Mayibuye iAfrika, for it is not ours yet baZantsi

Y'all know nothing about struggle. Think affirmative action is discriminatory? You must be joking, right? It brings me tears that black pain remains invisible in the day of information, globalisation and technology

My mama served tea and sold fruit in train stations during the day and she waited tables at night. She took herself to school, paying for her education and she passed her matric. She did this while her mama, uMakhulu, was raising her child, me. UMakhulu was, and still is, a tea girl, a maid and a servant.

UMakhulu would put me on her back and take me with her to work. I would be placed on the white people’s green grass before she would go and carry her daily chores. I would play with the whites’ dogs until she would come to the backyard. This would be the time she would be hanging clothes to dry. Little did she know that I felt like life was hanging me to die.

The mama before uMakhulu, my uKhokho, worked for the same family: “Cheerfully” cleaning after them; “gladly” raising their children. These children would grow to subject her to her lowliness. She “happily” cooked food for them and “offered” her service (and love) knowing very well that these people could be the next killers of her kin.

She gave quality time to their young ones more than to her own. For days and weeks she would abandon her own to be with theirs’. And like bunnies her babies would long for her scheduled visit at the end of the month. Perhaps some leftovers from the Huis would prove her love. These delights, all of you whose mammas work in the kitchens know very well. Nothing is as precious or as delightful as having mama bring food from the white folk’s house. It’s the best food ever, with the best taste.

The aromas (quads as we call them) alone rumble children’s tummies. They are a calling for neighbour’s to come and visit. White people’s food, izikhotho, cause rifts between sister and brother. A father could sell his hat for just a bite. An unborn baby could push herself to life just to taste the food. For as your tongue met the food, excitement would kick you over. Quarrels break because some start to eat faster than others. This to a stranger looks like savagery but to an insider it looks like deprivation.

Often little do the children know that their mama had to skip lunch for all this to happen. Who needs Santa when mama is coming home? 

There she would be uKhokho hungry and starved looking at her children eat, with a great deal of satisfaction and her soul full of contentment. For that’s all she wants: her children to be happy. And if this was happiness, even if it is temporary then my Khokho's job was done.

UMakhulu and her siblings thought they were neglected by uKhokho. What kind of a mother shows love to other people’s children but barely shows up to see her own children? When she came to see them, they did not know how exhausted she was. This was her time off but to them this was the time for her to raise her children. Is there rest for the black soul nje?

As uMakhulu and 'em grew up they knew and began to understand that  my Khokho was raising other people's children. UMakhulu knew very well these children would employ her someday, at least she hoped. So Makhulu would go and help out in the kitchens. This was training and served a trial run. If they saw how hard she works, then after Khokho she would be the next girly.

Yet she was the child who raised herself selling a pint of African beer for a penny. She was the child who would sell stazza-stazza (home cooked tripe) to help out at home. She was the child who knew nothing about playing with toys but was a master at ducking tear gas, bullets (rubber and live ammunition) in townships. She was the child who knew that as years go by, she too would be like her mama. What she hated the most, she would now become a mother who is away from her family in body. A mother who would see her children have some moments of happiness but a lifetime of pain and not be able to do much about it.

So sadly I stand to say this to those who cannot see the black plight: you have chosen to blind your eyes to the daily struggle of millions. Millions of South African who earn an honest living. Though they may be subjugated and dehumanised they continue to push the wheels of production. They continue to break their back for the economy’s "stability". Yes the ones who threaten this stability when they demand fair wage, are the forces behind our economy's growth.

If you think protesting against systematic racism in universities is about being fussy and looking for a new hobby. Then you have not been trapped in this circle and chain of poverty. You have not seen your father leave in a train to go to the city, never to come back. You have not witnessed how black men were not allowed to marry. If they married, they would be separated from their families. Yes the politics were evil but it would be the economics that would break families. Stolen land that would be "discovered" and occupied by foreign settlers and later by European migrants. Excessive taxes that would go to aid the white minority.

You have not seen how blacks’ UBUNTU is defined by their ability to hide their anger, pain and hate for this unjust system and show love to “ALL”. You have not seen how a black child’s intelligence is measured by their ability to speak a foreign language so that they can communicate with the masters in their native tongue, or at least closely related language to their mother tongue. You have not witnessed how blacks' dignity was tarnished when people would be denied to go to their loved ones’ funerals because they needed to apply for a dompas.

You have not seen how our bodies are violated, our hair policed, our men represented as aggressive barbaric monsters, our women ignored and our 'others' denied their existence. You have not seen how our ancestors’ graves are left alone for the altar of a foreign god. You have been oblivious to how African Spirituality has been rubbished for a Christian belief that too has no basis of fact. You have not seen how our spiritual forces have been demonised made to look like they are from the devil when for millennia they protected us. Our African doctors have been insulted. Our magic has been vilified. While their magic (Easter Bunnies, Tooth Fairies and Virgin-born boy) has been exalted.

You have not seen how black family life will take at least a century to recover from the cruelty of forced removals, from the instability of becoming lodgers, and the injustice of being denied to own land or property. You have not come to grips with the fact that the right to transact, save, invest, be entrepreneurial, be enterprising, be educated and be a professional was illegalised. Where the vast majority of profits go to capital owners, it was made sure that blacks do not, and will not anytime soon, own capital. This is an economy that is capitalistic and where capital owners are white. So it's no surprise that all the economy's returns go to a proportion of the population that is less than 10% in 2015.

Did you notice how liberals think that Corporate Social Investment is our saviour? When our environment has suffered from the corporates’ hands. You have been ignorant of how corruption has gone unpunished in the private sector. Remember the Broederbond? What about De Beers, Ackerman, Lonmin and 'em's labour exploitation? Come on at least say you remember the South African Construction Cartel and the 2008 Crisis? Hear the media write about this?

You are oblivious how the black child has no choice on their medium of instruction. But his counterparts of European descent can choose between Afrikaans and English in basic and higher education. You forget the 1976 riots when our forebears protested learning  in Afrikaans in their home country. You forget that symbolism and Art and everything else in South Africa is still extremely white and racist.

It is for some of these reasons we have movements like RhodesMustFall, TransformWits, OpenStellenbosch. It is for these reason that black anger, and perhaps aggression has surfaced out, from behind the banners of a “rainbow” nation. For I have NEVER seen a rainbow with the colours black and white. Maybe that is why I have not seen both blacks and whites joining hands to fight the African struggle: the ill of Colonialisation and the injustice of Apartheid. I hear a call to end government corruption but nothing about fighting corporate greed and exploitation (our number 1 problem), perhaps I am deaf.

So ndithi: Mayibuye iAfrika, for it is not ours yet amaAzania.

-SNLV kaJolinkomo

Pentadecet I

Congratulations society, you have finally won

You have broken my spirit, now I feel like I’m done

Everything that I had is either missing, stolen or lost

I have tried and tried; this life does my soul exhaust

Now I sit here waiting for my dreadful holocaust

Yes I have finally been broken, through to my core

Against me this system was designed to wage war

I am the deviant, the “other" and almost a centaur

For how dare I be queer poor and black?

For this reason my humanity is under attack

I have suffered enough for me now to relent

Accept that I will not rise above my lament

Lord knows I have tried but it was to no avail

I keep on hoping that my faith will not fail

But this time my patience will not prevail

-SNLV kaJolinkomo

Black queer body

It's sensible as a poor black queer body to accept that I'm alone.
That no religion, no politics, no amount of education will protect me.
That there are systems put in place that are crafted to put me in my place
I am vulnerable! I am a minority! I am no one!

I am no one for long have I deceived myself thinking myself to be human
I have professed love, love for all that is humanity and I preached fervently sermons on unity
Declaring that trivialities like race, gender, sexuality, ability, education & class do not matter
I was oblivious of systems like ableism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, white supremacy,
Colonialism and imperialism, and capitalism
Until I was reminded that I am a poor black queer body

I am a poor black queer body
I cannot confirm, I cannot change, I cannot because it’s my nature
I am Black, who am I to ask how that happened?
Who am I to ask what that means?
I am Queer, who am I not to explain my bed room politics?
Who am I not to have tried heterosexuality?

I am nothing but a pestilence, a disease, a plague
That needs to be washed away from the face of the Earth,
Lest I bring to extinction the human race
Perhaps those “gracious”, “loving and kind” gods would do me the honour
And send Noah’s floods to kill me and be done with it
I have heard how out of the heavens, fire rained
If I’m not a sodomite, my ancestor was Cush the cursed,
Bearing witness to his damnation I produce excess melanin

Today I am not an African, or even a South African,
I have been given a label that alienates me from Africa
I cannot claim my family name, nor dare boast of my lineage,
I must however bare the demeaning labels,
Endure being called a faggot, a moffie, isitabane,
Ungqingili, inkonkoni, italase, sitjuzana, usis-bhuti

I threaten normativity by my mere existence
Nature barrens the fruit of my love, I have heard
“Is not love tested and proved by its ability to produce offspring?”
The question haunts my expression of love

My black presence threatens safety, it allegedly wreaks thievery,
It triggers fear and inflicts insecurity
How dare I walk in suburbia wearing my blackness?
Dogs will bark “An intruder! An intruder!”
How dare I march for my rights as a citizen?
The civilians will shout “A hooligan. A hooligan”
If not, the police will beat me and arrest me
How dare I protest to receive my right under the law,
The police guns will shoot “A thug. A thug”

My skin colour has been criminalised; My sexuality has been made a sin
So again I try to convince myself of the truth
And make peace with reality
That it is sensible as a black queer body to accept that I'm alone.
I have no home; no one to run to and no one to talk to.

Brown skin

Brown skin, you’re a majestic garment that clothes 

Wrapping yourself tightly around my body, you enclose

You are so gloriously coloured: 

So bold, so beautiful and so black

Yeah, you are my pride and joy, a power pack

My identity in you is found, 

My struggle and purpose wrapped around

To restore your former glory is my wish

For the glory of the latter house shall be greater

The great Ntsundu ancestor is your vindicator

How have other nations plundered your houses?

Breaking families and coming between spouses

They have stolen your name Great Africa!

Your kings and queens deposed off from their thrones

Our ancestors killed like beasts, we never buried their bones

Brown skin you come from the most sacred of lands

Where man’s origins are traced and the beginning stands

But you my brown skin have not wealth in your hands

From the oceans of the Cape, to the vast Sahara sands

You, Brown skin, are made of ancient genetic strands

What shall become of your future, Brown skin?

Will you rise like Asia, your sister and twin?

Bringing the West down to its knees

Showing that your strength is not only in forgiveness

But in how you will bring back your children’s richness

I urge all those who are blessed with your splendour

Never to any culture or traditions wish to surrender

Like the ancients of old knew gods are all brown skinned

They must use their imagination’s figment 

In order to see the royalty in your Ebony pigment

I call upon the Mount Kilimanjaro where spirits dwell

I summon all the drowned souls in the Nile’s well

I conjure all the ancestral bodies in the Congo Basin

Today, all those who had, and you who have, brown skin

Come and fight all your enemies together and you will win

Brown skin you were my home from birth

You’ll remain so when I go back to mother Gaia in death

-SNLV kaJolinkomo

Male-to-male convo on feminism

In response to a good friend's facebook post, the one below.

Someone said this: This generation is obsessed with proving that women can do all things that men do. We have shifted all our attention from what makes women unique and more powerful than men. If you remember growing up, when things went wrong at home, it is our mothers, or grannies who knelt down and prayed. They kept the family intact. Motherly love is the best, men suck at showing affection. We were created differently, it is a fact! 

Our biology, style of thought, emotions prove that. Women were not created to do everything a man can do. Women were created to do everything that a man cannot do. Women are more powerful that men. A stupid title in politics is not what makes women strong, it is the fact that women are women. 

Just a reminder, the meaning of imbokodo and itz origins. Imbokodo is a zulu word to mean a rock. It originated to show that women were the rocks and pillars of the society, they kept us spiritually uplifted, they gave us love and hope.. Wathinta umfazi, wathinta imbokodo. uzogcwala! Please maan, nto zakuthi, we need our women back! We need women who will keep us uplifted. Even when they become big CEOs in huge companies, we still need our emotional support and positive energy.

My response:

Well, where do I begin? 

First of all, every old generation thinks that they are better than the next generations, that the next generations have it easier, such is the cycle of life. 

Secondly, it's true biologically women and men are different and their bodies function differently. It's not that this generation is trying to prove women can do what men can (we already know that) but it's rather that women receive far less credit for what they do than their male counterparts. In fact men take credit for what women do, almost all the time. This is called Patriarchy.

I think that's what this generation is trying to address. Women can be good family builders but it's the babas who are crediting for "managing their families well" or "running their households". Now that is unfair. 

The fact that males on average earn more than their female counterparts is a problem. The fact that women who DARE (I mean daring against what society: the church, school, their family etc. say) aspire to do what traditionally men have been doing, are vilified and called names; the fact that all women are expected to want to provide emotional support, be mothers, be nurturing etc. etc.; the fact that there's a one size fit all shoe of what it means to be a women (actually it's the men, ironically, who define what it means to be a woman) when man are and can be numerous things, is truly an injustice against women.

Thirdly, it's true, women are unique. However their uniqueness is not mutually exclusive from their ability to do what men have traditionally been doing. In fact they can do the very same things that man have been doing but in a different way (or in the same way for that matter) and there's nothing wrong with that.

Fourthly, now saying women are powerful is semantics because we know where the power resides. Who makes the decisions? Who decided whether women should or should not have abortion? Who decides how women should handle their bodies? Who decided when females should vote? Who decided when females should be allowed to go to school? Did females ever say they don't want to own property? Did females ever say they don't want to be presidents? If not, then who made that happen in society and in history?

"Women are more powerful that men." That could be true but the way society navigates that, is it reflective of that statement?

Fifthly talking about parenting as more of a female forte de-legitimises the good job that some single fathers have done. Yes the majority of us received good motherly love (personally I did not by the way, my stepfather shows more affection than my mother), but that does not mean that women are "emotional beings". We, all, are emotional beings, it's a fact. 

Some women choose to show emotions more than others, and some men choose to show it less than others. This is also not an independent choice we are socialised that way. Society shuns men for showing emotion by labelling them weak, gay etc. etc. but women are encouraged to show emotions because it makes them humane, real and genuine. 

Look at how children play, while boys play with cars and guns (associate with things like policing, i.e. protection, and driving, which disregard caring and emotion but encourage adrenaline and excitement, wonder, adventure and thinking about self) but females play with dolls and play house (associated with caring, nurturing, domestics etc. but discourages irresponsibility, risk taking, wonder, building and thinking about self). Who tellls children to play like this? Who buys them such toys? What if they bought girls cars and building toys, and boys dolls?

Thus men choose to be "macho" and all the mambo jambo they are fed about what it means to be a man (with many failing to produce it, thought) and females choose to be feminine and whatever that means. This means emotions, mostly is shown by females not because of any other reason but because of socialisation and man show less of it. (Didn't want to go this deep, sorry, but well ke?)

Uplift-ment, hope and love can be provided by males too, look at the priests, pastors, messiahs and prophets. Some female cannot biologically make babies (as some males cannot biologically reproduce) and that doesn't make them less of a woman. If a female is also biologically incapable of being a "cheerleader" should she commit suicide because she is not women enough? 

Some women are good cheerers some are not, that's what we want society to understand and make peace with. Not that we are saying women should be treated like men, however we are saying women should be treated like equals to men. e.g. 5+7 = 10+2 but the LHS is unique to the RHS but both are equal. Hence we say the negotiation of equality may differ but not negating the fact that it exists.

Sixthly now the creation of women and men, I will not go there since there's already an assumption that females are a complement to men and not the other way round. i.e. that a man was created and then a woman and whatever was lacking from that man, was created in the woman. What if it was a woman created and then a man, then whatever she lacked was given to the man?

Finally. Labelling women as mbokodos (a strong rock, in Nguni languages) was a way to show that women can be strong, can be offensive beings (instead of how they were seen, as defensive beings) and can be one to initiate change (instead of living the consequences of men's decisions.) So "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo." was a campaign to empower women (who were, and some still are, disenfranchised). 

We need to fight for women (not that women cannot fight for themselves, but in solidarity with them) to be what they want to be, not what we men want them to be. If that means doing what traditionally man do, so be it. We are not fighting for women to be men, that's impossible.

-SNLV kaJolinkomo

(25 Oct 2015)

Open letter: Brotherly advice

HONESTLY THIS IS AN INSULT!!!

At this time and age, I consider getting pregnant at a tender age ignorance. Actually I take it as being irresponsible. With incredible access to contraception and safe-sex practice, I genuinely do not understand it. 

Is it peer-pressure or the fear of a sexual partner that causes girls not to use protection? Is it the fear of parents or nurse that girls do not take contraception? Is it the fear of judgement from the community, including the church that safe-sex is not practised? Or it is out of naivety that YOU people still think that these things cannot happen to YOU? I speak to girls because they are the most vulnerable.

I know I am Christian; I am supposed to advocate celibacy but our brothers and sisters are dying out there because we naively think that they will be like us, celibate. Certainly they can be but for some reason they are not (clearly) and we can offer them them help by advising them on THEIR level of understanding, instead of only blindly praying for them. After all, it us who become early uncles, early grandmothers and early mourners for our siblings, children and loved-ones. 

HIV/AIDS is not a fable but a reality and teenage pregnancy is a threat to family life and the future of this country.

Ironically, the people who impregnate (or get pregnant), they themselves come from broken families; often raised by a single parent and are poor yet they do not consider the strain that having a child will have on them and their family. These children (born out of teenage pregnancy) often have lives full of sorrow and rage towards their parents. And the parents themselves often miss out on opportunities.

Wake up Mzantsi and understand that once you have a child your priorities change and certainly your future prospects adjust. Be responsible for your life, your future and your family's well-being. Wise up and use protection and contraception there's no shame in doing so; it's for your own good.

#ConcernedBrother

SNLV kaJolinkomo

(8 November 2013)

The wonders of my world

Thank you Lord, and my ancestors (ooJola, Jolinkomo, Mphankomo, Ngwanya, Qengeba) for my family, my friends (childhood, primary school, secondary school, high school, university, church in Queenstown, church in Cape Town, church in Johannesburg and others).

I am a product of many people’s efforts, many organisations and many institutions.

I am grateful to my Grade 1 teacher, the late Mrs Matutu, who made me feel special and planted a seed of greatness in me. I am thankful to my Grade 3 and 4 teachers, Mrs Feni and Mrs Vlyman, who instilled a spirit of excellence ngenduku in the most painful methods ever, lol. To my grade 5 teacher who was my uncle’s friend and my cricket coach, Mr Mawonga Twalo, an open-minded soul and a father figure to me, I extend my appreciation for making me a confident person. Now to Ms Mtiya, my athletics trainer and my Grade 7 teacher, thank you for standing by my side when I was accused of stealing a teacher’s R100, thank you for not shouting at me for lying about my age in athletics, lol, thank you for understanding me and tolerating my naughtiness. Mrs Mgole my Grade 6 teacher your sweetness really touched me.

The Love Life programme, Leadership South programme (LSP) and many camps I went to (Smith Amandla, Student Christian Organisation [SCO], LSP, South African Institute of Chartered Accountants [SAICA] and Thuthuka and many more), I am open-minded and understanding of people who come from all walks of life because of being exposed to them through such initiatives.

Mrs Bulelwa Futshane AKA Mother, the initiator of Hope and Faith in my life and my pastor and spiritual teacher, the late Mr Futshane AKA Father, my spiritual teacher and once was my care-giver; Ms Robertson, my mentor, confidant and Maths teacher; Maggie Rawley, my second mom, confidant and sponsor; Uncle Leon Cohen, my second uncle, adviser and sponsor; Rabie Property Group; Mazars; Ms Zanele Soloshe, my helper; Mrs Ann Werner, my career adviser; Mr Simon Banda, my sponsor and other father; Mr Xola Velelo, my uncle and inspiration; Ms Nicqui Bandini, my sponsor and inspiration; Prof. Stephen Jurisich, my mentor and lecturer; Metropolitan and Momentum, my sponsors; PPC and Ms Andrea Meyer, my sponsors; Mr Piet, my inspiration and sponsor and many other people who have touched and influenced me.

The following churches helped develop my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and empower me with His Holy Spirit: Apostolic Faith Mission, AKA Faith Mission, (in particular the New Life Assembly my church in Queenstown, where I got born again and got Baptised in Water and in the Holy Spirit and the Ormonde View Assembly in Johannesburg), Faith Mission (in Cape Town under Pastor Baloyi), God in Action (under Pastor Mehlo and Pastor Dukiso, where I fellowshipped for months), Hillsong Church Cape Town (my church), Rhema Ministries and Rhema On Campus (where I fellowship) and African Gospel Church of South Africa (where I fellowshipped for months in Cape Town).

If I were to name all my friends one-by-one I would not finish typing this, lol; they know themselves and how much I love them. “Thank you, guys!”

My late Aunt Skulz Zamajola Nonkuleko Velelo, my late uncle Bobo Bongani Velelo, my Aunt in Mossel-Bay Somie Velelo, my mother (technically my grandmother) and my mom Mrs Pumla Kam-Kam and my cousins, siblings, uncles and aunts and extended family, I say to you all “I love you with all my heart.”

My lover, whom I never had intimacy with, Nwabi, thank you for showing me that I can love passionately.

You all are "the wonders of my world', as Adele would sing.

I pray that you all be blessed in health and in prosperity.

May the late-ones rest in eternal peace.

-SNLV kaJolinkomo

(14 March 2014)