How our Kings were being treated unfairly by white settlers

By Qhuba Gumbi-Dlamini

This is Inkosi Langalibalele Mthimkulu of the maHlubi the first political prisoner on Robben Island. He took up his position as Inkosi in 1836 and, in the late forties of that century, moved his people into Natal below the Khahlamba range. There they prospered. Inkosi Langalibalele's people numbered around ten thousand. Their herds increased and many of those who tilled the land did so with ox-drawn ploughs. Inkosi Langalibalele and his senior counsellors, as well as many of the young men, kept and rode horses. Through his forty wives, one of whom was a Swazi princess, Inkosi Langalibalele fathered more than a hundred children. He was wealthy in many ways.

In 1867, when the diamond mines opened in the interior, many young men from Inkosi Langalibalele's people went to work on the mines. They spent their wages on horses, ploughs and guns and returned to create greater prosperity. It was the purchase of guns that stirred conflict with the colonial authorities. Inkosi Langalibalele received several summonses from the Magistrate to discuss unregistered guns, and Sir Theophilus Shepstone eventually insisted that Inkosi Langalibalele travel to Pietermaritzburg to settle the matter.

Many of the younger men, in particular, among the AmaHlubi felt that he should not go, as Amakhosi who had been summoned to Pietermaritzburg previously were summarily deposed by the colonial authorities. Thus they felt there was danger to Inkosi Langalibalele's life and his position. Sir Theophilus Shepstone and Lieutenant Governor Benjamin Pine, after whom Pinetown my erstwhile hometown was named, then ordered his arrest, and Inkosi Langalibalele and his people fled towards the then Basutoland. In the skirmish that followed, some colonial officers were killed.

Immediately a proclamation was issued that read: "Chief Langalibalele and the Amahlubi tribe are in rebellion against Her Majesty's lawful authority, and are hereby declared to be outlaws." Inkosi Langalibalele was deposed and then captured. He was taken to Pietermaritzburg in chains and endured what has been called "a notoriously unfair trial", following which he was imprisoned on Robben Island. This was almost a century before the arrival of Robben Island's most renowned prisoner, Isithwalande, Mr Nelson Mandela.

The history of Inkosi Langalibalele reminds me of our great grandfather, King Dinuzulu of the Zulu people, for both these great men suffered at the hands of the British, both were imprisoned and both saw their people divided by force. A year after Inkosi Langalibalele's death in 1889, King Dinuzulu was exiled to the island of St Helena, where two of his sons the wisest future King, Prince Solomon Phumuzana and Prince Mshiyeni, after whom a provincial hospital is named, were born. Shortly after King Dinuzulu returned from exile in British St. Helena, he was implicated in the Bhambata rebellion in 1906.

His involvement in the rebellion was merely that he gave refuge to Inkosi Bambatha's wife and child at Osuthu royal palace, at the request of Inkosi Bambatha. Yet he was charged with treason and was imprisoned. In 1910, when King Dinuzulu's old ally General Louis Botha became the first Prime Minister of South Africa, General Botha ordered that King Dinuzulu be released and transported to the farm Uitkyk in the Transvaal, where he died in 1913.

I mention this history because it illustrates the pattern of injustice suffered by our kings and Amakhosi in the past. These are events that must be remembered, for they have shaped who we are and inform our very identity. What I see in the history of Inkosi Langalibalele kaMthimkhulu is how great the consequences can be of friction between an older and a younger generation. The young men who built their own prosperity on the mines, and returned with guns and horses, felt to some degree freed from obeisance to Inkosi Langalibalele. Not that there was open disloyalty, but there was a sense that the established leadership structure could be manipulated.

Every society, both past and present, feels the challenges of the generation gap. For each society, the challenge takes a different form. In today's South Africa, the generation gap is most apparent in politics, where the so-called "born-frees", those born after 1994, lack personal experience of the injustices of our past. Of course, we can tell them about our struggle and we can show them the effects of apartheid and the effects of capitalism which is the hall mark of the apartheid legacy----which is characterised by widening gap between the haves and the haves not. But the sense of urgency to get involved in politics and affect change in our country has dissipated from this generation.

As activists who still revere our history, we face the challenge of inspiring a new generation to continue the struggle that we, our fathers and our grandfathers waged on behalf of South Africa. Inkosi Langalibalele kaMthimkhulu was part of that struggle, and he paid a price. As we remember his leadership today, let us measure our own commitment to taking forward the struggle of freeing South Africa. We may be politically free, but there are many freedoms we still need to fight for, including the freedom to feel secure and hopeful about the future. Ake kubuye umhlaba wethu phela!