Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi inspired very different assessments of his roles and legacies.
GCIS/Flickr
If Mangosuthu Buthelezi had not opposed the apartheid state’s plans for an ‘independent’ Zulu kingdom, South Africa’s history would have unfolded very differently.
From left Neo Magagula, Ntando Zondi, Senzo Radebe and Sibonile Ngubane in the forthcoming South African TV series Shaka iLembe.
Courtesy Mzansi Magic
Shaka iLembe hits TV screens on 18 June. The Zulu leader has never been portrayed as a real man - hopefully this time he will be.
An illustration of an antique photograph of the British Empire’s mission work among the Zulu people of then-Natal province.
ilbusca/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
Magema Fuze’s book was a radical act of publishing. It contained histories of chiefdoms and kingdoms - from the Zulu to the Ngcobo.
A Zulu household, from an 1895 book called The Colony of Natal: An Official Illustrated Handbook and Railway Guide.
J Causton and Sons /University of California Libraries/ Flickr
A new history book shows how entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in South Africa flow from the moral contradictions of the settler colonial state.