Kaffirship

Tau Sebata Mohapi

Description

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said: “If South Africans were to overcome the damage apartheid had caused they have to face up to its results one by one and work through them. For this reconciliation to happen, those responsible for apartheid first had to confess their sin: ‘we have wronged you and hurt you by this apartheid and its injustices, by uprooting you from your lands and homes, by dumping you in poverty-stricken homelands and squatter camps, by giving your children inferior education, and by denying that you are human beings by denying you human rights. We are sorry, please forgive us.’ Tutu further said that those who had committed crime against humanity had to make repayments. “If I have stolen your pen, I can’t really be apologetic when I say ‘please forgive me’ if at the same time I still refuse with your pen and keep it. If I am truly regretful, I will demonstrate this genuine remorse by returning your dispossessed possessions to you.”
“In keeping silent about crime, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are promoting it, and it will rise up a million fold in the future. When we neither punish nor criticise criminals, we are their partners in crime and not simply protecting their ill-gotten riches, we are condemning the future African generations to live and die in the depths of poverty and suffering.
Kaffirship fathered and mothered apartheid, as apartheid was declared a crime against humanity, so the continuing Kaffirship should also be declared a crime against humanity. Kaffirship is the legalised injustice that still handcuffs Africans in the endless status quo of landless, moneyless, helpless and hapless.
Kaffirship is the name of the ship in which all Africans are packed; it is set and predestined to sail with its load to the Death Sea. It is sailing on automatic and none of us seems to have sense enough to turn it around or at least stop it.”: Tau Sebata Mohapi

Sujets

• Historical
• African people
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris UK
• Date de parution: 04 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781664117679
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

KAFFIRSHIP
Its Beginning And Endlessness
Tau Sebata Mohapi

Copyright © 2022 by Tau Sebata Mohapi.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6641-1768-6

eBook
978-1-6641-1767-9
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 04/29/2022
 
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
842645
CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Foreword
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Bonus
Acknowledgement
This book is the historical fiction based on the lives of our Ancestors who suffered dispossession; the works of Solomon Plaatjie who lived it and John Steinbeck who hated it; and the history of the African people in South Africa who still suffer it. My heartfelt gratitude goes to all of the above mentioned and dearly beloved people. Their lives and works have taught me that every generation has its purpose and that ours is to reveal the truth and reverse brainwashing. The truth shall set our children and the not yet born free!
FOREWORD
In July of 2021, the armies of bitterness rose up in two of the nine provinces of the Republic of South Africa and nearly brought down South Africa to her knees. The SAPS and the SANDF were deployed to deal with these armies of bitter ferocious people. They dealt with them not knowing that these armies of bitterness are results, not causes. Until we deal with the causes, the root causes, the armies of bitterness are likely to rise up again with too ghastly consequences to contemplate, not in two provinces but throughout the nine provinces that comprise the Republic of South Africa.
We, as the people of South Africa, must sincerely deal one by one with the underlying root causes, not results. If we fail to eradicate the causes, we must expect the same results again and expect cataclysm. In this book, the underlying root causes are dug out for all of us to see and to deal with them one by one as a peace-loving nation to achieve true justice, equality, contentment, peace, and social cohesion.
This book shall take us back in time; over hundred years ago, starting from the very beginning of the soil preparation and planting of the seeds and roots that yielded us with these results.
South Africa must not continue to be a crime scene. Here there is a crime that goes beyond condemnation. Here there is a failure that shall topple all our success. Here there is a pain of suffering that weeping and crying cannot symbolize.
Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the reading.
ONE

In Gamohlokaditse village, the last rains came softly and gently, and they did not harm or destroy the annual crops. The last rains lifted mealies and mabele quickly, and the grass in the open fields and grazing fields was rioting so that any hint of the land ever getting dry and hot disappeared under the green soft cover and cool breeze. The hills were green and soft and round as the woman breasts.
Gamohlokaditse village is to the west of Mafikeng, and it is not far from Khunwana. It is a long narrow valley between two foothills, and the small Gamohlokaditse river winds and twists up the centre until it flows at last into the far distant Lokadikadi dam near Tswaing. The Gamohlokaditse River was only a part time river. The summer sun drove it underground and it ran dry in dry summer. It was not a fine river at all, but it was the only river we knew and had, and so we boasted about it. You can boast about anything if it is all you know and have. The less you know and have, the more you are tolerant and boastful.
The African men in the fields looked up at the clouds with contentment and joy deep in their hearts and silently conveyed thanks and talked to God of their Ancestors. Moreover, the calves were running all over the fields with raised up tails to God and the Gods. Maybe, just maybe the calves were also giving thanks to the heavens.
The African men at home calculated and figured in manifolds their returns and profits in the year’s harvest and cattle breeding and horse nurturing and piggery and poultry and dairy and orchards. Next to the men at home sat their contented wives with smiling eyes glittering with tears of joy and happiness. In the yard and about the joyous laughter of children playing could be heard. So long as the children could be heard singing, all was well!
These African men led their simple easy fulfilling lives under their Kingdoms and Kings and they owed no allegiance to any authority but their Kings. They were Landowners and Masters of the African Land and its Riches.
They raised their mabele and corn that exceeded their needs and wants, and when not engaged in hunting or pastoral duties, they whiled away their days in tanning skins or sewing magnificent fur blankets and carpets. These men were miners also. They mined gold and diamonds for decorations and for the love of keeping it and hording it. With possession of precious gold and diamonds, these men felt physically high and spiritually connected to their God and God of their Ancestors. They also mined iron, smelted it, and manufactured useful implements.
The Land and its Riches was stable and permanent. It guaranteed generational wealth and security of tenure to the African men and their children and those not yet born to the end of time. Cattle’s breeding was these African men’s calling and hunting a national enterprise. Their cattle ran almost wild and multiplied as copiously as the wild animals of the day. There were no workers, no labourers, no servants and no servitude. Before invasion, dispossession and occupation, Africa was heaven on earth. Work was of an effortless and from the beginning of time perfunctory nature, for motherland gave way her gift and the maiden soil provided more than enough sustenance for man and beast.
The African men were sitting there talking with their wives but their minds were on the other side of the harvest time. With their thinking, dreams, expectations, and hopes they carried their wives along with them to the great time after the harvest, and their wives carried their children along to the time in future — to the great time after the harvest.
The approaching after-harvest-time was not like any other because after harvest African men will purchase diesel tractors for the very first time. So that a man already sees himself sitting on the iron seat of a tractor and not looking like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust-mask over nose and mouth and being a part of the tractor. These men could see their fields expanding into thousands hectors.
It was the beginning of the previous century and so these men were no longer satisfied with farming for home consumption only. They began to do farming at a mass production level and started breeding first grade cattle. They were the main suppliers of food, milk, and meat. They expanded to mass production farming because of the increasing demand necessitated by the increasing number of poor foreigners in the developing South Africa. The more European-wagons on the outskirts of African villages and towns the higher demand of food and milk and the price remained the same because Africans had no use for the money because all they needed was to hand in plenty. The young boys who milked and sold milk for sweets and niceties hoarded money.
The African men and their families knew no hunger, no lack, no poverty, and no debts. They had hardly any use for money, for all they wanted to eat, drink and wear was to hand in plenty. There was always such abundance and contentment! They lived in a happy South Africa full of pleasant anticipations and opportunities and best life for all. Before invasion and occupation, Mother Africa was a paradise; and her people upright men and women. That is why the invaders found Africa without evil, prisons and prisoners.
For the love of the Land some of these men were sceptical about the advent of the tractor. They reasoned that a man on top of the tractor is above and totally detached from the ground. To them the Land was not just an object but also a living entity and a darling to be caressed and tilled with love and tender care.
The African men were used to kneel down and feel the warmth of the land with their open hands. To kiss the land with their affectionate lips. To crumble a cool clod in their fingers and smell it with their noses and let the earth sift past their fingers. With their tongues to taste the dust left on their fingers and touch each seed they plant and talk to God and their Ancestors for successful germination of the seeds and growth of the plants and good harvest. How can a man on top of the tractor do all these? They asked.
For the man on top of the tractor is sitting on the iron seat and stepped on iron pedals and looks like the iron man in g