South African Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini on Saturday publicly announced he’s had enough of the fake news from his subject, University of Zuuland Professor Musa Xulu, and challenged the radical left academic to a ritual nonlethal combat to settle the score, the BBC reports.
“We are angry and we will do anything to protect and preserve our cultures,” Misuzulu said to a crowd of thousands gathered in front of the newly-built eMashobeni palace during the opening of the Zulu community’s annual Reed Dance. “It pains me to see another man telling me how to do my job… It is okay if he is against me, but when he insults me, he insults the Zulu nation as well. If his friends are here, go and tell him that there is a fighting ring – if he wants a stick fight because I can take him up,” Misuzulu continued in his tirade against Xulu without specifying the insult.
Xulu tells the BBC he’s pretty sure this is about an interview he gave to local media recently in which he criticized the king for pissing away millions to build a new palace just a few years after $9 million had been spent renovating the Enyokeni palace – where the Reed Dance had been held since 1984.
The Zulu nation represents a fifth of South Africa’s population of 64 million and, although the king holds no formal political power, the government still provides a $4.9 million annual stipend to the royal family. Misuzulu’s extravagant spending on a new palace when the old one was perfectly fine is much closer to waste and extravagance than it is any personal graft as eMashobeni and Enyokeni are public venues, not royal residences. Xulu said as much, adding that “talking about public finance is not an insult.” The professor, 64, declined the 50 year-old king’s challenge on the grounds that the ritual stick fighting combat is only supposed to be between men of equal status. “I’m not equal to the king,” Xulu said adding that he’s got “nothing personal” against Misuzulu over the spending.
Yet someone, if not Misuzulu or a royal courtier, is taking it personally enough as Xulu says he’s “received threats from hired assassins,” and had filed a formal complaint with police.