Staffrider Vol.3 No.4 Dec-Jan 1980 - DISA

Mhalamliala1981By Mothobi MutloatsePPPuf-ffff . . . mbvwvw . . . puuuuuuuduuuuuuuuuuu . .hooh . . . huu . . . wehee . . . weeh . . . hoh . . . huu. Would itever end? Seemed so near and yet so distant. Actually whatwas that sound: was it a horn? Was it Mhalamhala? It wassuch a full-throated sound, such a gusty and appealing sound,so painful, so mournful and so inspiring that it could onlyhave been engineered by the gods, with its eerie thousandfoldecho. Oh, would it ever cease tearing lungs and ears apart;would the blower never stop blowing those sounds ofagitation to the slave masses, rousing them from blissfulslumber in the serfdom of sunny skies, braaivleis, rugby'n . . .But their slavebacks had not totally snapped, so whydidn't they respond to the sound of Mhalamhala, why? Howcome the city slaves had isolated themselves from theircountry cousins in their struggle for survival and liberation:why had they, as the original natives of this country, turnedtheir backs on their own people and cultures by preferringwestern materialism and individualism labelled every-manfor-himself?But why, rootless black slave, why your aimlesswandering and aloofness? Was the sound of Mhalamhala lessattractive than that of Mozart? Was your culture merely likethe curios at the Carlton Centre, existing only for the hedonisticwestern traveller on safari in our holy domain?Initially, it seemed the slavemasses had to resign themselvesto the fact that they were heavily unarmed againsttheir sophisticated, cunning and rough-riding opponentsfrom the wild west — for some slaves had opted for the easyway out, electing to buy freedom and paying with their soulsto get pretonpendenmania at the citieexpense of the legless,landless but law-abiding masses. The baasboy slaves preferredto achieve liberation riding in Mercedes Benzes instead of . . .Their souls were batteryflat, beyond use any more.Death to the Boy Slave Leaders! Down With TyrantAsses! To Hell With The Bastard Leaders! were some of thedowntrodden people's hysterical chants. They knew theyw'ere powerless, but realised not that they were powerful intheir powerlessness at the same time, because their potentialpower yet had to be utilised. In their silent way the peoplebegan pondering how they could unchain themselves,mentally first, then physically.Black national states — black national shit, exclaimed avillage teacher during a matric history lesson, in which thewesterner's ideology was euphemised as education. One dayhe would have to come to terms with the paradox of teachingpupils what he himself found disgustingly abhorrent andintellectually repulsive, the Village Teacher reflected. Hecould no longer live with The Lie; sleep with it and be paidby The Lie. And worse, ram it down the throats of innocentyoung people of Afrika so that they received the distinctionof a certificate and the coveted tag of: isifundiswa. That wasthe ultimate objective: to boast to the less fortunate and earna higher position as a server to other people, forever and evera-hell!Would it ever end?Was it that hopeless . . . ? It was two years after the bundufarce had taken place when the rumblings began to be felt byboth the masses and their offspring: it was an electric feelingof physical struggle, not mere idealistic sloganising andtamati-box rhetorics abused to hell-and-gone by theoreticians— endlessly intellectualising about struggle, to possibly coverup their fear of Tshona! For that meant soiling their shirtsleevesand high-heeled shoes. Nevertheless the spirit of mhalamhala,the ancestor's wailing and hailing, had strongly em*bedded itself in the young bones of the young people of theland of the black man. Unarmed as heavily as they were, theChildren Rose As One Body against Goliath armed withmechanical hippos and blood-thirsty bullets, some of whichwere trademarked Made In Belgium.Would the cries of the dying Children never stop?How could ancestral spirits be so cruel as to render theyoung as sacrificial lambs in the liberation struggle? Couldn'tadults have been used to liberate the masses? But the masseswere THE CHILDREN THEMSELVES!And soon the sound of mhalamhala was being experiencedin nearly every nook in the slavecommunity, with pupils revoltingagainst their teachers in the classrooms, and in theirhomes to the amazement of their petrified parents, for thewesterner had indoctrinated the slavebabas seemingly beyondrepair, that the west and the rest were the standards ofcivilised societies, therefore they as elder 'pupils' had tomimic the westerner to be greater. Enough was enough, saidthe ancestors through the clenched powerfists of theChildren.Now the gods had finally decreed . . . there was no turningback.One specific blue Monday, on the lawn of a park situatedon the northern side of the Johannesburg traffic department'slegalised hijacking yard, in the 5 o'clock hours of themorning, three slavehoboes, two men and a mother, weredrying themselves around a paper-fire after they had beensoaked to their black and beautiful skins the whole night bya sudden angry downpour. Perhaps the Gods were cleansingthem for a mission ahead of them. They were thoroughlylashed and thrashed and washed — gratis — by the rain. Itcould have been a comical scene were it not that this was adaily experience of the hoboes every summer. They had totake a bath, twice or thrice daily — much against their will,for the rains also invited flu and other annoying ailments fornomadics like them who had no shelter, except the open skySTAFFRIDER, DECEMBER 1980/JANUARY 1981 39