Alex Dodd:LANDMARKS
`How will this ancient blood-soaked earth make its story felt today?” I am wondering. It is 4.30am and we’re driving into a storm. Violent streaks of lightning shoot through the pre-dawn darkness, illuminating the R23 that leads to Dundee.
>From Dundee we will drive through the small town of Nqutu and take the dust road to Isandlwana, that great and dreaded battleground where 25 000 Zulu warriors in service of King Cetshwayo kaMpande defeated Lord Chelmsford’s army.
With their spears, their fitness and their horn-like attack strategy, the amabutho defeated the global superpower of the 19th century. But it was a short- lived triumph. At Isandlwana, the Zulus had sown the seeds of their demise.
As we drive through the downpour, 100 soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Wales – successors to the 24th Regiment of Foot which fought at Isandlwana – are marching across the hills of KwaZulu-Natal from Rorke’s Drift to that ominous Sphinx- shaped piece of earth. There they will be met by Chief Mazibuko, head of the Mangwebuthanani Tribal Authority.
Today it’s all handshakes, speeches and friendly soccer matches. It was the Iklwa stabbing spear against the Martini Henry rifle 120 years ago. Thousands of dead bodies lay festering in the long grass for nearly four months before British patrols took on the hideous task of burying them. (Around 1 300 British soldiers died in the battle. Although the Zulus were the victors, arguably many more were killed – some say up to 2 000 men.)
When we arrive at Isandlwana at 9am, the drama of the storm has dissipated and the morning sun is beating down on a couple of tour buses and umbrellas. A motley bunch of tourists in safari hats with mock zebra skin bands gather around the induna, asking him to say “cheese” for their many cameras as he shakes the hands of the Welsh commanding officer. An American woman is directing an advert for Radio Shack featuring a couple of Zulu guys in traditional skins with assegais.
The only immediate evidence of the battle lies in the strange clusters of white stones dotted across the entire field. Beneath each small mound about eight men are buried.
A large-breasted woman in bra, beads, buckskin and takkies ululates from time to time while some visitors chat: “Did you stay at Balmoral or at the Queen Mother’s place? And Charles came with you? How nice.”
Everyone seems to be in uniform. If it’s not the dark camouflage of the Welsh soldiers, it’s the lighter version of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF). If it’s not safari suits, it’s the red coats and helmets of the Die Hards, a group of historical re-enactors, here to recreate the battle at the big ceremony.
There are school children in black and white uniforms, cameramen in flak jackets, police in blue and warriors in skins. Later I am to discover there are white people who think they’re Zulus and Zulus who don Giorgio Armani sunglasses and cellphones with their skins. Then there’s the complex politics of lodge building (which party supports which luxury lodge).
One thing’s for sure, the politics of the present are no longer as clear cut as they were in 1879. The stark chiaroscuro of black fighting white on a green earth has evolved into a complex web of identities and interest groups. And still everyone’s trying to get their slice of this marvellous green pie called KwaZulu-Natal.
“It’s peace this time,” the chief tells me, clearly conscious of the ridiculousness of having to say this to every journalist present. “We’re not driving the British away.” There are more video cameras than rifles here today – strange when you consider that news of the battle took more than a month to reach the pages of the London Illustrated News.
The chief tells me he can organise some old people in the area to tell me the story of the battle if I like. Instead I ask one of the young SANDF guys present what he knows about Isandlwana. He says he knows it was a big battle between black people and white people, but he doesn’t know who won. Clearly history lessons were not a priority for this 1976 generation Gautenger.
The Zulus put on a bit of a song and dance for the Welsh who sip Cokes in the sun. The air smells like a tropical island from the suntan lotion on the noses of the Welsh. Some of the Zulus are wearing slipslops, others velvetine tops with a bit of leopard skin trimming that would be more at home in urban clubland than on a battlefield.
It’s all in the best of spirit, but I can’t help feeling unsettled that the might of the Zulu army, defenders of that proud, unbreakable nation, has boiled down to this. Whereas I’m usually quite taken with the pop cultural merging of white gloves and animal skins, there’s something quite sad about it now. “What would Shaka think of this?” I wonder.
By lunchtime things are grimmer. When I ask a local farmer what he thinks of the unveiling of the new monument to the Zulu dead at Isandlwana, he replies: “It’s more of a big deal to the Welsh than the Zulus. My Zulu chaps couldn’t give a damn about some battle that happened 120 years ago. With the elections coming up, the current politics of the region are far more important than Isandlwana.”
This is a big Inkatha Freedom Party region – about 85%, he says. “When President Nelson Mandela comes to the region nobody wants him here. Mandela is more of an enemy to the people of Nqutu than the Welsh ever were.”
“I suppose the British won at the end of the day at Ulundi,” I volunteer. “But it was their [Zulu] victory in the end,” he quickly corrects me. “They own the country now, don’t they?”
Later his words return to me and I wonder: exactly who owns the country now? Who owns this province?
It is the eve of the unveiling of the monument to the Zulu fallen and I am sitting on a stoep at Rorke’s Drift with an intriguing bunch of characters ruminating over a half-jack of J&B on the power and necessity of national monuments.
Some argue passionately that monuments are nothing but big nationalistic phalluses. Others say they keep history alive. Partial histories, says someone else. The guy who cast this bronze memorial in the shape of an isiqu (a traditional award of bravery worn like a bandolier and made of wood, bone and lion’s claws) says it’s different because it’s built on a horizontal plane. It’s bronze and will age and change with time. It’s not about ego.
But all I can think is: why now? Why is a monument that celebrates Zuluness – not blackness, not South Africanness, but distinctly Zuluness – being unveiled in the heart of a region that is being ripped apart by internecine violence. Why such a big wig celebration of Zulu nationalism just months before the elections? I realise I haven’t heard the words African or South African the whole time I’ve been here. It’s like I’m in a different country. Even the whities here aspire to honorary Zulu status.
I am remembering the account of the battle by master raconteur David Rattray, a passionate historian who has the gift of turning every chilling detail – like the lunar eclipse that took place during that historic battle – into a sensation in the spine.
Rattray is a showman whose theatre is the expanse of green hills that roll all the way down to the sea. Ruddy- cheeked and leaning on a stick he rants against the wind: “We white people have become too preoccupied with the horror. We need to remember the nobility, the bravery, the honour of the Zulu army.”
The power of Rattray’s storytelling lies in his ability to transcend partiality: in rising above the brutal dogma of war, he engenders a faith in the nobility of the human spirit that transcends tribe, creed and even time itself.
Part of me believes the same intentions lie behind the unveiling of this monument at Isandlwana, but then there’s that cynical edge that won’t be silenced.