AFRIKANS ARE THE ORIGINAL PEOPLE OF PLANET EARTH, SAYS DR JULIUS GARVEY, SON OF MARCUS GARVEY- Thando Sipuye

Dr Julius Garvey, youngest son of the Most Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, urged Black people in Azania to pride themselves in their glorious history which predates all human civilizations, in order to deal with their many challenges today. “Afrika is the most important continent in the history of humanity and civilization”, Garvey said. He was speaking on Afrikan Liberation Day (25 May) during the event of the 10th annual Robert Sobukwe Memorial Lecture at the Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg, King William’s Town. The event was truly a transcendental historic moment, a convergence of not only sacred bloodlines (Garvey, Sobukwe & Biko) in Afrikan history, but also a moment of critical reflection on the contemporary relevance of Pan-Afrikanism. Dr Garvey’s Lecture, titled “Introduction to a Pan-Afrikan Worldview”, began with an acknowledgement and invocation of the names of Pan-Afrikan revolutionaries who contributed in the fight against slavery, colonialism and apartheid like Marcus Garvey, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Mangaliso Sobukwe and Bantu Biko. These are the Afrikan freedom fighters whose zealous work culminated in the establishment of the Organization of Afrikan Unity (OAU), founded in Ethiopia to champion the cause of the continental liberation and unity of Afrikan people. Afrikan Liberation day commemorates this historic mission. “Pan-Afrikanism links us together as Afrikan people in terms of lived experience, over thousands and thousands of years”, Garvey said. Dr Garvey spoke about the important role of history in the development and civilization of any people, expounding significant achievements of the great Nile Valley civilizations of ancient Nubia, Ethiopia (Kush) and Egypt (Kemet) as examples of Afrikan historical greatness and cultural techno-scientific and political advancements. “The current Monogenetic theory of human origins supported by archaeological and DNA evidence suggest that original Man was Black, born on the Afrikan continent, remained there for 150 000 years during which time he migrated within the continent and then 40 000 years ago he migrated outside the continent to Europe and Asia via the straits of Gibraltar and the Sinai Peninsula”. In line with Cheik Anta Diop’s thesis on the Afrikan origins of humanity, Dr Garvey further explained that “Afrikans were the first people to see the light of day 200,000 years ago, began populating other continents 40,000 years ago and civilizing them 10,000 years ago”. Dr Garvey gave a detailed account of the ontological and epistemological aspects of the early Arab and later European enslavement and colonization of the minds of Afrikan people. This includes the persistent intellectual and political characterization by white Egyptologists of the Egyptian (Kemetic) civilization as either Arabic, European or extra-terrestrial. Not Black. What Dr Garvey was referring to here is the tragedy of the falsification of Afrikan consciousness perpetuated through the systematized and institutionalized reinforcement of Eurocentric stereotypes and worldviews about Afrika. He further touched on what the Afrikan historian Dr Chancellor Williams’ book calls the ‘Destruction of Black Civilization’, giving a detailed historic account of ruthless invasions, war, killings, burning of libraries and the subsequent obliteration of ancient Afrikan civilizations by foreigners - from the early invasions of Black Egypt by the Hyksos Shepherds, to the Maafa (Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade) and Leopold-Bismarck’s colonialism. These Afrikan civilizations were destroyed as part of the overall project of white supremacy, to perpetuate the psychotic idea of black inferiority and white superiority. “The rupture in Afrikan society was thorough and in all areas: economic, political, social, religious and philosophical. This cultural imperialism was designed to produce permanent dependency and a conviction of inferiority. The trinitarian assailants were Christianity, capitalism and culture”. Hence even today, in the so-called ‘post-independence’ era, Afrika remains highly dependent on Eurocentric ideas, thoughts, philosophies, theologies, political and socio-economic systems. As Dr Garvey put it, “we have become incarcerated in a mindset that guarantees us a destiny of dependence and suboptimal performance”. Fiercely decrying the deplorable state of Afrikan people in the world today, Garvey further highlighted that “the hegemony of Europe over Afrikan people has been systematized under the institutions of the U.N., the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO and the international court at the Hague. This has given us neo-colonialism, globalization of the economic system and Europeanization of the consciousness of the world, i.e., domination of the world by Europe, its people and its ideas”. Dr Julius Garvey elaborated that this systematization of European hegemony had resulted in the current state of neo-colonialism, globalization of the economic system and the Europeanization of the consciousness of the world. He then delved into the issue of Afrikan epistemology, ontology, intuition and wisdom showing how pre-colonial Afrikans perceived themselves and their reality as interconnected with the divine universal consciousness or God. The Greeks never understood this, hence their beliefs that logic and reason were the primary functions of the intellect. Dr Garvey dismantled the hyperbolic concept of a so-called ‘European civilization’, quoting Matthew Arnold when he said: ‘civilization is the humanising of man in society’. He explained that “what Europe has produced is not this, but a technological civilization based on the values and philosophy of scientific materialism”. It is this inhumane technological civilization based on scientific materialism, devoid of spirituality, coupled with the exultation of logic and reason as supreme functions of the intellect, which continuously informs the European socio-economic, cultural and political ethos. White supremacy is thus embedded and coded in the philosophical, ideological, religious, economic, social, intellectual and techno-political constructs of Europe and its thinkers; it dehumanizes Afrikan people, legitimizes and camouflages itself under the guise of universalism, progress, development and advancement. Dr Julius Garvey explained that “our history, the longest in the world and the most glorious…gave us the basis for civilized living”. He explained that Afrikans of the ancient world originated civilization, writing, spirituality, culture, philosophy, sociology, mathematics and the sciences of medicine, astronomy, alchemy, physics and chemistry. “From Kemetic Egypt and Nubia human civilization moved westward and gave rise to the Dogon, the Yoruba, the Ashanti, the Bambara, the Fon and great states such as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu and the Hausa states”. However, the dominant Eurocentric discourses and narratives subjugate Afrikan people, subvert Afrikan history and obliterate Afrikan consciousness – colonizing our minds. There is nothing civilized or civilizing in any of the philosophical, ideological, religious, economic, social, intellectual and techno-political constructs of white supremacy. Garvey concluded his powerful Lecture by urging Afrikan people not only to study their proper history, but to also return to what he calls ‘Afrikan Humanism’, an Afrikan-centred philosophical worldview projected and animated in our social relations as Ubuntu, Moyo, Maat or Ujaama. “What is needed is a hermeneutic that comprehensively looks at our traditional time-honoured ontology, epistemology, values, cultural morays and lived historical experiences and interprets the messages and meanings that will allow us to reconstitute the dynamism of Afrikan culture in the forward flow of history”. The ultimate battle is for the minds of our people. AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY Thando Sipuye is an executive member of the Africentrik Study Group at the University of Sobukwe (Fort Hare). He is currently a History Masters Candidate at the Govan Mbeki Research & Development Centre under the South African Research Chairs Initiative at the University of Sobukwe (Fort Hare). He is also the former Communications Officer for the Steve Biko Foundation.

FULL ARTICLE: University of Fort Hare is a Missionary Station, always was.

The history and background of the University College of Fort Hare, as it was known as on erection, has its roots embedded in the missionary efforts of the envoys of the Glasgow Missionary Society (GMS). This collective was commissioned by the British monarchy and was established purely as a measure to infiltrate basic day to day local or ‘Native’ life. The reasons for this move demand another critical study all together. I will focus on the infiltration and results thereof that informed what was to come. It’s evident that the monarchy had a standard plan for its colonies internationally. This is blatantly visible in the colonial development of modern day India, Australia and New Zealand. The move to establish a settler community in the modern day eastern cape is testimony. Never before, had a colonial force in Africa, been able to impose itself culturally than in Southern Africa in the early nineteenth century. They were so effective that they were able to inculcate a settler community in the middle of war ridden terrains. How? The assassination of dominant monarchs and destruction of sovereign rule, the translation of the Bible into isiXhosa and the establishment of schools fashioned in settler pedagogy, with an emphasis civilizing the locals. Locals were to become an economic commodity to sustain the colony without even knowing it. As some might differ, the truth is that the eventual discovery on minerals in the Southern African region in the late nineteenth century was not a discovery, but a plot. It led to over 200 000(subject to correction) of locals to be subjugated to a mass slavery effort that saw them work on mines, farms and domestic enterprises owned by the settler community. They would never do this willingly, the frontier wars are testimony, but eventually the pressure from the British in particular was like a curse. It cumulated into the two particular incidents: first the exaggeration of the migrant movement triggered by changing climatological conditions and verily competition for resources known to most as iMfecane and king Shakas doing; and then verily Ingqawule/Cattle killing, of which for the better half of modern history was blamed on a young Xhosa teenage girl . The aftermath of these incidents left locals perpetually dispersed and further disunited. It allowed the monarchy to unleash its most potent weapon to date: Civilization of the wild African through systematic dehumanization. The logic here is, how were a mere 5000 settlers going to subjugate a multi nation that was Southern Africa, to their will and power? This would come in the in the guise of formal education for the uncivilised ‘infidels’. In the advent of missionary stations or ‘formal education’ being set up in colonial corners of the Cape region over the better half of the nineteenth century, two notable products of the missionary effort are Tiyo Soga and Walter Rubusana. Even though they were notably clergymen, their legacy is intensely politically charged up. The establishment of Lovedale is significant as well. In the aftermath of the genocide that was known as ingqawule, certain philanthropists/missionaries played the role of shepard to the masses who were scattered by death and hunger. John Ayliff and Dr John Love were that principle acts. Each given the task of establishing what was to be the most progressive missionary station ever. The same one that station that would mint, print and translate the first bible into an African tongue, from British text. Lovedale was formed in 1824 by the already mentioned Love. Oringinaly established in Ncera , it eventually was fully established on the banks of the Tyhume river. A certain John Bennie, who was instrumental in the bible translation process, was one of the founding fathers. John Ayliff would later, after leading the amamfengu across the Kei, establish a junior high school of sorts that would work as a feeder to Lovedale, Healdtown. These were the kraals that would mould our ‘leaders’. And these were the shepherds that would herd them. Tiyo Soga, probably the first recognised ‘Native’ journalist, was educated at Lovedale from 1844-46 until Imfazwe Yezembe broke out. Subsequently, because of how ‘diligent’ he was, he ended up in Scotland on scholarship in Glasgow, to study theology. On his return, not only was he the first ordained native, but he was also to be involved special mission to translate the Bible into his native tongue, and publish it. Rubusana was graduated at Lovedale in 1878 .He was tutored by the notorious James ‘Somgxada’ Stewart. He led the revision process of what Soga had worked on in the 1850, under the ordinance of king Edward the VII in 1904. He happens to be the same man that was a significant part of the formation of what was known South African National Native Congress, and eventually the ANC under the watch of the Thembu King Jongilizwe Sampu Dalindyebo and his motley crew of chiefs in 1912. The British Monarchy understood the power relations that went into colonial expansion. Testimony to this is the deliberate set up of missions stations within the royal kraals of local; chiefs and verily Kings. This meant converting the royals, which would open an evangelic window into the people .Today, in the Cape Province we see a lot of missionary stations situated in royal kraals of yester-year. Along the Tyume and Keiskamma rivers where the frontier borders established, was where this colonial expansion took major formation. Chief Ngqika and Kama of the Xhosa amaRharhabe took into this Christian conversion very keenly even setting up schools in their kraals. This development led to factions amongst the ‘converted’ and ‘non-believers’ amongst the locals. Those who kept tradition and custom, amaqaba, and those who took up new western ideals, amagqobhoka (literally meaning the penetrated ones). At the turn of the century, twentieth century that is, the colonial government set up structures of the then Parliament of South Africa that would allow Africans to participate in general diplomacy of cabinet. The converted Africans who were endorsed by their various chiefs would be the representatives of the African majority. This would put into motion the standoff between what was the true voice/representation of the African. By the time the South African National Native Congress, and eventually the ANC was formed, various factions amongst leading African clergymen/academics took centre stage, leading to what then became known the True Africanist faction that criticised the voice of the likes of Walter Rubusana and John Tengo Jabavu and in later years Chief Albert Luthili.Critique was simple. The voice of ‘penetrated Africans’ diminished the true Africa voice in diplomatic matters. A political stance then that would seek to being true to African values was emergent. The Society of Young African in the early 1940’s was a significant collective in this regard. They were former students of already mentioned missionary stations in the Cape region and verily were graduates of Fort Hare. The likes of Sastri Mda, Mda Mda, and Livingstone Mqotsi; in later years Phumi Giyose were instrumental in informing this collective. They would in time be political mouthpieces for the then Unity Movement. They would challenge the colonial government favoured ANC in as far as being true to the African agenda of pan Africanism and liberation, without collaboration. This was a counter attack directly at colonial government and their maintenance of an unjust status quo using African liberal as a yardstick to African values systems. The current nature of liberalism in South Africa, especially amongst those with a rich missionary and academic background is a manifestation of the deliberate the agenda of penetration and conversion of Africans into gatekeepers, civilized kaffirs and ‘Uncle Toms’ who go about the business of liberation with the assistance or influence of former colonial masters and evangelists. This was highly flawed, still is, and well calculated. Slaves have just merely swapped their shackles for ties and suites. More recently, those who were linked with former president Thabo Mbeki, are often labelled by the ANC stalwarts as clever blacks, who are too educated for their own liking. The threat obviously leaning towards a true Africanist stance. The ‘I am an African’ speech is a point of departure here. It set the tone for what the twenty-first century ANC aligned diplomat would aspire to. An African renaissance that takes into account that we come from a missionary background thus the need to re-visit our true identity, in an attempt to become world citizens. The future of this country is in the hands now of neo liberal culture and this is a symptom of being converted by missionary folk in to civilized citizens. The notion of non-collaboration fell away with advent of democracy. It is thus safe to conclude that the formation of Fort Hare and verily other missionary stations that supported the British colonial expansion has fulfilled its purpose of breeding a generation of sell-outs and collaborators who are then celebrated as black academic pioneers, or the champions of Africa intelligentsia when we all can see that we are still subject to Lancaster House and the remnants of the Glasgow missionary order. In the light of the above and taking into perspective the centenary celebration of this institution that is Fort Hare and its significant history, what is it that we are celebrating? Julius Garvey, Marcus Garveys’ youngest son recently delivered the memorial lecture of a stalwart of the broader Pan-African and non-collaboration movement. This was the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe memorial lecture at this university during the centenary month celebrations. He highlighted that Africans were heavily conscientized and civilised prior to colonial expansion. This is not rocket science really. Then the question arises, are celebrating a true Africanist order or detached and marginalising second wave of human slavery through the mind? Fort Hare might have been the training ground of anticolonial superheroes, but the fact remains, all their tools of resistance were borrowed from the masters’ toolbox

ARTICLE PREVIEW: University of Fort Hare is a Missionary Station, Always was.

The University College of Fort Hare is a missionary station, always was. There is not much to celebrate as it reaches its centenary landmark. The history and background of the University College of Fort Hare, as it was known as on erection, has its roots embedded in the missionary efforts of the envoys of the London Missionary Society (LMS). This collective was commissioned by the British monarchy and was established purely as a measure to infiltrate basic day to day local or ‘Native’ life. The reasons for this move demand another critical study all together. I will focus on the infiltration and results thereof that informed what was to come. It’s evident that the monarchy had a standard plan for its colonies internationally. This is blatantly visible in the colonial development of modern day India, Australia and New Zealand. The move to establish a settler community in the modern day Eastern Cape is testimony. Never before, had a colonial force in Africa, been able to impose itself culturally than in Southern Africa in the early nineteenth century. They were so effective that they were able to inculcate a settler community in the middle of war ridden terrains. How? The assassination of dominant monarchs and destruction of sovereign rule, the translation of the Bible into isiXhosa and the establishment of schools fashioned in settler pedagogy, with an emphasis civilizing the locals. Locals were to become an economic commodity to sustain the colony without even knowing it. READ FULL ARTICLE ON AFRIKA DAY 25 MAY 2016

Decolonisation is a myth that we have internalised, thank you ANC

*article triggered by radio chat on @Powerfm- @NduimsoDladla & @ImanRappetti* I write this today with a sour heart and a hungry mind which sees no prosperous future for non- white people, by definition, world wide especially in Africa. I find myself working day and night to secure financial, domestic and biological security in the land of my birth in a socio-political climate that does not allow me to do so with the skills I possess. Not that I am not capable, but the society we live in is designed to demoralise and eradicate me and my ‘people’, by definition. For over 380 years or so, what is now known as south Africa( which was named by an act of the british parliament and yet to be appealed) and which i identify as Azania, has been under systematic rape, abuse and exploitation by an imperial mafia. The reasons for this have long been discussed and accepted as dehumanising colonialism, yet colonial powers (they still are) have not been reprimanded or taken to task to take responsibility of slave trade in particular that displaced and killed Africans at a genocide-rate manner. Verily, millions of africans have to deal with the impact and degrading nature of these atrocities which result in modern day poverty, disease and starvation. This further binds us to slave like job seeking agendas that still leave us eating the crumbs of the bread that the master colonial power throws down at us. It even becomes worse when the colonial master has in place and ‘induna’ /‘ampoer' baas/‘Capitalists Niggers’ or ‘uncle Toms’ to be gate keepers of the bread crumbs such that we have to work for our own brothers to attain what was stolen and wrestled from us. How did this happen such that in a supposedly ‘free country” we live in, this sick nature exists? The Sunset Clause created this nervous condition. The advent of Freedom Charter/Cheater was a harbinger for what is now inculcated in the current constitution, that is the protection of racially acquired status by a supposedly nonracial constitution. It is clear that one of the trade offs between the now ruling party and the then apartheid government was to ensure what was acquired criminally must be kept in the coffers of the descendants of the colonialists, by intertwining self determination and human rights in the form of the property clause, that happens to be longer than any clause in the current constitution document. The property clause together with the freedom charter slogan , ‘the land belongs to all who live in it’, regardless of how some acquired the land, protects current ‘white’ capital that maintains white supremacy and ‘black’ poverty. It also sustains and institutionalises cheap black labour since the advent of poll taxing and forced migrant labour systems triggered by southern african mineral/industrial revolution (or lack off). The honourable Robert Sobukwe states: "We are being wooed internationally at a time when in South Africa the naked forces of savage Herrenvolkism are running riot; when a determined effort is being made to annihilate the African people through systematic starvation; at a time when brutal attempts are being made to retard, dwarf and stunt the mental development of a whole people through organised “mis- education”; at a time when thousands of our people roam the streets in search of work and are being told by the foreign ruler to go back to a “home” which he has assigned them, whether that means the break up of their families or not; at a time when the distinctive badge of slavery and humiliation, the “dom pass” is being extended from the African male dog to the African female bitch”. This is still perfectly playing out in todays society . It is no wonder that Sobukwe was arrested for nothing else but his thought, not a crime. His thoughts alone were capable of a paradigm shift that would turn the stays quo on its head. its not surprising that he left the current ruling party, they were already on a path to maintain white supremacy. South Africa has never been decolonized. There has never been a single successful attempt to galvanise this. Sobukwe identified that the freedom charter protects white minority rights in 1960. He was never a free man again. His vision saw Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelf Meyers facade in the form of the CODESA negotiations that ushered the current fraudulent constitution beyond the grave when he noted: “Against multi-racialism, we have this objection, that the history of South Africa has fostered group prejudices and antagonisms, and if we have to maintain the same group exclusiveness, parading under the term of multi-racialism, we shall be transporting to the new Africa these very antagonisms and conflicts. Further, multi-racialism is in fact a pandering to European bigotry and arrogance. It is a method of safeguarding white interests irrespective of population figures. In that sense it is a complete negation of democracy. To us the term “multi-racialism” implies that there are such basic inseparable differences between the various national groups here that the best course is to keep them permanently distinctive in a kind of democratic apartheid. That to us is racialism multiplied, which probably is what the term truly connotes”. Verily, the constitution today talks not of non -racialism but multi-racialism. It promotes racial tolerance not human acknowledgement. What then does this say about the survival of the African in his/her home soil that has been stripped from him/her and then in the same breathe being held ransom to be beggars for work, social welfare, social and biological security whilst what was taken is being dangled in front of him as a prize to be attained upon fulfilling tasks for the uncle Tom, who then goes and pays poll tax wages to the master with our cheap labour? Migrant labour institutions like TEBA and the likes that forcefully/institutionally through ‘induna’ /‘ampoer' baas/‘Capitalists Niggers’ or ‘uncle Toms’, channelled our fathers and brothers in their physical prime capable of working for self and provide and protect their women and young, only to return chronically sick or in coffins, have surfaced again today as ‘black’ proletariat wage earners in multinational ‘white’ owned institutions. They act as owners of capital yet they are also mere wage workers. They form BEE driven companies with their acquired wages and in return employ the ‘jobless’ in an effort to get affirmative action scores such that they qualify for government funding. All of this is allowed by this constitution under the claim of job creation, poverty alleviation and opportunities for all. Tell me then, who owns earning/salary power? Working in South Africa is a criminal activity towards the have nots propelled by the haves and the constitution again protects this nervous condition. The conditions are not humanising, in fact its what I call an ‘alienating pedagogy’ (anti-thesis being a critical humanising pedagogy of Hope, of the Heart of the Liberated as Paulo Friere would say). They only aim at making us be the satraps or stooges of supremist power blocs. We refuse. I refuse. No more. As Prof said, "We stand committed to a policy guaranteeing the most equitable distribution of wealth. Socially, we aim at the full development of the human personality and a ruthless uprooting and outlawing of all forms or manifestation of the racial myth". Sibusiso L Mnyanda 5 October 2015, JHB

We appear stuck- Nqaba Mpofu

We appear stuck; freeing ourselves from all that binds and blots our existence. To numb our senses from this reality we engage in frivolity, believing the lies we've made our own in an attempt to hold on to hope. We've laboured in darkness and have watched the darkness fade. We hold on to the memory of those who have gone before us. Like a flower, their existence has thrived and succumbed perennially. Their existence has not been in vain for they have forced our eyes skyward as if following a shooting star. In repeatedly appearing to us they have given us an opportunity to read the very stars that they shoot through. They have allowed us to see that dark is the hour, and that nearer draws the dawn of a new day. Their existence, short lived as it is, has awakened and provoked the beast. Consequently the beast in its awakening, has given humanity a chance to outwit it for it has unveiled itself. The unveiling of the beast is necessary for the liberation of the soul. It is also just one aspect of liberation. Many, after the beast has been unveiled, are paralysed by the unveiled image of the beast and hail themselves conscious. They confirm the existence of the beast but lack the ability to express its existence. They accept the beast's existence among them and dare not confront it. Once the beast has been unveiled it follows that it be slain, with any means necessary. The slaying of the beast appears to be a great challenge because a vast majority have accepted it's existence among the people, and in turn defende the beast. Due to their sheer determination in protecting the beast, the beast has been asleep and has its spell on the vast majority work for it while it slumbers. A few have dared go against the vast majority and have been freed of the beast's spell. These few have paid the ultimate price, and in return have tasted liberation. Their efforts demonstrated selflessness. They dared to confront the beast, and in so doing came to the realisation that their life is a gift to humanity, and that slaying the beast is the liberation of all humanity. May the Lord who is paramount chief of all grant that these few inspire more to confront the beast, and ultimately compel it to unveil itself; for in its unveiling, dreadfully fearful with shuddering might, it shall be slain. Nqaba Mpofu

uThuthula ngoWam!

The British settlers were able to mantain a derogative trend of branding territories that they regarded as spoils of war with the Xhosa and Gonaqua (Khoi Khoi clan). From the Zwaartzkops (Qagqiwa) river all the way to the Fish (Nxuba) river, they had managed to evacuate most anti-colonial forces in the region beyond these boundaries, fraudulently and frivolously. By 1820, the British colony on the sub Saharan are spanned from the Cape of Good Hope to the Fish River. The area between the Fish and Sundays (Nqweke) River was deemed ceded territory. Another settler ploy. This is the crux of the matter at hand though. You see, this are being ceded meant that neither settler nor Xhosa, Khoi or any other constituency can occupy this land. If this was transgressed, the outcome would be to be exposing yourself to open attack from anyone with interest. “Colonel Brereton Sir! We can confirm that the young prince Ngqika has been seen numerous times in the last month by my man on the outpost of the ceded territory”. He is always accompanied by his personal guard. He seems to be having secret engagements with the newly wed princess in the house of Ndlambe.” Uttered the obese sergeant almost swallowing his own tongue whilst trying to make sense and catch his breath at the same time. “Interesting detail soldier. Now leave us! Brereton was the Commander of the British forces in the Cape Colony in 1818. He had made an ally of Ngqika, the then chief in waiting of the amaRharhabe clan (junior house of the Xhosa Clan, senior Being the Paramount house of Gcaleka). His Uncle, Ndlambe, had been regent to the throne since the young princes’ father passed on the forefront of the previous frontier war with the settlers. Ngqika, being too young to ascend to the throne, had to wait till manhood to fulfil his right. His uncle delayed the inevitable ‘rite of passage’ ceremony to suite his needs, as he saw that the young prince was attracted to the western doctrines of Christianity and also their social drugs. He saw this as a threat to the sovereignty of the Xhosa nation in general. Little did he know that the boy had long become a man, thanks to the bosom of his youngest wife Thuthula. Her’ beauty bewildered the blind, and captured Ngqikas’ heart. Flash Story conversation between Brereton and guests: C. Brereton: Colonel Smith , you would agree with me that this is the opportunity we have been waiting for to counter the cattle and land issue in the colony. It seems like our friend the chief needs us to clean up the dead wood in the ceded territoity for him” Brereton says to an amused Smith. Prince Ngqika: Nithetha ngam ndoizibazile. Uyihl’omncinci yena uthi ndenza amanyala nomfazi wakhe kwaye ndingubhonyongo olihili-hili. Icebo lenu lokufezekisa ubukumkani bukaJoji noVitoliya kule Afrika nisalifuna? Ndikhuseleni kuNdlambe noNxele.Abafundisi benu ndakubanika igunya lokushumayela ivanglei kunye nomprofeti uNtsikana waseMgwali. HS: No one even addressed you, prince. You seem to forget that you are not yet in office. Its politics, not valentines. Smith responds with sarcasm of a cold feel C. Brereton: (whispering to Smiths’ discretion) All I’m saying, next time this incestuous circus Ngqika and his sweetheart are starring in is showing we will have a reason to invade and raid beyond the current borders of the ceded territory. Ngqika is our talisman. Ngqika: uThuthula ngowam, qha ke. Galela ndisele Bherethoni, UsMith uyaloqa yena. NOTE:This is a fictional articulation of factual events

Mhlakaza, the double Agent

The winter of 1850 was particularly cold and devastating to the crop, and the droughts that came with it hit the regions of Rhini (Grahamstown, Albany) and Qhaqhiwa (Uitenhage, Bethersdal) with tremendous effect such that subsistence farming was not a way of living no more. Food was scarce and the colonial situation in the Cape Province meant that the British monopolized most of the pastoral and grazing lands. In a nutshell, food and water were a point of contestation. I, Mhlakaza found myself in the company of British missionary envoy, Archdeacon Merriman of Grahamstown. I was utilized as an attendant(guide, translator, porter and fire-builder) on many visitation journeys, but soon I’d realize that my purpose was alternate, as we travelled together frequently reading the bible discussing theology and African cultural beliefs as we walked from one parish to the next. We were the local divinely motley crew. After the capture and brutal slaughter of my King, Hintsa the Great, by Colonel George Grey, I was taken a prisoner of war by the British. I was high advisor to the kings’ counsel and also a friend of the paramount lion of the Gcaleka clan. Little did I know that this would make me prime candidate to serve as the “Achilles Heel” of my nation in years to come because of my high ranking credentials traditionally. “Goliath, time has come for you to head back to Gcaleka land. I cannot support having you here as a servant or as a guest. The famine is dictator”, Merriman commanded me as always with conviction that is beyond my query. Where am I to go mlungu wam? “My people have long forgotten me, the kings’ council no longer recognizes me. I am an elderly man waiting to pass on to purgatory “, I pleaded like a wet dog after a storm trying to get inside its masters abode . Nonetheless, I had to migrate back, back to the hidden paths that the wanderers and exiles from the north who settled in Gcaleka land had safely utilised whilst being smuggled by Reverend Ayliff after the kings mauling. He was delivering them to be buffer settlements between colonials and “warlike” inhabitants of the Kaffarian district. Flash Story conversation between John Merriman and Mhlakaza: JM: The primary stages of your instruction have lapsed. Now you must go fulfil your mission. WG: More like I should fulfil my treachery. I should have known that no settler from glacier contoured lands beyond the equator could ever share humanly interactions with a man without having ulterior motives. My people, descendants of Gondo, will prevail. I will never willingly betray iSizwe samaTshawe. JM: Oh, But you will, by will or instinct. See we have been studying every essence of being a savage kaffir. Your pagan beliefs and backward sometimes incestuous manner. We shall infiltrate and erase your customs as you know them. We know you! NOTE:This is a fictional articulation of factual events