A brief history of South Africa: Part II

OK, part II of the history of my country.

For the next couple of hundred years the Dutch stole the cattle off the black people, and the black people stole it back and so it went on and on until the French decided to invade the Netherlands.

So Britain was all like, “Oh, we can hold onto the Cape Colony for you. We can water the pot plants and things while you’re away” and the Netherlands was like, “We were going to ask Germany to do that” and the Brits said, “No, we asked them to watch India over the Easter weekend and they threw a massive party and broke our CD player” and the Dutch said, “Well why don’t you just help us defeat the French” and the British said, “We really don't like to meddle” and then they had some tea and handed over the keys and cancelled all the Dutch newspapers and the British went to the Cape Colony.

So then Britain occupied South Africa for a few years and then annexed it, which is a fancy way of calling “keepsies”. And then for the next couple of hundred years the British stole the cattle the natives had stolen from the Dutch and the natives stole it back until this guy called Shaka called everyone together and was like, “Hey. There’s like 250 000 of us, and 200 of them” and the Zulus were like, “Huh. You’re right. We didn’t notice because we too busy discovering tobacco and stealing back our cattle” but they didn’t want to listen to him. Then some dude murdered his uncle and Shaka took revenge by locking the guy’s mother in a hut with hyenas that slowly ripped her to pieces and he set the whole thing on fire and the Zulus were all “Whoa, don’t fuck with Shaka. He crazyyyy.”

The other tribes didn’t like that so the Zwide decided to kick his ass at the Battle of Gqokli Hill but Shaka sent a herd of elephants around the hill to stomp them to death. Just to prove that he was a badass motherfucka.

Shaka was a bit of a momma’s boy, and when his mom Nandi died Shaka told everyone that they weren’t allowed to plant crops or drink milk for a whole year and that any woman who got pregnant would be killed along with her husband, essentially putting an end to nookie in the Zulu Kingdom. He also killed 7000 people “for not looking sad enough” and killed all the cows so the calves could know what losing a mother felt like. Which is a right asshole thing to do.

Shaka didn’t die a particularly cool death either. Basically his brother Dingane said, “Hi Shaka, look over there!” and then Mhlangana (the other brother) hit him over the head and dumped him in a grain pit.

And then we named an airport after him. They put up this statue of Shaka but they took it down because it wasn't badass enough. True story. They said he looked too peaceful in the statue and needed a spear or a dead virgin or a hyena on a leash or something.

Here's President Jacob Zuma and King Goodwill Zwelithini. They are both Zulus. They look really pissed in this picture. I bet they were arguing over who got to cut the airport ribbon. "I'm the President of the Country!" "Well, I'm the motherfucking King" "Of the Zulus, maybe. I'm President of the whole country, so I'm technically your boss" "Yeah, but you are a Zulu, so I'm your goddamn monarch" "Nuh-uh" "Uh-huhhh" "Smile, Goodwill they are taking the picture." "That's King Goodwill to you, dipshit."