PHILILE NTULI | Clickbait, ignorance and toxic masculinity: the colonial roots of Ngizwe’s rant

This week, the nation witnessed with shock as another public figure unleashed an unprovoked tirade against LGBTIQ+ communities.

Ngizwe Mchunu’s words, draped in the language of “African tradition” and “IsiZulu customs” for clickbait, are not just hurtful, they are historically false, unAfrican and fundamentally violent. They reveal how deeply the colonial project embedded itself into our social imagination, convincing us that intolerance equals authenticity, and that Africanness equates to violence.

Pre-colonial African societies, far from being monolithic, were complex, layered and flexible in their understandings of identity and sexuality. Same-sex love, gender diversity and non-heteronormative practices were neither alien nor scandalous. It is only with the arrival of colonialism and missionary Christianity that homophobia became codified and policed.

Consider the case of Princess Mkabayi kaJama, the most powerful figure in the history of the Zulu kingdom, without whom the Zulu nation would never have attained the power and social stature it enjoys today. Mkabayi never married – a radical act in her time. Rather, she orchestrated royal successions, insisted on joining and leading Amabutho (Zulu regiments) in battle and wore ibheshu (men’s battle regalia). She led the nation as a regent on multiple occasions and dedicated her existence to the Zulu Kingdom.

Though published records do not document that she engaged in same-sex relationships, this can be explained by the patriarchal, heteronormative nature of colonial histographies and their inheritance by indigenous communities. Her public roles and her radically queer actions leave space for interpretation.

That space is meaningful. When we interpret responsibly, the life of Mkabayi offers a challenge to those who say that queer identities are foreign to Africa. She becomes, in that interpretive space, an emblem for the recognition of the multiplicity and complexity of precolonial gender expressions. She is the evidence: one of many historical examples that suggest we once accepted more fluidly expressions we find challenging today.

The 19th century colonial codes that outlawed ‘sodomy’ and ‘unnatural offences’ were imported from Britain, France and Portugal. They had nothing to do with African traditions. Rather, they were designed to enforce Christian moral discipline on colonised populations.

Oral histories across Southern Africa attest to similar practices. For example, same-sex relationships among women in Lesotho known as Motsoalle; male praise poets and healers whose roles often blurred gender lines; and spiritual traditions that have historically embraced fluidity, recognising that female ancestors can be embodied in male children, and male ancestors in female children.

Colonial administrators and missionaries, however, recoiled at such fluidity. They insisted on the imposition of European norms on African bodies. Through laws, churches and schools, colonialism criminalised what it could neither understand nor control.

The 19th century colonial codes that outlawed ‘sodomy’ and ‘unnatural offences’ were imported from Britain, France and Portugal. They had nothing to do with African traditions. Rather, they were designed to enforce Christian moral discipline on colonised populations.

Tragically, independent African governments inherited these codes after liberation, like the many remnants of their colonial past, mistaking them for cultural legacies rather than colonial residues.

Today, when homophobic voices like those of Ngizwe Mchunu claim to be defending African values, they are in effect demonstrating their psychological allegiance to colonialism.

Importantly, however, is that Mchunu’s words are not just rhetoric. They contain several harms, including legitimising violence, causing severe psychological damage and polarising society. And many South Africans recognise this harm.

In less that 48 hours of his words being published online, the South African Human Rights Commission received tens of complaints from individuals and groups. The commission is now investigating the matter.

It’s not just Ngizwe. Former president Jacob Zuma has a history of demeaning remarks about queer people. In 2006, Zuma described same-sex marriage as “a disgrace to the nation and to God”, and said that in his youth, a homosexual “would not have stood in front of me; I would knock him out”. He apologised, but his words continued to shape attitudes. An apology, no matter how politically necessary, sometimes cannot erase the stigma or undo the violence that hateful words help to justify.

The words and actions of leaders matter because memory, by nature, is political. When we forget that Africa once embraced diversity, we give credence to the lie that queer people are foreigners in their own land. We allow colonial ghosts to police our present. We erase the memory of ancestors like Mkabayi ka Jama who embodied leadership and queerness.

Mchunu’s words therefore do not only demean queer people today. Fundamentally, they distort our collective memory. They misrepresent intolerance as heritage and hatred as authenticity. The irony is not lost that Mchunu denounces queerness in defence of a culture, nation and kingdom that was created by a queer African woman.

Mkabayi’s story reminds us that queerness is not a Western import. It is part of our history, our heritage and our humanity.

The path forward is clear: to resist and be appalled by homophobia is not to betray our traditions. To affirm queer lives is to restore historical continuity, to remember that Africa’s richness has always centred on its pluralism. To embrace queer identities is to therefore reclaim Africa from colonial miseducation.

As we close off Heritage Month, a human rights culture demands that we distinguish between authentic heritage and colonial residues. Defending homophobia as “tradition” is to mistake our chains for our inheritance.

Philile Ntuli is a commissioner of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). Her focal areas include land justice, food sovereignty and the national preventive mechanism. She is the first openly queer commissioner of the SAHRC