Cultures change and adapt, which is why Mchunu can wear those ridiculous sunglasses with his Zulu headgear.
It takes a lot of balls to tell the Human Rights Commission to f*** off. We can suspect that those are balls Ngizwe Mchunu is unlikely to share with any other man, given his homophobic outbursts, although sometimes these are the kinds of utterances of those who are still in the closet.
I get it, though. It’s the same kind of reaction one gets when you hear about the Queers for Palestine crowd or Christian Cocaine; maybe to some, it does feel like there would be a disconnect between being Zulu and being gay, but who are we to impose that?
Obviously, I don’t know much about Zulu culture, but I do know there’s a leadership structure in place headed by a royal family and king. Even that’s had an upheaval of late in that the kingship is no longer bestowed automatically, but the ascension of King Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini happened by appointment and after a lengthy mourning process.
Cultures adapt
Even if the Zulu culture has historically rejected homosexuality, cultures change and adapt. It’s why Mchunu never gets a cease-and-desist letter regarding his pairing of those ridiculous indoor sunglasses and Zulu headgear.
The crushed avocado that retailers insist on calling hummus is an affront to my people, but you don’t see Middle Eastern communities taking to the streets of Johannesburg demanding that Woolies labels its food according to its customs. You don’t get to be an unelected spokesperson for a culture and leverage it for yourself and beliefs.
If you think that being gay and wearing Zulu gear are not compatible, fine, don’t be gay and wear Zulu gear. What you can’t do is tell others how to exercise their own interpretation of their own culture and be who they wish to be.
They have a whole king, a whole royal family. Who does this man think he is to start dictating cultural impositions?
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Ngizwe Mchunu denies doing wrong
But now he’s taking the L at the Human Rights Commission, and rightly so, yet he still insists he’s representing and protecting his Zulu kingdom, culture and heritage. Whether he’s the king’s useful idiot or not is unknown, though it would be helpful for the royal family to weigh in on this, albeit not politically sound.
What’s most frightening is his sense of having done nothing wrong. He went as far as saying that there was nothing in his utterances that was discriminatory against anyone. That’s quite bold, coming off the back of calling gay people “mgodoyi” and saying that they should leave South Africa.
He might not consider those remarks to be discriminatory, but I’m relatively confident that a court would.
There will be supporters arguing that his freedom of expression must be respected, and there is a case to be made for that. However, freedom of expression does not mean expression unabated. Expression is not the only right in the constitution, and it’s selfish to argue for it in isolation.
Dignity and equality
There are other things like dignity and equality which may inconvenience Mchunu, but he’s still got to live with them; otherwise, it will be he who has to leave the country in pursuit of a legal system that suits his interpretation of Zulu culture.
It’s incredibly tempting at the best of times to forget where we are, where we came from and how we got here.
If gay people are upsetting the ancestors, that’s between them and the ancestors. We don’t need to bring Zulu Private Eye Wedding Guy into this.
Credit to Somizi for calling for calm and letting this be a teaching moment. I’m mostly looking forward to the lesson where Mchunu learns that the Equality Court is not something you can just dismiss on your podcast.
