In this extract from One Hundred Years of Dispossession award-winning journalist Lebogang Seale details a personal and poignant account of the impact of South Africa’s failing and flailing land reform policy on ordinary people, his own family, showing how their battle to get back their ancestral land came too late for some and tore others apart in the process.
In my primary school days, I had learnt a little about the erstwhile traditional leaders in South Africa, especially those involved in the incessant, internecine warfare against the European imperialist forces. The list included King Hintsa of the amaGcaleka and King Ngqika ka Mlawu of the Rharhabe in the Eastern cape, King Shaka and King Cetshwayo of the Zulus, King Moshoeshoe of the Basotho, and King Sekhukhune of the Bapedi.
Although their roles were largely distorted by the regime to paint them as violent and brutal, for us their names radiated valour and bravery. As I understood it, there was a sacral aura surrounding the institution of kingship, and the Kgošiwas a living force on whose power the security and harmony of the community depended. As such, it was disappointing that the elders seemed uninterested in engaging in conversation about our forebear whose name could have rekindled our royal ties with the Modjadji Traditional Authority in a tangible way.
Still, questions lingered, fuelling our curiosity even more. As matters were, our status as bona fide members of the Modjadji Royal House counted for nothing! As far as I could figure it out, this was just one example of the enduring legacy of dispossession that continues to haunt us all. It highlights the insidious and cumulative effect of dispossession and oppression, a debilitating force that renders both survivors and victims weak and helpless to the point of losing not only their self-worth but also their identity.
The anguish of dispossession also manifested itself in the treatment we received at Mohlabaneng. Stripped off our land rights and bereft of both home and hope, residents of Ga-Monwana had to fend off the depredations of stigma, discrimination, and salacious gossip. We were shunned and loathed with such persistence that you would swear the settlement was cursed. Epithets such as makompo (a derogatory term derived from people who lived on farm compounds and who were seen as backward), thieves and bullies were randomly hurled at us.
Not only were residents of Ga-Monwana criminalised, but we were also excluded from the economic life and other opportunities. We were not allowed to breed livestock. If anyone dared keep cattle or goats, they risked a hefty fine. Yet, despite being excluded from economic activities, goats and cattle from Mohlabaneng roamed the streets of Ga-Monwana. We could not understand why different laws were being applied to the same community, even more so when residents from the two sections paid the same tribal levies.
Some of the villagers who regularly hurled insults at us attended the local Assemblies of God, the church located at the nearby missionary station, also known as Hildreth Ridge. The site housed a primary school, post office and teachers’ cottages. On Sundays, we met boys and girls from Mohlabaneng in their fancy clothes on their way to or from church. They never hesitated to taunt us with insults of ‘Makompo!’ or any other term suggesting heathens or pagans.
We felt as if the villagers had been taught to hate us from birth. This continued well beyond our time there while some of us moved to Mohlabaneng section or other villages but with even more viciousness. Some of us understood that this was, in essence, a form of self-hatred and, in some ways, the enduring divide-and-rule legacy of apartheid. As a result, we generally ignored such sneers. It was the type of behaviour that struck us as strange, akin to the type that Es’kia Mphahlele, one of South Africa’s finest writers, once described in his birthplace of Maupaneng village outside Polokwane:
‘On one side of the river were Christian communities living together according to whether they were Methodists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformists. On the other side there were tribal kraal communities. The Christians called them “heathens”. We were often told there were “witches” among the “heathens”; and so we were not to walk on their footprints if we knew they had walked there; we were told to hold our breath when we passed them because they smeared witches’ fat on their bodies; we were told not to stray among their villages because they were addicted to whipping Christians. But we often went across to look for lost goats or donkeys and they received us warmly, if with aloofness, at their communal fire-places.’i
There were those among them, the few friendly ones, who invited us to church. This was generally rejected, but there were a few of us who graciously accepted the invitation with alacrity. We were particularly intrigued by the idea of attending Sunday-school services. But even inside church, some of them gave us cold stares, as if our presence was an affront to the church and that we were defiling its decorum and sanctity.
Often, because some of the preachings seemed so obscure and so distant from reality, I felt prompted to ask questions. I had a burning urge to know everything at once. However, I felt intimidated by the exultant hymns and the high-pitched chants of ‘God the Father…’, ‘the Almighty…’, ‘King of Heaven…’ and ‘Saviour’ that accompanied the sermons.
Everything that Father Pottinger and Moruti Mokgadi said was accepted as the absolute truth, or more precisely, Gospel truth, no matter how opaque the scriptures and preachings seemed. There came a point when all that motivated me to go to church were the assortment of colourful sweets that the pastors dished out to us, the younger ones, after the church service. Even so, I felt that the sermons were unbearably long and punishing.
Over time, some of us stopped going to church altogether. Easter Weekends were, however, special and the services were not to be missed. On the Thursday before the Easter long weekend, a large marquee would rise up on the football ground near the missionary station. Multitudes of young people from Mohlabaneng and nearby villages would descend on the grounds for the bioscope – a rare opportunity to watch a movie on a giant screen, its projector powered by a generator.
We would sit in front of the screen with rapt attention, watching images of Jesus Christ in his long robes and long hair and beard. The tales of his love and betrayal culminating in his crucifixion and ending with his resurrection, stories we had been regaled with in church, now came to us in live action. And everything that once seemed based on make-believe was now being revealed to us in real life – and in real time.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth would touch lepers and the blind and they would be healed almost immediately. He prayed for the sick and they recovered as quickly as he had laid his hands on them. He was so generous that he fed thousands with only a few loaves of bread. He even did the unthinkable: turning water into wine. And walked on water! We witnessed the miracles and revelled in the gift of his love on full display, joining in with joyful applause.
But, for many of us, all of that was no more than a temporary escape. Once at the village, it was back to reality! We still faced the same dehumanising and debilitating discrimination. This was very strange to me, because I never thought people who professed to be Christians or God’s children would treat us with such inhumanity. It made me wonder what relevance and meaning heaven had for us. And yet there were some among us who continued to flock to the temple to hear the word of God.
Life was hard, filled with contrasts and contradictions. There was no sense of home when it came to Mohlabaneng. Ga-Monwana residents felt like aliens, refugees in our own country, caught between a rock and a hard place. We missed our ancestral land, but returning there under the prevailing conditions was simply not an option. As such, we were tied up to this new place with its jaundiced social order. I hated the system that condemned us to such a life, one where we couldn’t make any choices about our own lives.
- This is an extract from One Hundred Years of Dispossession: My family’s quest to reclaim our land by Lebogang Seale and published by Jacana. It is available from all good bookstores at a recommended retail price of R320. https://exclusivebooks.co.za/products/9781431433551
Author bio: Lebogang Seale is a multi-award-winning journalist and communications practitioner. A former newspaper editor, he has a MA in Journalism and Media Studies from Wits University and is currently busy with his PhD. He previously co-authored The A-Z of South African Politics also published by Jacana Media.
