AMID the cacophony about xenophobia and the squelching sounds of a government locked in a marathon bout of pious hand-wringing and forelock-tugging regarding same, word reaches us here at the Mahogany Ridge that the departments of Basic Education, Higher Education and Arts and Culture are to tinker with history.

There are reportedly plans to make it compulsory at school. But before this can happen, the relevant authorities would need to review history’s “content” and, to this end, a round-table discussion is envisaged with “stakeholders” –– that usual gang of suspects –– to get input, as one newspaper put it, “on changes to be made to the subject”.

As basic education spokesman Elijah Mhlanga explained, “Tied to this matter is the issue of balancing the South African story. We need to revise the content to be taught as well.”

The news that, if implemented, we would be following the Cuban example here does not exactly fill one with much in the way of hope. We may not be able to change the past, but we can certainly fashion ourselves a whole new one to suit a future agenda. The old Nationalists did it – and now the new ones are having a crack at it, too.

In this regard, the man tasked with “balancing” the South African story –– Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa –– is perhaps greatly indebted to Chumani Maxwele, the University of Cape Town politics student whose faecal behaviour set in motion the #RhodesMustFall vandalism that so gripped the imaginations of revolutionaries across the land. 

The open season on colonial symbols had given much impetus to Mthethwa’s campaign for a “national consultative” forum to discuss the vexing problem of public statues. That meeting was held last week, and participants have reportedly called for an audit of sculptures, names and other heritage symbols to determine what could stay and what must go.

Task teams are to be assembled and theme parks will be created where unwanted works are to be dumped (it says here) for “a narrative, historical, educational and themed interpretation”. 

Perhaps a North Korean model was also considered in discussions; at his post-forum press brief press briefing on Wednesday, Mthethwa certainly came across as very Pyongyang. 

“We will launch vigorous public education and awareness creation campaigns,” he announced. “For instance, retained or changed names should be accompanied by public education campaigns about them. Leaders who fought for liberation and contributed to the building of a new society should be identified and a special programme established to celebrate African history on a continental scale to affirm African identity as an antidote for South African exceptionalism.”

And on that note, there is perhaps a very good chance that such a history will look back on King Goodwill Zwelithini in rather a favourable light, especially in regard to the new society that he has fostered in recent weeks.

Any suggestion of the absurdity of the Zulu monarch calling for a national imbizo –– a narcissistic tribal display –– to address the xenophobic violence he had started will not be permitted to taint the narrative. His consistent refusal to apologise for his remarks at a “moral regeneration” rally earlier this month that foreigners were “lice” who must all be deported will largely be seen as a principled stand against a media that put words in his mouth.

A different history may regard the violence as a successful pogrom. This is the view of Gary Becher, an American commentator on global military conflicts. Becher writes an entertaining column, The War Nerd, for PandoDaily, and he has suggested the attacks on foreigners was a turf war started – and won – by Zwelithini.

“It’s a tricky position, a hereditary ethnic ruler in a multi-ethnic nation-state,” Becher wrote. “It always comes down to Stalin’s question, ‘How many divisions does the Pope have?’ Except that we’re not talking in Gettysburg or Stalingrad terms here, so we’re not talking about formally organised army divisions. 

“The question here is more like, ‘How much chaos can Goodwill Zwelithini cause?’ Zwelithini’s actual power, in the current South African polity, is pretty much determined by the answer to that question.

“So in Zwelithini’s terms, the riots have gone very well. He’s reminded the whole country that the Zulu are a power, and more importantly that he decides when that power is unleashed. That’s very handy for an ambitious man. It’s not as easy to see how his followers, the ones running the streets and trashing the foreigners’ shops, can benefit. They’re more like the human norm, which isn’t so much ‘turtles all the way down’ as suckers. Mean, dumb suckers, all the way down.”

This article first appeared in the Weekend Argus.