King Misuzulu kaZwelithini publicly challenged a university academic to a traditional stick fight on Saturday, saying the scholar had insulted him and, by extension, the Zulu nation during the annual Reed Dance at the monarch’s newly built royal palace.
"It pains me to see another man telling me how to do my job," the king said, according to TimesLIVE, and added that if the professor wanted a stick fight "I can take him up." The short speech, delivered to thousands of people at the ceremony, underscored the monarch’s anger over remarks he said had demeaned the Zulu people, the report said.
Professor Musa Xulu told the BBC he treated the king’s direct challenge as a joke but said he had received threats and was fearful of being attacked by others. "I have received threats from hired assassins," he said, and he has filed a formal complaint with police, the BBC reported. Xulu said he believed the king had been provoked by comments he made to local media about the move to the new eMashobeni palace, which he suggested could be seen as wasteful given recent spending on the old Enyokeni palace.
Xulu, a 64-year-old academic with doctorates in Zulu music and cultural tourism, told the BBC that "talking about public finance is not an insult" and that he had "nothing personal against the king." He also noted that stick-fighting is a cultural practice but insisted that participants must be equals and that he had not engaged in such fighting since he was a teenager.
The king, 50, did not specify the exact comments that provoked him, but he framed the dispute as one of honour for the broader Zulu nation. According to IOL, he told the crowd: "If his friends are here, go and tell him that there is a fighting ring - if he wants a stick fight because I can take him up. It is okay if he is against me, but when he insults me, he insults the Zulu nation as well."
The episode unfolded during one of the most prominent events in the Zulu cultural calendar. The Reed Dance, introduced to South Africa in 1984, traditionally takes place at the royal palace and draws thousands of attendees. The eMashobeni site has been the focus of recent controversy after about 152 million rand (roughly $9 million or £6.5 million) was reportedly spent renovating the Enyokeni palace, where the ceremony had been held for decades.
Misuzulu was crowned in 2022 after a year-long succession dispute following the death of his father, the long-serving King Goodwill Zwelithini, and later his mother. Two of Misuzulu’s brothers challenged his claim to the throne, but he has since been recognised by both the Zulu royal household and the South African government. The Zulu throne holds no formal constitutional power, yet the monarchy retains significant social influence: roughly a fifth of South Africa’s population identifies as Zulu, and the royal household receives taxpayer funding that has been reported at more than $4.9 million (about £3.5 million) annually.
The Zulu kingdom has a long and prominent history in southern Africa and is internationally known for its military resistance to British forces at the 1879 Battle of Isandlwana.
Police in the region have not publicly detailed any investigation into the professor’s complaint. Neither the palace nor the royal household issued an immediate full account of the remarks that prompted the king’s rebuke. Both the confrontation and the professor’s report of threats highlight tensions around public criticism, royal authority and cultural protection in South Africa’s largest ethnic community.