Recurring Power
"We should all bear in mind that the greatest glory of living lies not in never falling but in rising every time you fall."
— Nelson Mandela, speaking at the White House, 23 September 1998
Rise and fall,
death and rebirth
Following our disclosure about Mandela's political companions during Egypt's Eighteenth dynasty, c.1330 BCE, we now turn to Jacob Zuma, the disgraced ex-president of South Africa (2009 – 2018), whose former names are known to us as Usermontu, Ahmad Uzma, Montezuma and Jacob Msimbiti. With our discarnate kith and kin we trace the return of this intransigent soul through four previous lives.
Usermontu
We find the soul of Jacob Zuma serving as an Amenite priest in ancient Egypt. He was then called Ahmose or Ahmes and partisan to Nefertiti’s plot to install the abducted Tutankhaton as a puppet pharaoh. With their success he became vizier of the South at Thebes under Tutankhamen, and is remembered as Usermontu. The vizier of the North was Pa-Ramose, today Cyril Ramaphosa, who played a counterbalancing role at Memphis.
While loyal to the same religio-political order, Pa-Ramose and Usermontu were themselves rivals. Pa-Ramose played a decisive role in the struggle for stability between the 18th–19th dynasties, c.1292CE. With the tumult following Tutankhamen's murder and Ai (Ay)'s succession, Horemheb seized power and became pharaoh, choosing Pa-Ramose to later succeed him in return for his loyalty to the throne; and because he himself was childless. Pa-Ramose already had a son and grandson and could thus secure a royal succession. Pa-Ramose became the first pharaoh of the next dynasty, the 19th, and is known to us as Ramses I.
For a more comprehensive account of Nelson Mandela's life as Horemheb, including his political companions back in Egypt, please see our related website Knot of Stone: the day that changed South Africa's history, pp.426–429. This disclosure was dictated in 1996 and first appeared in Out of Eden: the Book of El Aurenx, pp.119–138.
Ahmad Uzma
From his name, Ahmad Uzma, also given as Ahmad Fanākatī, it would appear that he was of Arabic descent and came from Uz, a Turkic region now called Uzbekistan. Uzma rose to the position of finance minister, taking advantage of his master’s misplaced trust and the distractions of civil war. He was reputedly the most corrupt court official and renowned for his many wives. Though he was accused of murder, the Grand Khan sidelined all attempts to impeach him and kept him at court. Despite this, Uzma’s abuses of power did not stop — nor did his lucrative exploitation of war against Kublai’s younger brother, Ariq Böke or Beki (today Thabo Mbeki) — since he faced similar charges for capitalising on arms-deals. Uzma’s story was apparently known to Marco Polo.
Uzma disposed of his rivals and critics in ruthless ways. Some were demoted or imprisoned, many were executed, others simply vanished. However, he surrounded himself with cronies until he was ambushed and killed by a zealous army commander, Wang Zhu, and his co-conspirators in 1282. Kublai had the ring-leaders executed. Before he was beheaded, Wang Zhu cried out: “I, Wang Zhu, die for having rid the world of a pest!” Uzma received a state funeral, but when Kublai finally came to learn the truth about him, he exclaimed: “Wang Zhu was perfectly right to kill Uzma!” Everything Uzma owned was seized. Everything he had done was undone. (El Ochre, 6 May 2009)
Montezuma
The historical Montezuma (Moctezuma II) was the last Aztec emperor of Mexico. His initial career was as a military leader and priest in the temple of the war god, Huitzilopochtli. In accordance with Aztec custom his coronation was accompanied by mass human sacrifices. As an expansionist, he enlarged his empire through the conquest of Honduras and Nicaragua. His rule was accompanied by unfavourable omens — notably the predicted return of Quetzalcoatl, a local god, white in colour.
The arrival of Cortés and the Spaniards was thought to fulfil this prophecy and so Montezuma, with uncharacteristic diplomacy, did not react aggressively. In return, he was imprisoned by Cortés in Mexico City, precipitating an uprising led by his brother and heir. In an effort to divert the 1520 revolt, Cortés induced Montezuma to address his people from the Spanish stronghold. The angry mob responded by showering Montezuma with stones and arrows, and so he died, either by wounds inflicted by the mob or afterwards at the hands of his captors. We wait to see how he redeems himself in South Africa. (El Ochre, 6 May 2009)
“Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler and Shaka Zulu all suffered miserable lonely deaths.” — Credo Mutwa, in conversation with Rick Martin, 30 September 1999
Jacob Msimbiti
After his tragic life as Montezuma, his soul ached with a deep distrust and hatred of white men. This carried over into his next life, recorded in the amaZulu chronicles of Shaka and Dingane, under the name Jacob.
Jakob or Jacob was the Christian name given to him by the Dutch and British respectively, as being phonetically close to his isiXhosa name of Jakoet. His clan name was Msimbiti.
Convicted of cattle theft on the Colony’s eastern frontier, Jacob was sent to the penal colony on Robben Island in 1819, along with the banished amaXhosa king Makhanda (hence the name “isle of Makhanda”).
Jacob and several others were involved in the daring escape of 1820 — in which Makhanda, tragically, drowned when their boat capsized — and Jacob himself was caught and sentenced to hard labour in irons for a further fourteen years. However, Jacob was released soon after into the service of English mercantile traders. They needed an interpreter.
On a sea-going expedition with his new masters, including the notorious ex-lieutenant Francis Farewell, their boat floundered in the surf off St Lucia, Natal. Jacob rescued one of his masters from drowning. Nevertheless, he was blamed for toppling the boat, at which he deserted and swiftly fled into the bush. Farewell and others would later catch up and seal his fate.
For now, Jacob arrived at the royal kraal of Shaka Zulu who, on hearing about his woeful escapade, nicknamed him Hlambamanzi (“the swimmer”), and retained him as a personal aide, adviser and interpreter. While Shaka welcomed the white traders, Jacob warned him against their treachery while concocting all manner of lies and misinformation about the British (including that King George IV did not exist). For the next decade (1823 – 1832), Jacob was constantly in the presence of his adoptive Zulu kings.
The ubiquitous Jacob eventually switched his allegiance to Shaka’s half-brother, Dingane (Dingaan), for when the latter assassinated the king, it was Jacob who sent foot messengers to the traders, saying they had nothing to fear as the new king invited them to trade skins and ivory. Acting as Dingane’s ambassador, Jacob promised them renewed peace and prosperity in Zululand.
His former masters were suspicious, however since Jacob had openly opposed the presence of white hunter-traders in Natal under Shaka’s rule. The English were wary of his criminal record and widespread reputation as a liar and schemer, even among his compatriots.
And indeed it was that Jacob constantly urged Dingane to avoid association with the Whites. He schemed and plotted, calling them “evil sorcerers” while poisoning the king’s mind with lurid tales of their cruelty and treachery.
Jacob was again arrested by the Whites for pilfering, and they pressed Dingane to put him on trial for deceit and duplicitous conduct. Dingane vacillated, still half-believing Jacob’s insistent claim that both the Dutch and British were conspiring to invade and steal his kingdom.
But, after Jacob was caught stealing again from the royal herd, Dingane lost his temper and ordered his execution. Jacob was hunted down by his arch-rival, John Cane, for which Dingane repaid him eighty cows from the herd that Jacob had rustled together on his retirement homestead.
Dingane never forgot Jacob’s oft-repeated prophecy — echoing Shaka’s dying words — that one day the Whites would conquer and rule the land. It was his past experience as Montezuma that told him so. And surely he was right? (El Ochre, 6 May 2009)
"Cattle thieving had brought Jacob to Robben Island and launched him on his career, and cattle thieving undid him."
— Donald Morris, The Washing of the Spears, 1965
President Emmerson Mnangagwa (1942 – ), shown above in regalia, is said to have been Shaka Zulu. As king Shaka he was assassinated and succeeded by Dingane, recently Mugabe (1924 – 2019), seen here alongside Mnangagwa. This time their succession was reversed; since the law of karma dictated that Mugabe now surrender political power to Mnangagwa. As noted in the former lives of Mandela, karma has a way of turning events about to keep our debts in balance. It's a karmic dance.
Mnangagwa and Mugabe's karmic links to events in Natal c.1820s – 1830s — and their mutual association with the thieving lying Jacob — was disclosed following the 2017 coup d’état in Zimbabwe. (El Ochre, 30 December 2017)
Zuma had been openly critical of Mugabe's regime but, as president, he called for international sanctions against Mugabe to be lifted, adding they had much in common: "We share the same values, we went through the same route". (Drum, 8 March 2013) History appeared to repeat itself in 2018 when, with mounting theft and corruption charges, Zuma was forced to step down as SA President. Some leopards never change their spots.
According to African spirituality, “A man may reappear in history as another person, who, though he is not the same person, is nevertheless in some way identified with him.” (Velaphi Ka Luphuzi, ‘The ancestors: Amathongo' in Archive and Public Culture, University of Cape Town, 27 July 2010)
"If there is a place where Zuma is least likely to fall, it is on the dance floor... Maybe there was a time when rhetoric, song and dance could feed the masses as well as fuel and sustain a revolution. That time is past."
— Tinyiko Maluleke, Zuma can dance, but now we need more,
IOL News, 15 May 2017
The unrepentant Zuma was recently ordered to pay back R28 million to cover all costs incurred during his prolonged private litigation, including interest. (Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, 22 October, 2025) Much more may be said about this soul's intransigence but, for now, we leave it with the declaration: “Everything Uzma owned was seized. Everything he had done was undone." (El Ochre, 6 May 2009)