If you think South Africa's royals have not covered themselves in glory, you ain't seen nothing yet. A gander at the depravity of Western blue bloods will have you falling off your throne.
Image: IOL Graphics
By the time you reach the end of this piece, it’s highly likely that the Bureau would have been sued by a firm of expensive attorneys on the highly agitated, dik gesuip instructions of Zulu King, His Majesty King Misuzulu kaZwelithini. The arse that currently sits on the throne of the legendary Shaka Zulu did the institution of royalty no favours recently. Shaka was known for his military tactic of staying in the closet, before fabulously emerging to surprise his enemies with his fearsome bull horn formation.
By now, you’ve probably seen the viral video of His Majesty, completely sauced, verbally abusing one of his wives. He looked less like a sovereign ruler of millions and more like a man who had successfully survived a 48-hour bender at a beachfront tavern, swaying like a half-collapsed gazebo.
We can already hear his lawyers drafting the cease-and-desist letter, claiming his slurred mutterings weren't drunken nonsense, but a "sacred royal dialect that only people with actual land ownership can understand," and that his staggering was a "complex, spiritually deep Zulu balancing maneuver. And stop inferring that Shaka was gay!”
And then we have the Ingonyama Trust. The ultimate feudal landlord scam.
As the sole trustee of the Ingonyama Trust, King Misuzulu controls 2.8 million hectares roughly 30% of KwaZulu-Natal, worth an estimated R24 billion, housing over 5 million people who pay rent to live on their ancestral land. On top of that, South African taxpayers fund a royal household budget of R86 million a year for his palaces, luxury SUVs, and travel. It’s the ultimate feudal jackpot: he controls a third of a province, gets millions in taxpayer allowances, and doesn’t pay a cent of property tax.
And when people ask: "What do the taxpayers get in return?" Well, you get to watch His Majesty wear leopard skin and look like the keeper of all the riz. Is that not worth zero economic development, zero land security, and a massive, unaccountable vault of wealth plagued by criminal cases, missing millions, and internal boardroom theft? We are not paying for the privilege of being locked out of our own country. We are investing in the vibes.
But let’s be honest: in the Champions League of traditional royal chaos, Misuzulu barely gets out of the group stages.
Take Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo of the AbaThembu. Yes, the man is a self-confessed, dagga-smoking Rastafarian. Yes, he once attacked his own palace with an axe, took a free Mercedes-Benz from the EFF, and publicly declared his undying love for Donald Trump. But his foreign policy work is something altogether different.
Who else has the bronze balls to look at the South African government’s highly justified legal actions against Israel at the International Court of Justice and say: "Hold my Rizla and my grinder, I’m flying to Jerusalem."
Dalindyebo shook hands with the Israeli President, and then came home to fire Nelson Mandela’s actual grandson, Mandla Mandela, from his chieftaincy for being "too pro-Palestinian." He then smuggled Israeli diplomats into state hospitals in Mthatha to "discuss infrastructure," leaving the Eastern Cape Premier screaming about "diplomatic breaches" while Dalindyebo essentially replied: "I’m the King, I invite whoever I want to my hospitals, now get out of my face."
I can hear what you’re thinking. “Those backwards tribal feudal savages! Have they no shame? We need checks and balances.”
Kindly shut up and take a seat, you stupid liberal Anglo-Saxon, British public school-educated nerd. Because Misizulu, Dalindyebo, and others can’t even come close to the institutional larceny of the OG’s of the game – the British Royal Family.
Before they became the world's most expensive tourist attraction, the House of Windsor’s ancestors were medieval warlords who built their massive estates on raw colonial violence and human trafficking. Let’s not forget that King Charles II’s Royal African Company literally branded the letters "DY" (for the Duke of York) onto the flesh of enslaved human beings. They funded the slave trade and then put their corporate logo on human bodies.
King Charles’s personal fortune is estimated at £1.8 billion, built on tax-free inheritances and private investments. He also sits on the Crown Estate, a massive £16 billion portfolio of land, commercial property, and seabed that he "holds in trust" for the nation. To fund his lifestyle and upkeep, UK taxpayers handed him a £137.9 million Sovereign Grant this year. That’s right. King Charles grabs welfare from the British state with his big weird gross sausage fingers.
Of course, the modern House of Windsor has suffered a bit of a downgrade. With Lizzy in a box since 2022, the grand illusion has completely evaporated, and the entire empire has devolved into a trashy reality TV show.
Take the con artist formerly known as Prince Andrew. After being dragged out of his 31-room Windsor mansion under the cover of darkness and relocated to a "shoebox" Sandringham cottage, he was actually arrested on suspicion of sending confidential government trade reports straight to Jeffrey Epstein’s inbox back in 2010. That’s where they draw the line. Not at pedophilia. It’s the trade secrets.
How about the rapey royal of Norway, Marius Borg Høiby?
The 29-year-old stepson of the Crown Prince of Norway was recently convicted on 34 charges, including domestic abuse, smuggling three kilos of weed (perhaps that good shit that Dalindyebo smokes), and raping women inside the actual basement of the Crown Prince's official royal residence. His lawyers actually had the audacity to ask if he could serve his prison sentence with an ankle monitor while continuing to live in the palace with the good linen. Because honestly, if you cannot run a highly lucrative drug-smuggling and abuse operation out of your royal stepfather's basement, then what is the point of even having a palace?
Which brings us to the only logical conclusion.
Whether they are colonial, traditional, global, or local, all royals should be completely and utterly abolished. Monarchy is a parasitic, hereditary disease. A crown is just a fancy hat worn by someone who hasn't had to work a real job in five generations. It is time to reclaim the land, stop siphoning taxpayer millions into royal bank accounts, and lock the basement doors once and for all.
But as we write this, we know the reality. His Majesty's lawyers are already sharpening their pens. If they find out who we are, they will sue us until we are wearing plastic crowns and begging for spare change at a Durban robot.
Either that, or King Misuzulu will personally unleash an ancestral curse that will make our beer go flat. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse.
* The Bureau of Cynicism is a weekly satirical dispatch from the frontlines of politics, media and public life. Armed with equal parts skepticism, sarcasm and common sense, it investigates hypocrisy, interrogates fashionable narratives and keeps a watchful eye on the ever-shifting goalposts of public discourse.