Durban - Zulu king Goodwill Zwelitini is in the news for all the wrong reasons again.
The king drew sharp criticism on social media after he said that the National Paty had built a powerful government with the strongest economy and army on the continent, but then came “this so-called democracy” in which black people started destroying the gains of the past.
This is by no means the monarch’s first brush with controversy. Here are some of his earlier comments:
January 2012: The king is quoted in the media as reportedly saying that ‘traditionally, there were no people who engaged in same-sex relationships’ and that people who did so were ‘rotten’.
The reports were strongly denied by the king's spokesman who blamed the media for ‘reckless translation’.
July 2014: The king says he will launch a land claim for all the land in KZN and in other provinces that was in Zulu hands in 1838. When criticised, he said: ’This land was not taken from the trusts, which are now popular in the country, but was taken from traditional leaders, and your fathers and mothers who were murdered.’
March 2015: The king made a speech in Pongola where he said: ‘We request that all foreigners should take their baggage and be sent back.’ An upsurge of xenophobic violence in KwaZulu-Natal followed which some attributed to the speech. The SA Human Rights Commission has ruled that the speech did not incite violence but was ‘hurtful and harmful’ to foreigners and recommended that the king make a public apology.
April 2015: During the xenophobic violence, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba called for leaders not to make inflammatory comments. In response, the king said political leaders, in an apparent reference to Gigaba, should not get carried away with their five years in political power and think they were ‘demigods’.
The Mercury and IOL
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