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“One settler, one bullet!”
A rallying cry and chant passed down through generations of black South Africans. It translates to “whites are dogs” or “boers are dogs.” Like “one settler, one bullet!” it represents the rage of black South Africans at the discrimination and racism they’ve faced at the hands of white settlers.
“AmaBhulu, azizinja!” Quotes in Mother to Mother
The Mother to Mother quotes below are all either spoken by “AmaBhulu, azizinja!” or refer to “AmaBhulu, azizinja!”. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5 Quotes
AmaBhulu, azizinja! Today’s youth have been singing a different song. Whites are dogs! Not a new thought, by any means. We had said that all along. As far back as I can remember. Someone would come back from work fuming: amaBhulu azizinja, because of some unfairness they believed had been meted out to them that day. A slap. A kick. Deduction from wages. A deduction, neither discussed nor explained. Unless, a gruff – YOU ALWAYS LATE! or YOU BROKE MY PLATE! or YOU NOT VERY NICE TO MY MOTHER! qualifies as explanation. So yes, our children grew up in our homes, where we called white people dogs as a matter of idiom ... heart-felt idiom, I can tell you. Based on bitter experience.
AmaBhulu, azizinja! they sang. And went and burnt down their schools. That’s uncalled for, a few of us mumbled beneath our breath. Well beneath. Even so, we were quickly reprimanded. There was a war on. Besides, those ramshackle, barren things were no schools. No learning took place there.
But swiftly, our children graduated from stoning cars, white people’s cars. They graduated from that and from burning buildings. Unoccupied buildings. Public buildings. Now, they started stoning black people’s cars. And burning black people’s houses.
We reasoned that those black people to whom such a thing happened deserved what they got. The children were punishing them for one or another misdeed. Or, indeed, some misdeeds. They had collaborated with the repressive apartheid government. Iimpimpi, informers, we labeled the whole miserable lot. People on whom the students’ righteous and wrathful acts fell.
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Mandisa (speaker)
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Page Number and Citation:
74
Explanation and Analysis:
Members of Mandisa’s children’s generation have inherited chants from their parents, and with those chants attitudes about white people. Mandisa herself remembers learning the chant “Whites are dogs!” (also translated as “Boers are dogs!”) from her elders, who returned home from work cursing their white employers. Similarly, the generation after her has learned the expression, along with a hatred of white South Africans from their parents. This expression carries with it centuries of colonial weight. Since invading South Africa, white settlers and now citizens have treated black South Africans as second-class citizens in their own homeland. Although derogatory, the expression comes from a place of disenfranchisement and frustration with a government rigged against its black citizens, forced to worked for white bosses who have little empathy or respect for their employees.
Unfortunately, an expression that began as a way of letting off steam in a person’s household has violently evolved. Mandisa’s children and other youths have taken the idiom up as a battle cry, which they use as violent inspiration as they burn down their schools and eventually turn on their communities. The schools, children can argue, are tools of white oppression, but the destruction of their own communities and the infrastructure of their township is more an outlet of rage at apartheid than actual attacks against the apartheid government.
Chapter 10 Quotes
There is knowledge with which I was born — or which I acquired at such an early age it is as though it was there the moment I came to know myself ... to know that I was. We sucked it from our mothers’ breasts, at the very least; inhaled it from the very air, for most.
Long before I went to school I knew when Tata had had a hard day at work. He would grumble, “Those dogs I work for!” and fuss about, and take long swigs from the bottle.
Mama’s own quarrel with bosses often came on the day when Tata got paid. For some reason, her dissatisfaction with Tata’s conditions of employment seemed to deepen on Fridays.
I remember when, one Friday, she exploded:
“Sesilamba nje, beb’ umhlaba wethu abelungu! We have come thus to hunger, for white people stole our land.” […] Later, I was to hear those words with growing frequency. “White people stole our land. They stole our herds. We have no cattle today, and the people who came here without any have worlds of farms, overflowing with fattest cattle”
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Chapter 12 Quotes
That unforgiving moment. My son. Blood pounding in his ears. King! If for a day. If for a paltry five minutes ... a miserable but searing second.
AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT 1S OURS!
AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT IS OURS!
[…] Transported, the crowd responded; not dwelling on the significance of the word, deaf and blind to the seeds from which it sprang, the pitiful powerlessness that had brewed this very moment
And the song in my son’s ears. A song he had heard since he could walk. Even before he could walk. Song of hate, of despair, of rage. Song of impotent loathing.
AMABHULU, AZIZINJA!
AMABHULU, AZIZINJA!
BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS!
BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS!
[…] The crowd cheers my son on. One settler! One bullet! We had been cheering him on since the day he was born. Before he was born. Long before.
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“AmaBhulu, azizinja!” Term Timeline in Mother to Mother
The timeline below shows where the term “AmaBhulu, azizinja!” appears in Mother to Mother. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...school, but the song took pity on the nun. Now, she explains, children sing “ AmaBhulu, azizinja ,” or “whites are dogs,” an idiom learned from their parents who would say it...
(full context)
Chapter 10
Tatomkhulu explains that songs like “Hayi, ilishwa! Amabhulu, azizinja! One settler, one bullet! By the match stick, we shall free our nation!” came later,...
(full context)
Chapter 12
...day.” People begin to chant “AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT IS OURS!” As well as “ AMABHULU, AZIZINJA ! BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS,” a song Mxolisi has heard his whole life. The crowd...
(full context)
