century.
The San lived in roaming, nomadic bands of 20-50 members, across the entire Southern African region, including Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, and South Africa. The Khoikhoi lived in small egalitarian fission-fusion based clans (Kraals) that weren’t fully nomadic, but migrated with the seasons, herding cattle, sheep, and goats according to rainfall and pasture availability. The interchangeability (fission-fusion) of the individuals/families/clans meant that there was no cohesive nationality but rather a cultural universality from the lack of foreign, distinct, and competitive cultures.
This universality didn’t prevent every conflict, but limited escalations to anything resembling wars that would come later, because factions were nearly impossible to concretize over any extended period. The groups would shift and change so rapidly, and intermarry so frequently, there was low probability a dispute would turn into a large scale, or even relatively small scale conflict. They were a relatively peaceful decentralized society. Voluntaryists dream of this system today. Maybe they were all San in past lives.
Between roughly 3,000 and 4,000 years ago, the Bantu-speaking peoples began migrating to the region from the Cameroon-Nigeria borderlands. These Bantu’s brought Iron-working, agriculture, and cattle herding with them, and over many centuries, they spread themselves further and further South and East, intermarrying and/or displacing/conquering indigenous groups. This was exactly what they also did to the San and Khoikhoi.
Let’s just consider this fact for a moment. The first peoples that roamed the territory of Southern Africa was San and Khoisan. Pastoral, peaceful, nomadic, decentralized and, in a word, free.
These people were invaded over hundreds of years by a foreign tribal group that came from roughly 2,500 miles distant. That’s the distance from Madrid, Spain to Moscow, Russia. That’s London to Cairo. That’s LA to New York City. The Bantu-speaking tribes were most obviously foreign colonial invaders, conquering and interbreeding with San and Khoisan.
Is there any question of morality raised in their colonization of Southern Africa? Not in today’s “blacks can’t do wrong” mental retardation.
Between 800 and 1500 CE, the Bantu had reached Southern Africa. Among the Bantu were the Nguni Peoples, who were the ancestors of the Zulu, the Swazi, and the Ndebele. These peoples settled in KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and Swaziland, mostly as farmers and cattle-keepers. Their society was clan-based and run by chiefs (Amakhosi) who ruled from ancestral links to a common progenitor. Sort of a serially monopolized monarchical system, fractioning organically as sub-groups forked into their own distinct group, while keeping the leadership structure intact.
This structure would be at least as foreign to the San and Khoisan as an overt Dictatorship would be in the uSA. Now that I’ve said it, I think it would be even wider a gap. Americans are generally pretty stupid today, easily susceptible to tyrants. For the San and Khoisan, any hereditarian and permanent successional, centralized tribal authority would be foreign to their millennia of experience.
The first appearance of Zulu’s as a distinct tribe was about 1670, or perhaps later. They occupied a very small section of northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Their emergence on the scene appeared to be as a tribal group no larger than 300 members, within the heart of the Nguni-Speaking Clans. The first Zulu, the supposed eponymous proto-ancestor was Nkosinkulu in isiZulu, otherwise, Zulu kaMalandela, meaning, “Zulu, son of Malandela.” Broken down further, it means “Heaven, son of the followers,” or “Person of the Sky, who Pursues and Follows.”
Before Shaka came onto the scene, the amaZulu, “People of Heaven,” were subordinates to the Mthethwa Confederacy, sharing a mutual rival, the Ndwandwe Kingdom. They were unimportant and uninvolved, at almost any level of scale, in the local and regional politics.
SHAKA
Shaka kaSenzangakhona kaJama kaNdaba kaMageba kaPhunga kaGumede was born roughly around 1787 as an illegitimate son to his father, the Tribal Zulu Chief. His full name above means Shaka, son of Senzangakhona, Grandson of Jama, Great-Grandson of Ndaba, etc. Gumede is a Proto-ancestor of the Zulu line of Nguni-speaking peoples in KwaZulu-Natal.
Shaka’s mother was Nandi, a women from a different clan, the Elangeni clan. Shaka’s illegitimacy forced him to live with his mother and faced ridicule and humiliation during his formative years, probably hardening him for the life he eventually embraced. He herded cattle and grew into a physically intimidating figure.
Still in his youth, Shaka left home, and joined up with the Mthethwa Confederacy, serving Chief Dingiswayo with skill and carving out a reputation for himself, even gaining leadership positions. During this service, Shaka began to invent a short spear, made for stabbing rather than throwing like the traditional spear, the assegai. His invention he called the iklwa. He also encouraged others to use shields while fighting in close quarters and using the iklwa.
In 1816, Shaka being around 29 years old, that his father died. He returned to the Zulu, and with the help of Dingiswayo, took control of the small tribe from his brother, Sigujana, the legitimate son of his father, Senzangakhona. Shaka was beholden to Dingiswayo as a client Chief in exchange for the support, but this wouldn’t last long.
During this period, Shaka built the Zulu tribe into an advanced militarized force. He created a standing army, the “amabutho”, and began his campaign to conquer or assimilate (Borgish you say?) other clans and grow into a force to be reckoned with.
Two years after Shaka’s elevation to Chief of the Zulu, Dingiswayo was killed by their rivals, the Ndwandwe. Shaka leapt at the opportunity and rapidly absorbed the Mthethwa client tribes into the Zulu. His power grew as quickly as his reputation.
With command of this large force, he engaged the Ndwandwe. After several battles, it became clear that Shaka’s tactics were superior. His signature move being almost the first lesson any military commander ought to learn, the “bull-horn” encirclement formation. This maneuver is seen across cultures from the Scythians to the Mongols, who called it “Tulughma,” to the Romans, to the Ottomans, and even American Tribes. Sun Tzu described this maneuver in the Art of War. One of the most significant, if not the most significant battle between Romans and Germanic Tribes was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, wherin the Romans were encircled and got the shit utterly beat out of the them. Other decisive uses of this maneuver included the Battle of Bannockburn, 1314 between the Scots and the English and the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC between Alexander the Greats Macedonian Army and the Persians. Napoleon Bonaparte was a master at the “manoeuvre sur les derrières”. He would wrap up the enemy with minimal losses and rout them.
Shaka Zulu, it appears, had a practical wisdom and a strong knack for military strategy with only minimal influence from anyone else. Using the bullhorn maneuver, Shaka defeated Zwide, Chief of the Ndwandwe in 1819/1820 and took control of most of modern-day KwaZulu-Natal.
After this, Shaka spent his days expanding, absorbing smaller chiefdoms and forcing their men to serve in his standing army. Anyone who defied Shaka was utterly annihilated. This total war strategy ignited chaos through displacement and power struggles. This was called the Mfecane/Difaqane. The ultimate result of this was a consolidated, highly centralized, highly militarized Kingdom.
Beginning in 1824, Shaka’s doom started to appear on the horizon, literally in the advent of the establishment of Port Natal (Durban). The Traders who settled there, led by Francis Farewell and Henry Fynn, were allowed to stay unmolested, because Shaka desired to arm his military with firearms, have an ally against foreign threats, and to expand upon the trade opportunity.
He never fully realized the arming of his army, but that was due to his ultimate contention that firearms were an inferior weapon to the short stabbing spear and quick envelopment maneuver. This decision left the Zulu far behind the curve in the wars that came later.
It was at this time, that Shaka was feeling the overextension of his forces viscerally, and the strain of constant battles and struggles were making his fighting forces less formidable. His power was maintained exclusively through constant conquest (war), tribute (taxes), and redistribution of captured cattle and women. (Communists redistributing wealth, in this case, the highest value product being cattle, and women, enslaved and treated as real property). Harsh treatment, such as executions for cowardice, desertion, or disobedience were handed out frequently, causing internal resentment. Those displaced by the Mfecane became burdens, rather than opportunities for tribute, recruits for the army, and trading partners.
In 1827, Queen Nandi, Shaka’s mother, died, leaving Shaka in an emotional crisis. He went fucking stupid overnight. People were forbidden to plant crops, drink milk, or marry for a full year. Anyone presenting insufficient sorrow was massacred, resulting in thousands of executions. Even pregnant women and their unborn children were put to death.
It was at this point that Shaka lost all favor and support. His generals and advisors began to conspire toward his assassination, before they executed their plan, his brothers Dingane and Mhlangana and his induna Mbopa (Advisor and Royal Deputy), took advantage of the discontent. On 24 Sep., 1828, they assassinated Shaka near his Kraal at KwaDukuza. This was the beginning of the Zulu Nation.
“… as usual we paid the king an early visit. We now expressed a wish to see him in his war dress; he immediately retired, and in a short time returned attired: his dress consists of monkeys’ skins, in three folds from his waist to the knee, from which two white cows tails are suspended as well as from each arm; round his head is a neat band of fur stuffed, in front of which is placed a tall feather, and on each side a variegated plume. He advanced with his shield, an oval about four feet in length, and an umconto, or spear, when his warriors commenced a war-song, and he began his maneuvers.”
- Nathaniel Isaacs, 1836. Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, Descriptive of the Zoolus, Their Manners, Customs, with A Sketch of Natal, Edward Churton, London, p. 60-61.
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