King Goodwill Mum On Anti-Gay Remarks
Last weekend, moderate Africans were scandalized when King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhezkazulu, hereditary leader of the Zulus, said about gay relationships:
There was nothing like that [in traditional Zulu culture] and if you do it, you must know that you are rotten. I don't care how you feel about it. If you do it, you must know that it is wrong and you are rotten. Same sex is not acceptable.
The South African Human Rights Commission quickly condemned King Goodwill's remarks, as did South African president Jacob Zuma. (King Goodwill's position is primarily ceremonial, and he lives and conducts his duties of office within South Africa.) In the following days, representatives of the Zulu royal family insisted that journalists had misheard King Goodwill's remarks. Hoping for clarification, journalists today hustled to the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal to hear the King deliver his first address since the incident, spurred by a release from the South African Office of Traditional Affairs promising that the King would clarify his thoughts on homosexuality.
But the King made no reference to the controversy during his two-hour speech, which he used to stump for the preservation of Zulu history and culture. Which must lead one to consider: Maybe his remarks weren't misinterpreted after all. If not, the King's dislike for LGBT's probably has more to do with personal distaste than with concern for the traditional Christian family structure. Although the Zulus are overwhelmingly Protestant, King Goodwill has six wives.
The man is wearing a necklace made of teeth or claws. Should we really be surprised by his comment?
Posted by: James | Jan 28, 2012 5:18:28 PM
"Moderate Africans"? Africa isn't a country.
Posted by: foobar | Jan 28, 2012 5:20:38 PM
... and therefore cannot contain moderates?
Posted by: Brandon K. Thorp | Jan 28, 2012 5:23:29 PM
I work in international development, and I can tell you that nothing concerns me less than the bigoted views of a ceremonial leader who doesn't have the brains or guts to defend his comments. If you're going to be evil, you should stick with it or admit that you were wrong. Don't equivocate.
And yeah, Foobar, what are you talking about? Would you complain about, say, "moderate European voters"?
Posted by: Paul R | Jan 28, 2012 6:12:34 PM
Words from a man still living in a mud hut.
Posted by: Bill Michael | Jan 29, 2012 5:41:49 AM
@ Bill Michael: I can guarantee you that the leader of the Zulus does not live in a mud hut. If the guy has 6 wives, I'm pretty sure he also has some money.
Posted by: mike128 | Jan 29, 2012 10:01:50 AM
Brief note: King Goodwill has spent almost a million bucks on luxury cars. I assume his houses are quite nice. - BKT
Posted by: Brandon K. Thorp | Jan 29, 2012 10:06:54 AM
Zuma, a Zulu himself, was hauled over the coals a few years back for homophobic comments. Something along of lines of such people (i.e. teh gayz) would have been beaten up back in the days. The Zulu men, bless their hearts, tend to be a bit more macho than, say, their Xhosa neighbours. Oh, and trust me, a necklace of claws, shaggy ankle cuffs, and a loincloth of hide (hiding not much) can be very fetching garb on a young Zulu man ...
Posted by: Drift2 | Jan 29, 2012 11:31:03 AM
1. He is a monarch. Kings are ridiculous and barbaric.
2. He is the king of a tribe. Tribalism is ridiculous, barbaric and lethally dangerous.
3. He is the King os the Zulu tribe: historically, Zulu culture consisted mainly in killing everyone in Africa who wasn't Zulu and then selling their children into slavery.
4. He is wearing leopard skin and a necklace of teeth. He might as well be wearing shoes made out of human skin.
4. He has six wives and a fleet of luxury cars.
Posted by: Steerpike | Jan 29, 2012 12:13:27 PM
Zuma legalized a "traditional Zulu ceremony" in which 40 Zulu men kill a bull with their bare hands - they literally rip the bull apart, gouge out its eyes, push sand in its mouth, pull it apart piece by piece. This atrocity is done in the name of preserving cultural tradition. It makes me sick.
this is just one example of how awful the leadership is currently in South Africa. There are many more examples, such as Zuma's past comments on AIDS.
Posted by: fern | Jan 29, 2012 12:19:02 PM
The Zulus, like the Spartans before them, are yet another example of a culture that would simply be categorized as brutal and merciless fascists, had they not been crushed by more efficient bloody imperialists. The romanticism that recasts bloodthirsty racist killers and rapists as 'proud and mighty warriors' is a very common human failing. If the Zulus were mighty warriors then the Janjaweed militias that rape women with Bowie knives in the deserts of Sudan and Chad are likewise 'fierce and proud warriors'.
Posted by: Steerpike | Jan 29, 2012 12:43:29 PM
WTF.
a) It was Mbeki who was the AIDS denialist president, not Zuma. The HIV treatment situation improved substantially under Zuma.
b) The "bloodthirsty killing of other Africans", known as the Mfecane, reflected a web of causes, like the rise of nation states, agricultural changes and competition for land and water, military innovations, and let's not forget the white colonialists' part of the picture. The idea of pinning it all on the Zulus, as fierce militarists who depopulated the land was a convenient twist of the history taught to school children during apartheid, to justify what the whites did. Some people, it seems, are still sore that the mighty British empire could lose in battle to some pithy African "tribe".
Posted by: Drift2 | Jan 29, 2012 7:05:59 PM
@ MIKE128 Yes, I agree, however; money and wives and a palace does not make one a king, or make one think or act like a king.
Posted by: Bill Michael | Jan 30, 2012 3:11:51 AM