I have just returned from a 1 200 kilometer trip around Zimbabwe. Everywhere I went I saw the empty skulls of a people driven from their land. Farmhouses without windows, windows without curtains, gardens overgrown and dying, staff quarters empty and lifeless. Farmland idle and overgrown with weeds. Agricultural machinery rusting in dilapidated stables, hungry livestock without water, vultures celebrating. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay It reminded me of the "mfecane" of the Transvaal Highveld in the early part of the 19th century in South Africa. The person responsible was the greatest Zulu leader in history, Shaka, often called the Napoleon of African history. From a small minority of only 2,000 people, he created the Zulu nation by crushing and absorbing into the ranks of his impis the youths of the tribes north and south of his home and completely destroying the tribal peoples of the interior. Only three groups, the Tswana of present-day Botswana, the Sotho of present-day Lesotho, and the Dhlamini clan of present-day Swaziland, succeeded in stopping his ambitions. His genius lay in a few simple military rules. When a boy reached the age of 15 he joined a regiment or "impi". Experienced and successful warriors, who passed on to their young protégés the knowledge accumulated in numerous raids against other tribes, led the impis. Their reward was that they kept most of what they had taken by force, and although all the livestock belonged to Shaka, they were allowed to use it for their own purposes. When Shaka felt they had proven their manhood, they were given the right to choose girls, marry, and start their own home. They were given land and the use of livestock to enable them to settle. Their bondage to Shaka lasted a lifetime. They were absolutely ruthless and it must have been a sight to see an impi on a mission running in unison, their feet thundering in rhythm across the arid African veld. When I was a boy growing up in the eastern Matopo Hills, some of the older men in the villages still wore the ring in their hair to signify their status as ndunas or officers in the Zulu war machine. In the case of the people among whom I lived, they were a branch of the Zulu empire, the Ndebele of southern Zimbabwe, who had arrived in Zimbabwe in the 1820s after completing the "mfecane" in the highveld of South Africa. What Shaka had ordered was that the people of the Highveld be destroyed so that they could never again threaten the hegemony of the Zulu nation on the coasts of Natal. On his orders, the impis of the Zulu clans moved into what is now the Transvaal and the Free State and killed every man, woman and child they could find. Bringing their cattle and other goods back to the Zulus' hearts as gifts for Shaka and his elder chiefs. Only selected women were kept alive to be taken as wives upon Shaka's return at pleasure. It was ruthless and self-perpetuating as long as the Zulus could remain united and impose discipline. Its success made the Zulus the dominant social, economic and political force in southern Africa. Its tentacles extend as far north as Tanzania and Malawi, as far south as the white man's growing influence allows. In the early 19th century, Afrikaner Boers began the "Great Trek" north, finally stopping at Chimanimani in eastern Zimbabwe. . When their wagons passed the embankments that sheltered the hinterland across the Vaal and Orange rivers, they found nothing but empty kraals and dried skulls. that "the land reform process is finished in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.