Are We There Yet? by David Smiedt

Author:David Smiedt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Queensland Press

Chapter 8

A Tribe Called Quest

“There is lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills.” So begins Alan Paton’s novel, Cry the Beloved Country, which every South African schoolchild read at some point (and deluded ourselves that we were racially progressive as a result). Driving through KwaZulu-Natal, the province in which it was set, two things swiftly became clear: that Paton’s statement could be applied to almost every stretch of tarmac in the place; and why it is known by the local Zulu tribe as the Kingdom of the People of Heaven. The dramatic cliff faces that marked the border of the highveld yielded to endless undulations of jade green embroidered with rippling streams. Small herds of black cattle grazed in the grassy valleys where smudges of mist lingered. Traces of fragrant woodsmoke from the whitewashed rondavels that dot the hillsides scented the air.

Yet these serene surroundings have seen more bloodshed per square kilometre than any other region in the country. In the first postapartheid election campaign, hundreds were hacked to death in conflicts between Zulus and Xhosas aligned to opposing political parties. Here, too, the bastard son of an inconsequential chieftain created the fiercest fighting force in African tribal history.

Revolutionising everything from weaponry to training and tactics, Shaka exacted a gruesome toll on rival clans, Voortrekkers and British forces (the latter of whom eventually turned on each other). Consequently, a network of battle sites runs through KwaZulu-Natal like cracks in a shat tered windowpane.

The town of Dundee was touted as the ideal base from which to explore the battlefields, but even despite being surrounded by hills that once echoed with the sounds of musket fire and blade meeting flesh, it was worth a tarry. Set in the gumdrop hills of the Biggarsberg range, it was once termed Coalopolis because of the enormous collieries on its outskirts. However, it hardly feels like an industrial town but rather a diamond-shaped grid of oak-shaded streets lined with handsome homes, candy-apple-green churches and inviting parks in which vine-clad pergolas threw soft shadows onto still ponds. It was all relentlessly genteel.

Until this point in my journey small-town streets were named after either Voortrekker leaders or just called plain “Voortrekker”, but these bore labels such as Union, Gladstone and Browning. This was an English-and-proud town, a fact crystallised when the pair of ladies manning the information centre didn’t have to make the obviously draining mental switch from Afrikaans when dealing with my request for accommodation, as they had done everywhere else.

The next morning, as the sun gilded farmland that rose and fell like a sleeping child’s chest, I made my way to a scene of slaughter more prolific and barbaric than any British army had ever suffered before.

Isandlawa is a dust-choked plain that extends for twenty kilometres and at the centre of which stands a monolithic fist of rock. To the British soldiers camped in its shadow, it looked like the sphinx that sat on their collars as a reminder of their victory in the Egyptian campaign in the Napoleonic wars.

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