Zulu pioneer remembered

RADICAL, a hundred years ago.

That was Magema Fuze, a journalist and the author of Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona (The Black People and Whence They Came), the first account of Zulu history to be published by a Zulu, in isiZulu.

This week was the centenary of his death. He died only months after the book was published.

“It was a radical act of publishing,” said Hlonipha Mokoena, an associate professor at WiSER (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research), whose PhD study concludes that the enthusiastic dialogue between Fuze and his readers did not translate into financial support for the publication of the book or books they urged him to write.

She further noted that “for a black writer to publish a book in Zulu during the 1920s was an historic act of courage bordering on the reckless”.

Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona contained local histories of chiefdoms and kingdoms – from the Zulu to the Ngcobo – as well as theories about the Egyptian/Nubian origins of all black Africans.

It also covered the rise of the Zulu kingdom under the reign of Shaka kaSenzangakhona and debates about whether the Bible should be read literally by the newly converted.

“Fuze is seen as a major figure in the body of writings produced in African languages in South Africa, but one who remains too little known outside narrow scholarly circles,” Mokoena told The Independent on Saturday.

Among his works were serialised articles, with the message that when people die it’s not the end of them.

“In some way he prophesied his own revival,” said Mokoena.

Fuze died poor in Pietermaritzburg, which was also where he was educated at Ekukhanyeni, the mission station set up at Bishopstowe near the city by the first Anglican Bishop of Natal, John William Colenso.

He and the controversial bishop had a close relationship and Fuze was one of his main sources of information about African opinion in the colony.

In 1874, he became involved in an ugly political battle when Colenso took up the defence of Chief Langalibalele ka Mthimkhulu of the Hlubi people in Natal. This, after the chief had quarrelled with the colonial authorities and been exiled to the Cape.

In the Langalibalele affair, Fuze played a key role in helping the bishop to find witnesses that he could use in the chief’s defence.

Fuze was further drawn into assisting Bishop Colenso after the British invaded the Zulu kingdom and defeated Cetshwayo’s armies in 1879.

The bishop saw the invasion as another “monstrous case of injustice” and was determined to expose the actions of British officials before and after the war.

In 1896, Fuze travelled to the island of St Helena where Dinuzulu, the senior figure in the Zulu royal house, had been exiled after rebelling against British colonial rule in 1888.

During a stay of more than a year on the Atlantic Ocean island, Fuze taught Dinuzulu, and also his children, to read and write.

Mokoena said she was aware of his works having been used as a school set book for two years – sometime around the 1930s.

“I think it was removed because it was too radical. However, missionary educators had been more interested in works that taught morality than anything encouraging people to think for themselves in indigenous languages.”

She said it might not be appropriate for Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona to be introduced into the present curriculum without having supporting subjects such as archaeology and Egyptology to offer context to Fuze’s speculative theories about the Egyptian/Nubian origins of all black Africans.

Mokoena, who is a product of KZN’s Inanda Seminary, was introduced to Fuze’s work while studying a politics-philosophy-economics degree at UCT.

“I was puzzled that there could be an old book in isiZulu that I didn’t know. We had all these types of books at home,” she said, adding that she came from a family that had valued literature for generations.

Mokoena is working on a book about African men in police service before 1910. It features an incident where the secretary for native affairs, Theophilus Shepstone, sent a messenger to summons Hlubi chief Langalibalele. The young men of Langalibalele’s clan stripped the messenger naked.

“They were curious as to why he was wearing so many clothes.”

Many decades before, the Hlubi had recalled Shepstone’s heavily-dressed brother, John, produced a pistol from his heavy clothing to shoot a chief, Mokoena explained.

UCT’s history platform, Emandulo, is producing a podcast scheduled to be released on the anniversary of Chief Langalibalele Hlubi’s arrest on December 13, 1873, narrated using Fuze’s words.

But for now, Emandulo has produced an online version of Fuze’s newspaper articles about Langalibalele in Ilanga Lase Natal and other newspapers that can be seen at http://emandulo.apc.uct.ac.za/