Portland Advocate_1981-05

Page 7 Tshaka The Great Tshaka also introduced the Africans. They, therefore, began assegai, a short stabbing spear to plot his demise. Sad to say By F\mgai N. Ktunbula in place of the usual javelin- but they were able to use other Just over a century ago, a like throwing spear. The assegai Africans to do their dirty work. young African prince sat on a rock necessitated getting up close to By spreading rumors about Tshaka's and surveyed his father's kingdom one's adversary and stabbing supposed cruelty, waving the as his cattle grazed before him him. That takes a lot of guts Bible and instigating a power on the rolling green hills of what (~nd~rstandably a lot more ~han struggle, they got his cousins is now Zululand, Azania (South kll~lng someone from long dlstanceningaan and Umhlangana to poi- Africa). What he saw was a beau- as lS the case when one uses a son him. tiful and rich country that he spear) a~d one of the basic would soon inherit when his father lessons ln Zulu warfare was the So died not only one of Afri- King Mtwetwa passed on to join a~t of bravery. In fact, so ca's greatest kings but one of their ancestors. Perceptive as he ~nghly was bravery ~egarded that the world's greatest empire- was, young Prince Tshaka saw some- lf any of the ~arrlors retu~ned builders and administrators as thing else that was as unsettling from a battle Wl th a wound 7n the well. With his death, the great as the keen breeze that was caus~ ~ack, t~at was as good as Slgn- empire be had so carefully built ing him to pull his blanket closer lng one s own death warrant be- up began to crumble too. One by around his shoulders. cause: 1 :ow else would you get one his lieutenants broke away stabbed 1n the back unless you and went to form mini-nations of Everywhere Prince Tshaka looked, were running away? their own once more. Dingaan who he saw separate 'mini-nations' of took over after Tshaka's assas- Africans existing independently all . With the assegai came the ox- sination did not have his uncle's over Southern Africa. While this lude shield thrust· To complete (Tshaka) leadership capabilities was fine he realized the inherent their attire • the warriors wore and so was unable to hold the danger: that as separate mini-na- lio~ an~ l~opard skins a~ound empire together. tions the Africans were suscepti- the1r m1dr1ffs and ostr1ch and ble t~ conquest by covetous out- other bird feathers made up the Captain Khama led a group of siders some of whom were already h~ad-dress · Tshaka was also the people eventually called the Tswana making ominous moves from the flrst monarch south of the Sahara to what is now Botswana It was South. There and then, young Prince to arr~nge his troops accc:r~ing. initially called Bechua~aland Tshaka laid out his plans for a to reglment and the ~lasslflcatlon until independence in 1968. Col. strong, single, united African was based on age. S1nce ~hey all Sobhuza led his own band later nation that would be able to stand started at the same age • 1 t lS called the Swazi to what came to up to any invader. He reasoned obvious that te~ year olds \~ould be called Swaziland. Gen. Hzili- that the Africans best hope and have more exper:ence than nlne kazi led his own band to southern sal vatiori lay in unity. year olds and elghteen year olds Zimbabwe while Captain Soshangana than seventeen year olds. led his own to eastern Zimbabwe. Shortly thereafter, King Mtwetwa . Not to be outdone, Captains Din- died and young Tshaka became the . Wi ~h ~hese hi?hly t~alned and giswayo and Zwangendaba led the king of the Zulus and immediately UlSClpllned arr:nes •. Klng Tshaka Nguni to Zambia and Malawi and set about putting his plan into was able ~ 0 brlng Vlrt~ally all Lt. Col. Moshoeshoe led another operation. Initially, he met with South Afrl~an~ under_hls ru~e. band, the Sotho, to what was resistance from people who did not lie always lnvlted nelg~bc:url~g originally called Basutoland but fully understand his motives but he p~oples to come and JOln hls is now known as Lesotho. was soon able to bring most of the · klngdo~ a~d ~10ul~ only use force Zulus under his rule Then he set when h1s 1nv1tat1on was turned out to get the other.mini-nations down. As his empire grew to be around him and before too long he one of the largest anywhere in had over a hundred such mini-n~- the world at the time, he began tions under one rule to delegate authority and made · most of his captains and lieu- King Tshaka was the first ruler t~nants, governo:r;s who ruled por– in this part of the world to intro- tlons of the emp1re on his behalf. duce the idea of the draft. Beforellowever, he remained the ultimate his time, African kings and chiefs authori t~ as Empero~ and ~dmini- The break-up of Emperor Tshaka's once mighty empire was just about complete and Southern Africa was ripe for the Boers and British to come and pick clean which they were not slow to do. Today, more than used to gather warriors only in stered_ h1s vast emp1re wh1ch. times ~f war. The warriors would stretcned over much of what 1s be trained for a short time and now South Africa, Botswana, Lese- only for the irmnediate battle. At tho and Swazilan~ very _fairly. the conclusion of the battle/war, lie treated all h1s subJects equal- th · uld di b d . ly whether they were Zulu or not. e warr1ors wo . s an agam and go about their daily bus– iness. Tshaka was the first to introduce the concept of a standing army. He argued that a nation always needed a ready army to defend it against outside attack. He made the draft mandatory for all boys who joined the army at the tender age of seven to learn the art of warfare. From this tender age, they were taught discipline, self-reliance, sur– vival skills and how to use wea– pons. Seven is a very young age to be joining the army but the idea was that by the time they were eighteen to twenty when they would see their first combat, they would have had eleven to fifteen years of army discipline and training and they would, therefore, make that much better soldiers. · So skillful was Tshaka both as military genius and adminis– trator that later European his– torians were to refer to him as the "Black Napoleon." The great South African songstress, Miriam Makeba, is quick to point out that it would be more accurate to call i-l'apoleon the ''White Tshaka" since Tshaka started from scratch and yet was able to build one of the mightiest empires ever. Napoleon did not start from nothing as Emperor Tshaka did. At the time that Emperor Tshaka was building his great empire, the Boers, pushed by the British, were trekking northwards and beginning to encroach on African lands. They viewed Tshaka with great tre– pidation because he had managed to do what no other African monarch had done before: unite all the a century after his assassination, the African nations seem to fin– ally be coming back together again to do exactly what he had tried so valiantly to do: unite all Africans. Looking at these efforts from wherever he might be, Emperor Tshaka must be smilling today. Let's hope we give him cause to keep on smiling. Cl) ..c: E--< Cll ~ Cll ..c: Cll E--< lH 0 p 0 'M .j.J Cll H .j.J Cll ::l ...-l ...-l 'M I I i . I I I I I ......