A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say: I am not an African!

I am not an African.

I don't owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land. I don't owe the Sipho Pityanas and Thuli Madonselas of this world any blerry explanation.

At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the Malawians and the Nigerians, the Mozambicans and the pestilential Zimbabweans.

A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say: I am not an African!

I owe my being to the Guptas and the Reddys whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful land - they who fell victim to the most merciless media propaganda our native land has ever seen, they who were the first to lose their millions in the struggle to defend my lifestyle and they who, as a people, are still being persecuted.

Today, as a country, we keep an audible silence about these friends of ours, fearful to unleash the Protection of Information Bill that would deal with the nonsensical media once and for all, fearful because the tjatjarag international community keeps poking its collective nose where it doesn't belong.

Some time ago I said we would rule this country until Jesus comes. But the media said I had said: "Jesus must come." Now Jesus is all over the place. He's taken over Tshwane, Port Elizabeth and now Johannesburg. Jesus, please go home now. We still want to rule.

I am informed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me - as long as they don't ask me questions like that woman with the bad hairstyle, Thuli Madonsela.

I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom. But only I and I only understand the meaning of freedom.

My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we scored against Thabo Mbeki and his clever blacks. The victories against the Scorpions. Hehehe.

I am not an African. No I am NOT the one who made it possible to trade in the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my stomach yearns. I have my food delivered to me - why bother dirtying my hand making it?

I have experience of the situation in which race and colour are used to enrich some and impoverish the rest. That's why I am 100% Zulu. My Zuluness is my ticket meal.

I have seen the corruption of minds and souls - especially the minds that question me. The clever blacks who think themselves so grand that they want me to say I am an African.

I am not an African!

I am born of a people who would not tolerate the oppression of being called an African.

Our sense of elevation at this moment derives from the fact that this magnificent moment of the e-toll is the unique creation of un-African hands, unAfrican minds.

But it also constitutes a tribute to our loss of vanity that we could, despite the temptation to treat ourselves as an exceptional fragment of humanity, draw on the accumulated experience and wisdom of all humankind, to define for ourselves what we want to be. For we are not African.

Together with the best in the world, we too are prone to pettiness, petulance, selfishness and short-sightedness. And our obsession with being called African.

But it seems to have happened that we looked at ourselves and said the time had come that we make a super-human effort to be other than human, to respond to the call to create for ourselves a glorious future, to remind ourselves of the Latin saying: Gloria est consequenda (Glory must be sought after)!

It feels good that I can stand here as a South African and as a foot soldier of a titanic African army, called self-preservation, to say to the millions who will pay for Nkandla and my other mistakes whether they like it or not: congratulations and well done.

Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! Whatever the difficulties, Nkandla shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Nkandla will prosper!

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us getting that Pravin Gordhan sorted out!

Fred Khumalo's new book #ZuptasMustFall and Other Rants is now available at bookstores