What's on Mthoko's mind?

I always wondered which of the many Zulu dialects modern Zulu is & always thought it was Hlubi (isiMbo) & according to this thesis by a Mr. Isaac Sibusiso Kubeka written in what was apparently 1979, we see modern Zulu is more the original Ntungwa dialect. The Mthethwa dialect (isiLala) that was likely spoken by King Shaka looks more a Tsonga dialect from a Zulu-speaker's perspective. Despite the "Zulu area" speaking many dialects, I'm of the belief that these dialects were mutually intelligible & similar for the most part. This is the only way these Nguni tribes from southern Mozambique up to Umzimvubu River & inland into the Drakensberg Mountains up to Gauteng could understand each other because I, genuinely, think that it was seldom that an African travelled to a land where he couldn't speak the local language in precolonial times.  Mild differences between Zulu dialects. Writing Zulu   I remember reading a book written in 1930 by ...

I'm scrolling through social media & I see a picture of black Usonians in the government of the USA & the image is clearly divisive because some black people in the comments are writing racial slurs & calling them "white puppets". This is not an uncommon story for us here in South Africa (& continental Africa) either, where we have black leaders that are put in place by foreign or anti-black powers.  Sure, there's been a black President of the USA, a black woman in the British Royal Family, a black person in the Italian parliament & even a black Russian dignitary... so why does our place in the world still feel inadequate? There's been a black person in space, a black person on Mount Everest, a black bobsled team in the Olympics but we still feel like we lack something. When will it ever be enough ?  I think this goes back to having a cultural unsettling during colonization in Africa rather than being disenfranchised by the world. Dealing with ...

Umqhele:  Typical Zulu vest:  Umubhulaselo:  Leather sandals or car tyre sandals:  Iwisa:  Complete:  You now look like a typical Zulu man in 2022. You must just drive a Toyota Hi-Ace (Siyaya), Toyota Quantum or Toyota Tazz/Corolla (1996 model) as a passenger vehicle for your job & play lots of maskandi music & speak Zulu like an Ukhozi FM radio show host.

I'm an ardent believer in conventional age-old wisdom but as times change, I think some practices have lost their context & have become near useless.  Two examples being; " Ithemba alibulali"  & "Rather a living dog than a dead lion".  Ithemba alibulali in my native language simply means "Hope does not kill". This saying comes from a time when the world was still novel & people believed  & anything was possible. In today's age of atheism & nullist beliefs where humanity already knows everything, nothing is new. There is no need for hope, just ability. In fact, from my point of view, it is better to have lost all hope & build from there than build on a dream. With no faith in anything, you can build with things that are proven to work. When you still have hope & believe in things "working out for the best", you leave yourself exposed to the elements. When you have no hope & believe that things inherently s...

We've adopted many European traits & customs on the African continent & by our reluctance to decolonize or follow our own ways, one could assume that we want to be European. In South Africa, I blame this in the sheer oversaturation in Eurocentricism when we're younger. So much so that it becomes a decades long process to re-Africanize at times.  The thing is, you become whatever you see as better when you were young. If your people are dominated by a foreign culture, you'll likely see that culture as better & often adopt it (sometimes subconsciously) in many ways.  Here in South Africa, coming from our seperate, respective indigenous tribes; we seem to have spent no time in embracing a South African identity our forefathers never embraced to begin with themselves. The trouble with unsuspecting simple folk like precolonial Africans is that they are just trying to survive, concepts like clothing attire & language are seldom important in their quest to just get...