Shaka may, indeed, have been a tyrant and despot, but deep down in his heart of hearts and at the base of his intentions lay an African who had been raised in the harsh practical schools of African communalism. Shaka predicted the coming of European invaders by land and water to take over the southern African continent as he faced imminent death in the hands of his brothers and assassins. Before this last minute revelation Shaka had been labouring under a bipolar quagmire of a burden and a dream. His burden was to stop European invaders dead on their tracks; his dream was that of building a southern African kingdom.
This work examines the strategies that Shaka utilised to build the Zulu kingdom by which he hopped to stop the European invasions he had envisioned. In the paper we show how Shaka used his isibongo, royal bloodline and military strategies to amalgamate various Bantu clans into the Zulu kingdom. We analyse how the influence of his isibongo, mobilized his subjects. We also note how he distributed his royal bloodline through the excision of sections of the royal house. We argue that Shaka realised the significance of the Zulu isibongo, his royal heritage and military ingenuity in building a strong kingdom. We also argue that outside of the two cornerstones of his isibongo and the royal house he would have remained an obscure and illegitimate military genius.
We found out that the Zulu like all the Nguni people valued the principles of collective communal accountability. They understood it too well that when they stood divided politically, they soon fell too easily from the attacks of their enemies. The Zulu people believed in the maxim that says, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” We note that Shaka needed the Zulu kind of collective identity in order for him to have built the Zulu kingdom. However, we see larger implications in Shaka’s dual quagmire. We argue that Shaka had a noble dream that was not entirely implausible. We believe that the whole continent of Africa is blessed with massive wealth in the form of natural, mineral and human resources. These could be harnessed and out of them an African empire could be built. Had Shaka not been stopped, the sub?continent of Africa and may be the continent as a whole, could have been able to prevent the infamous colonialisation of Africa and the evil system of apartheid. In our view, Shaka Zulu was a true visionary.