Jabulani Nobleman “Mzala” Nxumalo OLS (27 October 1955 – 22 February 1991) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, intellectual, and author.

[1] During Nxumalo's exile, he would serve liberation movements in Swaziland (now Eswatini), Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom.

[2] During this time Nxumalo would write plenty of books, all still subject to heavy debate, about South African revolutionary theory.

Nxumalo would play a large role in the Soweto uprising, which were a series of student-led protests in response to the Apartheid and the introduction of Afrikaans into the school curriculum.

South African scholar Eddy Maloka stated Nxumalo “rode a motorbike that needed only R5 to fill the tank.

He always had a pipe between his lips – but it remained forever unlit.” [3] In the 1980s, states which bordered South Africa, such as Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho were all very perilous to the African National Congress's operations.

[3] Which would later become central to Operation Vula, the aim of which was to smuggle key ANC leaders back into the nation, developing communication lines between them.

[3] He was the chosen representative of the London region to the ANC's Consultative Conference in Johannesburg in December 1990, however his ill-health would prevent him from attending.

Nxumalo would publish one of his most impactful and acclaimed books, Cooking the Rice Inside the Pot would be released under just “Mzala”.

In Cooking the Rice Inside the Pot, Nxumalo postulated the war against oppression be fought at the home front and called for solidarity for the movement.

More specifically, the book would be titled Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda and be published under the name “Mzala”.

Issuing legal letters to libraries across South Africa should they fail to remove the book, claiming it to be full of propaganda.

However, contrary to Buthelezi's claims, professor Chantelle Whyley and Dr. Christopher Merrett demonstrated Nxumalo's work was a “scholarly work of historical interpretation” and how its “claims are presented in the academic tradition and are supported by evidence gleaned from historical, documentary and oral sources”.

[6] On April 27, 2010, Nxumalo would be posthumously awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver for his contribution to the struggle for liberation in South Africa.