#isandlwana

[toomanyjulies]

#throwbackthursday to November 2017, that time we drove to #isandlwana #zululand #southafrica (at Isandlwana) https://www.instagram.com/p/CodPimdSJVj/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[cinemaquiles]

Baseado em fatos reais: "Zulu Dawn" e a derrota dos britânicos na Batalha de Isandlwana

[strawberryfields125]

[culmaer]

the British should've considered the impies at Isandlwana in 1879

bro you have to consider the impies (cool new way to say implications) of the sitchie (cool new way to say situation)

[robynsassenmyview]

I never killed another butterfly

"I never killed another butterfly", a review of Craig Higginson's novel 'The Ghost of Sam Webster' (2023: Picador Africa).

LET’S FACE IT: we all need a beautiful page turner, that sets us on fire and gives us something potent to come home to. This is Craig Higginson’s 2023 novel, The Ghost of Sam Webster. And yes, it’s a thriller, but there’s depth to it which is about being human in a complicated world. It presents an engagement with characters so rich and deep, that by the end of the story, you feel as though you…

[liberty1776]

Incredible Isandlwana Wargame

[desiremarea]

The Baddies of Isandlwana by Desire Marea, 2024

Images by Mia Thom courtesy of eclectica contemporary

[victusinveritas]

On the set of Zulu Dawn filmed in January 1979 on the actual site, 100 years to the month, of the real battle of Isandlwana.

Unlike the jingoistic crap fest of Zulu (1964, a favorite movie of mine because of Michael Caine and not any message in the movie), Zulu Dawn managed to take a slightly more post imperial look at the British Empire and hint that maybe, just maybe, they were the baddies. There's still a lot of chest pounding and that sort of thing, but if you want to see a movie where the people in red all die except for like a few of them, this is one for you.

[newslivesa]

King Misuzulu says the Battle of Isandlwana was about protecting the Zulu culture and land

The re-enactment has been added to this years annual commemoration of the battle of isandlwana that took palace on January 22, 1879

[streetqueenofmars]

Of the top of my head:

The Battle of Isandlwana, Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Austerlitz, Battle of Hastings, Battle of Boswith Field, Battle of Teutoberg Forest, and the Battle of Aouzou.

Any battle at all except Waterloo. Reblog if you can think of one!

[fantastictyphoonpeanut]

Salute the Brave: Isandlwana 1879. A gallant, experienced and resourceful officer, who cared for his men. With a paralyzed arm from a previous action, at this battle he fought a hard forward action & due to his leadership and presence held a large portion of the elite Zulu forces at bay until out of ammo. Being overwhelmed, they pulled back whilst he and a small contingent would form a rearguard, he made the rest escape, for this valiant deed he would pay with his life. After the British defeat. The General in-charge, Lord Chelmsford tried to place the blame for this defeat on Durnford, which is wholly unfair. It was Chelmsford fault for this disaster fair and square. (FTP)

[lightdancer1]

Hlobane was the other great Zulu victory:

While Isandlwana gets a great deal of fame, Hlobane was a victory in its own way no less momentous and confirming one of the key elements that made this war distinctive. While the war would change at Khambula when newer-style artillery finally made its full debut on the battlefield along with machine guns, the earlier battles were rifles vs. spears and, save at the static fighting at Rorke's Drift that was more than a little akin to Blood River the Zulus rolled over the British. This underscores a key lesson of real wars, that machines alone can decide things in certain contexts but in others they create very real weaknesses that a seemingly obsolete force can and will exploit and make itself certain to do so.

It should also be noted in European terms of the time that artillery was the real killer in war, so the Zulu falling to that and to machine guns was a case of patterns that happened to European armies as well, and when a European army falls to this at Sadowa or Sedan they are considered incompetently led but it's not taken as an entire verdict on a people or a culture.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 1.22 (before 1950)

613 – Eight-month-old Constantine is crowned as co-emperor (Caesar) by his father Heraclius at Constantinople. 871 – Battle of Basing: The West Saxons led by King Æthelred I are defeated by the Danelaw Vikings at Basing. 1506 – The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrives at the Vatican. 1517 – The Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeats the Mamluk Sultanate and captures present-day Egypt at the Battle of Ridaniya. 1555 – The Ava Kingdom falls to the Taungoo Dynasty in what is now Myanmar. 1689 – The Convention Parliament convenes to determine whether James II and VII, the last Roman Catholic monarch of England, Ireland and Scotland, had vacated the thrones of England and Ireland when he fled to France in 1688. 1808 – The Portuguese royal family arrives in Brazil after fleeing the French army's invasion of Portugal two months earlier. 1824 – The Ashantis defeat British forces in the Gold Coast. 1849 – Second Anglo-Sikh War: The Siege of Multan ends after nine months when the last Sikh defenders of Multan, Punjab, surrender. 1863 – The January Uprising breaks out in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The aim of the national movement is to regain Polish–Lithuanian–Ruthenian Commonwealth from occupation by Russia. 1879 – The Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War results in a British defeat. 1879 – The Battle of Rorke's Drift, also during the Anglo-Zulu War and just some 15 km (9.3 mi) away from Isandlwana, results in a British victory. 1890 – The United Mine Workers of America is founded in Columbus, Ohio. 1901 – Edward VII is proclaimed King of the United Kingdom after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria. 1905 – Bloody Sunday in Saint Petersburg, beginning of the 1905 revolution. 1906 – SS Valencia runs aground on rocks on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, killing more than 130. 1915 – Over 600 people are killed in Guadalajara, Mexico, when a train plunges off the tracks into a deep canyon. 1917 – American entry into World War I: President Woodrow Wilson of the still-neutral United States calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. 1919 – Act Zluky is signed, unifying the Ukrainian People's Republic and the West Ukrainian National Republic. 1924 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1927 – Teddy Wakelam gives the first live radio commentary of a football match, between Arsenal F.C. and Sheffield United at Highbury. 1941 – World War II: British and Commonwealth troops capture Tobruk from Italian forces during Operation Compass. 1943 – World War II: Australian and American forces defeat Japanese army and navy units in the bitterly fought Battle of Buna–Gona. 1944 – World War II: The Allies commence Operation Shingle, an assault on Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. 1946 – In Iran, Qazi Muhammad declares the independent people's Republic of Mahabad at Chahar Cheragh Square in the Kurdish city of Mahabad; he becomes the new president and Haji Baba Sheikh becomes the prime minister. 1946 – Creation of the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. 1947 – KTLA, the first commercial television station west of the Mississippi River, begins operation in Hollywood.

[random-thought-depository]

I tried writing up a response to this yesterday but didn't like how much text it ended up devoting to a tangent and ended up deleting it, don't know if you saw it. I'll try again.

I think all the ideas you've put forward here make sense, and I'll add a few of my own:

An obvious propaganda line against the Affini is that they're enslavers. So I can see the Accord reviving some old US Civil War Union songs, and/or producing some war songs that sound a lot like them while they're trying to resist the conquest; I can totally see some Accord Cosmic Navy spacers playing these over their ships' PA systems during the last twenty minutes before they go into battle against Affini:

I think the idea of the Affini rewiring people's brains to make them compliant slaves would logically get played up for horror a lot in Accord propaganda. Can totally see propaganda posters aimed at front-line troops that say stuff like "Don't let them take you alive!" (canonically there's "death before domestication!").

An obvious way to make a case for resisting the conquest "from the left" would be to portray the attempt to save the Accord as an anti-imperialist struggle against racist slave-owning imperialist aliens and draw attention to parallels with historical resistance to European colonialism and so on, so if the Accord had a halfway decent propaganda department I'd expect a lot of that (the Affini's own words and face value self-presentation would give you a lot to work with for this angle!). I can see wars and battles like the 1895-96 Italian-Ethiopian War, Isandlwana, Little Big Horn, etc., cited as hopeful/aspirational examples/analogies/precedents by Accord leaders and commanders.

One of those Starship Troopers movie style "Do you want to know more?" videos but it's a historical interest piece about the 1895-96 Italian-Ethiopian War along with exhortations that this shows that sufficiently clever and determined defenders can defeat technologically superior invaders so humanity should continue to resist the conquest.

Some Cosmic Navy officer giving a speech to pep up their spacers before a big battle and including something like "... and if anyone can give some chlorophyllous Custer their Little Big Horn, it's [insert particularly prestigious and popular Admiral who's in charge of the operation]!"

Realistically this might be overestimating how culturally significant nineteenth and twentieth century stuff would be to these people, this is supposed to be happening in the 2500s, but the Accord really doesn't feel like a society 500 years removed from ours anyway.

Tw: rape mention

A lot of Terran propaganda is played for laughs in Human Domestication Guide.

“Weeds are gonna enslave you to work in their mines!”

I think an alternate take would parallel fascist and conservative propaganda today. Because the Terrans know the Affini are taking humans as pets and doing insane sexual things to them, play it up.

“Plants want to rape your wives! Don’t let that happen.”

“the Affini hate strong men and are gonna try to crush our indomitable human spirit. We will resist!”

“Are you going to end up like this guy? (Picture of drugged, happy trans woman kneeling in front of her Affini) I didn’t think so! Join the Accord Navy”

“Is your neighbor a plant fucker? Look for these signs:”

“Affini are heartless. They go after the weak and turn them into mindless propaganda machines. It’s sick. We need to stop this”

A lot of it would be regressive, as backlash to the insane wish fulfillment of the Compact. “It makes you soft.” “It’s immoral.” “You’re a bad person and should be shamed if you want it.” A side effect of it would be going after marginalized communities in the Terran Accord as well. With governments and corporations trying to crack down and control a growing mass of people who would be totally okay with domestication. Ban kink stuff. Just label kinksters as plant fucker sympathizers and draft ‘em to the navy.

Just some thoughts. I would love to see some new takes like this as the setting matures

(tw: csa implied. Not canon due to setting rules but they’d play into the “think of the children” angle a LOT. It’s a species of sex aliens. People do not want to even imagine what would happen to their kids regardless of what Affini would actually do)

[pro-deo-et-imperio]

The Battle of Isandlwana 22 January 1879

[shakahuquinho]

A Guerra Anglo-Zulu

Olá amigos! Tudo bem? Hoje vou trazer para vocês o último dos assuntos que aprendi em minha viagem em Zululand: A Guerra Anglo Zulu.

Bom, antes de começar, gostaria de dizer que aprendi mais sobre ela dentro de um que existem na aldeia, lá se encontram vários objetos que contam sobre a história dos zulus, além de um guia que explica sobre tudo e tira todas as nossas dúvidas. Assim, ao passar entre o salão de miçangas e vestimentas, armas e uma ala dedicada a Shaka Zulu, chegamos em uma sala que explora sobre o conflito contra os ingleses. Após uma explicação do guia local, eu tive maior noção sobre como se deve essa luta e a derrota dos zulus ao final.

Sendo assim, vou contar para vocês da forma mais clara possível sobre como se iniciou esse conflito e de uma das batalhas mais importantes da guerra! Quero destacar, que no século XIX a coroa Britânica exercia influência naquela região (África Austral) e chegou ao ponto de ter relações com os próprios zulus, por meio de um secretário de assuntos indigénas de governantes africanos, Theopillus Shepstone, que mantinha contato com o rei Mpande (entre os anos de 1840-1872) e após a morte deste, com seu filho, Cetswayo. Acontece que através de sua influência, ele usou a imagem de Shaka Zulu para tentar manter certo controle sobre o novo rei, utilizando de argumentos de autoridade política, que segundo ele, carecia no povo zulu.

Rei Cetswayo, ele que liderou os zulus na Guerra.

Bom, acontece que essas tentativas já criaram desavenças entre os dois lados, e após a anexação do Transvaal (região da África do Sul acima do Rio Val) pelo Reino unido, o Reino Zulu foi se tornando cada vez mais independente e militarizado. Por outro lado, os ingleses encurralaram Shepstone para ele colocasse as autoridades britânicas a rejeitar as reinvidicações do rei Cetshwayo. Com esses e outros fatores, como o interesses na exploração de pedras preciosas pelos ingleses, se iniciou a Guerra Anglo-Zulu (1879). O ponto de argumento dos europeus para a guerra, era que eles viam nos zulus um “curso violento da história, iniciado por Shaka e agora sustentado por Cetswago”, que sabemos que isso é um equívoco. Assim, a principal justificativa dos ingleses era parar a tirania do Rei Cetshwayo e libertar a região de sua opressão, cuja raízes eram oriundas de Shaka. No entanto, o quando inglês nesse momento se tratava de puro interesse imperialista na região e os zulus eram um obstáculo para isso.

Dentro dessa guerra, houve diversas batalhas, mas com certeza a mais lembra é a Batalha de Isandlwana, ocorrida em 22 de janeiro de 1879, onde ocorreu um massacre por parte dos batalhões ingleses, que ao subestimarem os zulus com suas armas consideradas ultrapassadas em relação aos rifles e canhões britânicos deixaram seu acampamento totalmente desprotegido, causando na derrota de 1.300 homens e na captura de duas armas pelos zulus, que com 20 mil homens utilizaram sua famosa tática de "chifres de búfalo" e deixando os ingleses sem defesa alguma.

Assim, após essa derrota a coroa inglesa decidiu tomar uma atitude mais séria em relação aos guerreiros zulus, uma vez que eles tinham uma vantagem de conhecer melhor o território e empregar táticas de guerrilhas e serem melhores no combate de corpo. Com essa visão, os britânicos começaram a impulsionar os zulus a os enfrentarem em campo aberto, onde eles tinham a desvantagem, em consequência das armas de fogo, no que acarretou com a derrota dos zulus 5 meses depois em 4 de julho de 1879, e levando a anexação do Reino Zulu aos ingleses e à prisão do Rei Cetshwayo. No entanto, essa guerra teve alto custo à coroa, levando a formação de 40 mil soldados para conseguir derrotar os guerreiros zulus.

Então amigos, essa é a história de como acabou o grande Reino Zulu, mas não sem luta e muito menos sem perder a sua identidade após todos esses anos. Mesmo sendo estudados em várias formas bibliográficas, os zulus existiram e eram uma das nações mais poderosas e conhecidas da África, tal como o Egito! Eu aprendi muito em Kwazulu Natal, e digo mais, eu vi somente uma cultura africana! Imagina quantas outras podemos aprender sobre? São inúmeras. Espero volta em um futuro e contar sobre mais algumas culturas aqui para vocês! Assim, me despedi de todos meus amigos que fiz por lá, e com os olhos cheio de inspiração e orgulho olhei pela última vez aquela aldeia em meio a vastas montanhas!

Ah, antes que eu esqueça, e como meu tio me pediu. Quando eu estava voltado para Patopólis, o meu avião parou no aeroporto do congo e eu consegui uma moedinha de lembrança para ele. Que curiosamente tem estampada um guerreiro zulu em homenagem aquela incrível cultura!

Por fim, vou deixar como diga de fim de semana, dois filmes que tratam sobre a Guerra Anglo-Zulu, embora sejam versão eurocêntricas do evento, vale a pena para analisar e refletirmos sobre essa questão tão importante, não?

Zulu (1964)

Zulu Dawn (1979)

Obrigado por tudo pessoal!

Referências:

SILVA, M. S. dos S.; DELCANO, R. V. . As disputas de narrativas em torno das imagens do imperador Shaka kaSenzangakhona e dos zulus na África do Sul. África, n. 43, p. e203596, 2022