The month of September, which is dedicated to heritage matters in South Africa, always sets many people on a path of reflection regarding our history as black people; that why have we inherited this that we have inherited; namely being underlings in the land of our own ancestors.
Now let me start off by responding to the matter of whether King Shaka Zulu was a hero or a villain.
In my humble opinion Shaka was a villain; worse if not equal in cruelty to some of the past and present leaders of South Africa and the African continent at large.
Names of kings like Dingane, Mampuru, Soshangane, Hintsa and Moshoeshoe cross my mind because they fought against White Colonial Settlers.
Now what did Shaka Zulu do when he came face-to-face with the white man?
He gave the white man food, water, shelter, protection and time to recover from their numerous ailments so that they would later on continue with their crusade to colonise South Africa.
This is an undisputable fact!
Shaka never killed a white man in his life but he saw it fit to kill thousands if not millions of black people under the guise of “uniting all black people.”
Did the Black tribes which existed at the time ask to be united or did they wish to remain as independent tribes with no ties whatsoever to the “mighty Shaka Zulu?”
Now immediately one calls for unity, as reportedly advocated by Shaka, then the question arises: unity for what or against what?
What did Shaka want the so-called unity for or against?
My assertion is that Shaka’s war-fairing tendencies were driven by a desire for personal power and supremacy.
He regarded himself as a demigod of some sort; he wanted to conquer every human being he came across on earth except the white man.
He respected the white man a lot and it is no exaggeration to suggest that he opined that the white man was a direct creature of God unlike his fellow Africans who he evidently regarded as ungodly creatures fit to be vanquished and enslaved willy-nilly.
Shaka is one of the people who caused Mfecane/ Difecane, whereby black tribes were displaced by his war-mongering tactics, thus leaving vacant acres of land that were eventually occupied by white people because they found no one in some of the pieces of land that they invaded.
Black tribes had ran away from their homesteads in fear of Shaka Zulu.
I rest my case