News of Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu’s death on Friday, 12 March, has been met with split opinions about his legacy.
The Zulu nation’s longest-reigning monarch succumbed to a Covid-19-related illness at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban where he had been admitted to the ICU for diabetes treatment a few weeks earlier. He was 72.
As tributes poured in following the news of his death, the late king was hailed as a “champion for peace” a “custodian of Zulu traditions and customs” and a “much-loved visionary”.
But these sentiments were not shared by all.
City Press editor Mondli Makhanya wrote a scathing op-ed where he referred to Zwelithini, who reigned for nearly 50 years, as “apartheid’s useful idiot”.