100% Zulu Boy

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Mark Sanders

Published:

2016

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

This chapter examines how the trial of Jacob Zuma, former deputy president of South Africa. spawned questions of “Zulu” as a pure language and Zuma as “100% Zulu Boy.” After Zuma was implicated in corruption, he was dismissed by President Thabo Mbeki. In November 2005, he was indicted for rape. His supporters, demonstrating outside the Johannesburg High Court, wore t-shirts with the slogan “100% Zulu Boy,” and Zuma himself explained his actions in terms of Zulu culture. Judge Willem van der Merwe, who opened his address in Zulu. acquitted Zuma. The chapter considers how, during Zuma's trial, the codes of <italic>ilobolo</italic> (bridewealth) and <italic>inhlawulo</italic> (forfeit, fine) reduce everything to a set of heterosexual assumptions, functioning within a patriarchy, but more importantly—like the idea that if one is raped one must be a lesbian—they tend in practice to leave aside, or negotiate away, the matter of consent.

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