Every part of the lives of the black South Africans at the center of the novel are influenced and informed by the legacy of white European colonialism and apartheid. Although decades of oppression and forced relocation affects every aspect of the black South Africans’ lives, the murder at the center of the novel is specifically a result of racist policies and reflects the specific tensions and resentments of the murderer Mxolisi’s generation. Mandisa, the narrator and Mxolisi’s mother, argues that the conflict at the core of the book, a white woman’s murder at Mxolisi’s hands, is the logical conclusion of decades of tension and oppression, which lead both to simmering violent resentment on the part of young black South Africans as well as doomed white Western attempts at intervention and de-escalation. Although the murder comes less than a year before the official end of apartheid, the novel suggests that the legacy of three hundred years of colonial oppression remains inescapable and continues to shape every aspect of South African’s future.
Though a fictionalized account, Mother to Mother is based on a real crime: the murder of Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl in Guguletu, South Africa, in August 1993. By providing a detailed history of the real-life political climate that its fictional characters face, the novel argues that Mxolisi’s violence is the logical outcome of centuries of racist oppression. Mandisa, in her letters to the Mother of the murdered Girl, explains, “Your daughter. The imperfect atonement of her race. My son. The perfect host of the demons of his.” Mandisa believes that her son was driven by the hatred instilled in black South Africans because of centuries of mistreatment by white South Africans and colonizers. Mandisa also argues that Mxolisi, having seen the bleak future in store for him—a future seemingly guaranteed by the disenfranchisement of black South Africans under apartheid—turned to anger and protests. She explains that Mxolisi “was only an agent, executing the long-simmering dark desires of his race. Burning hatred for the oppressor possessed his being. [...] The resentment of three hundred years plugged his ears; deaf to her pitiful entreaties. My son, the blind but sharpened arrow of the wrath of his race. Your daughter, the sacrifice of hers. Blindly chosen. Flung towards her sad fate by fortune’s cruelest slings.” Both Mxolisi and the Girl, then, tragically become puppets of a larger, centuries-long conflict.
Magona goes on to detail how the more specific political climate of much of Mxolisi’s life lead to his radicalization. Black South Africans have become increasingly upset with the white government that quarantines them in segregated slums and then fails to provide them with adequate education or opportunity. Mandisa reports essentially non-stop, increasingly violent protests since the 1976 Soweto Youth Uprising, which have created growing animosity towards all white people. These protests are the result of centuries of colonial oppression as well as apartheid, which began in 1948 and created sometimes-unlivable conditions for black South Africans. Mandisa feels Mxolisi’s radicalization was thus not entirely his fault, describing how, with respect to violence, “We had been cheering him on since the day he was born. Before he was born. Long before.” Mandisa further describes how the youth were radicalized: “The Young Lions. From near and far, admiration fell on their already swollen heads […] Our children fast descended into barbarism.” Again, this wasn’t fully the fault of the children, who were deprived of adequate schooling and whose parents were largely absent, forced to work long hours for low wages. Mandisa does accept responsibility for praising the early stages of her own community’s violence, which seemed a fair and logical response to the violence of apartheid. Mandisa explains how the younger generation “went and burnt down their schools” before 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.” So intense was their rage that it spilled over onto their own people. This points to the immense strain South Africa’s colonialist and racist history placed on black communities, whose understandable anger quickly grew out of control.
Mandisa also details how her own life has been heavily affected by apartheid and colonialist oppression, thus underscoring the deep roots of racism and how a lack of opportunity and resentment accumulated over generations. Born in the late 1950s, Mandisa grew up under intense government-sanctioned racial segregation. Racism robbed her of experiences that could have afforded her a better life, and, in turn, increased her resentment of her white oppressors. Whereas white communities were free to accumulate wealth and power that then led to a better start for their children, black communities didn’t have the chance to build that foundation necessary to create a better life for future generations. Instead, they were stuck in a cycle of oppression and poverty, and this understandably led to resentment being passed down from generation to generation. In explaining how she was forcibly relocated to Guguletu, Mandisa calls the city an “accursed, God-forsaken place” occupied by “a violent scattering of black people, a dispersal of the government’s making,” so impactful that “more than three decades later, my people are still reeling from it.” Mandisa’s circumstances also mean she is unable to closely watch her children because she must work six days a week. This is the direct result, again, of limited opportunities for black Africans, uneven wealth distribution, and cyclical poverty that makes it impossible to earn enough money to enter the middle class. All of this contributes to Mandisa’s absence as a mother, which prevented her from having greater oversight of her children.
The world of Mother to Mother, and by extension, the world of all black South Africans in apartheid-era South Africa, is deeply affected by centuries of racist policies. White settlers—who became governors and eventually politicians, police, and military enforcers—regulate most aspects of black South African’s lives, leaving them with little freedom and little opportunity, keeping them from education, quality housing, and opportunities for escape and advancement. The murder at the center of the novel is the result of centuries of simmering rage, in which Mxolisi, a kind of sacrifice of his generation, takes out the pain of the oppressed black South Africans on a white woman, who comes to represent all of white colonialism in the region.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Legacy of Colonialism and Apartheid ThemeTracker
The Legacy of Colonialism and Apartheid Quotes in Mother to Mother
White people live in their own areas and mind their own business — period. We live here, fight and kill each other. That is our business. You don’t see big words on every page of the newspapers because one of us kills somebody, here in the townships. But with this case of Boyboy’s even the white woman I work for showed me. The story was all over the place. Pictures too.
[…]
Why is it that the government now pays for his food, his clothes, the roof over his head? Where was the government the day my son stole my neighbour's hen; wrung its neck and cooked it — feathers and all, because there was no food in the house and I was away, minding the children of the white family I worked for? […] Why now, when he’s an outcast, does my son have a better roof over his head than ever before in his life? Living a better life, if chained? I do not understand why it is that the government is giving him so much now when it has given him nothing at all, all his life.
As I step out of the door minutes later, I hastily throw out a couple of reminders: what they’re supposed to do for me that day around the house, what food they’re not to touch. “And remember, I want you all in when I come back!” Not that I think this makes any difference to what will actually happen. But, as a mother, I’m supposed to have authority over my children, over the running of my house. Never mind that I’m never there. Monday to Saturday, I go to work in the kitchen of my mlungu woman, Mrs Nelson; leaving the house before the children go to school and coming back long after the sun has gone to sleep. I am not home when they come back from school. Things were much better in the days when I only had Mxolisi. […] To remind them of my rules therefore, each morning I give these elaborate, empty instructions regarding their behaviour while I am away. A mere formality, a charade, something nobody ever heeds. The children do pretty much as they please. And get away with it too. Who can always remember what was forbidden and what was permitted? By the time I get back in the evening, I am too tired to remember all that. I have a hard time remembering my name, most of the time, as it is. But, we have to work. We work, to stay alive.
Wednesday is a school day. However, not one of my children will go to school. This burdensome knowledge I carry with me as a tortoise carries her shell. But, it weighs my spirit down. Two days ago, the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) ordered the school children to join Operation Barcelona, a campaign they say is in support of their teachers who are on strike. Students were urged to stay away from school, to burn cars and to drive reactionary elements out of the townships. Flint to tinder. The students fell over each other to answer the call. Now, anyone who disagrees with them, the students label “reactionary.” This has struck stark fear in many a brave heart. One student leader has publicly announced, “We wish to make it clear to the government that we are tired of sitting without teachers in our classes.” These big-mouthed children don’t know anything. They have no idea how hard life is; and if they’re not careful, they’ll end up in the kitchens and gardens of white homes ... just like us, their mothers and fathers. See how they’ll like it then.
“Mandy!” Mrs. Nelson screams. That is what the white woman I work for calls me: Mandy. She says she can’t say my name. Says she can’t say any of our native names because of the clicks. My name is Mandisa. MA-NDI-SA. Do you see any click in that?
The sea of tin shacks lying lazily in the flats, surrounded by gentle white hills, sandy hills dotted with scrub, gave us (all of us, parents and children alike) such a fantastic sense of security we could not conceive of its ever ceasing to exist. Thus, convinced of the inviolability offered by our tremendous numbers, the size of our settlement, the belief that our dwelling places, our homes, and our burial places were sacred, we laughed at the absurdity of the rumour.
“The afterbirths of our children are deep in this ground. So are the foreskins of our boys and the bleached bones of our long dead,” Grandfather Mxube, the location elder, told Mama one day, when they were discussing, once again, this very same question of forced removals. Blouvlei was going nowhere, he said. “Going nowhere,” he reiterated, right fist beating hard against palm of the other hand.
With the passage of time, our schools only grew worse. In 1976, students rose in revolt and, before long, Bantu Education had completely collapsed. It had become education in name only.
My son, Mxolisi, is twenty. Yet he is still in Standard 6. Standard 6! As though he were twelve or thirteen years old. But then, he is not alone, neither is he the oldest student in his class. Twenty. And still in Standard 6. And I am not saying he is the brightest pupil in his class either.
Boycotts, strikes and indifference have plagued the schools in the last two decades. Our children have paid the price.
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.
Standard Six and, come year’s end, would sit for external examinations. A not insignificant step, as Mama reminded me daily: Gone is the time for playing.
Mama had high hopes for me ... for both of us, my brother and me. Our parents believed that education would free us from the slavery that was their lot as uneducated labourers.
Yes, we had our plans. But the year had its plans too; unbeknown to us, of course.
“For shoulders so tender, so far from fully formed, great is the weight you bear. You hold yourself and you are held ...” — she paused before saying the word ... “responsible.” She said the word with a sigh, as though she were a judge sending a young person, a first offender, to the gallows. Sending him there because of some terrible and overwhelming evidence she dared disregard only at her own peril.
[…]
“Mama,” she said, her voice once more her own. “You must free this your son.”
I said I didn’t understand.
“You know what I’m talking about. Go home. Think about your child. Children are very sensitive. They know when we hate them.” After a small pause she shook her head. “Perhaps, I use a word too strong ... but, resentment can be worse than hate.”
It was my turn to gasp. My whole being turned to ice. Tears pricked my eyes. I felt my father-in-law’s eyes on me and turned mine his way. His brow was gathered, his eyes wide with unasked questions. But the sangoma wasn’t done.
“But to come back to why you have come to see me,” she broke our locked eyes, “this child has seen great evil in his short little life. He needs all the love and understanding he can get.”
Were he to leave school before finishing high school, he would be sorry for the rest of his life. He would be part of the thousands upon thousands of young people who roam the township streets aimlessly day and night. That is how Mxolisi stayed long enough in school to become a high school student.
Unfortunately, it is in that high school that serious problems started. Mxolisi got himself involved in politics. Boycotts and strikes and stay-aways and what have you? Soon, he was a leader in students’ politics and many who didn’t know his face knew his name.
These children went around the township screaming at the top of their voices: LIBERATION NOW, EDUCATION LATER! and ONE SETTLER, ONE BULLET! And the more involved in politics he got, the less we saw him here at home.
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”
“Mzukulwana, listen to me. Listen and remember what you have heard, this day.” Then, in the voice of an imbongi of the people, he recited:
“Deep run the roots of hatred here
So deep, a cattle-worshipping nation killed all its precious herds.
Tillers, burned fertile fields, fully sowed, bearing rich promise too.
Readers of Nature’s Signs, allowed themselves fallacious belief.
In red noon’s eye rolling back to the east for sleep.
Anything. Anything, to rid themselves of these unwanted strangers.
No sacrifice too great, to wash away the curse.
That deep, deep, deep, ran the hatred then.
In the nearly two centuries since, the hatred has but multiplied.
The hatred has but multiplied.”
Hayi, ilishwa!
Amabhulu, azizinja!
One settler, one bullet!
By the match stick, we shall free our nation!
“Oh, the road has been long, indeed. The songs came much, much later, I can tell you that. Before the songs, many others tried to rid our nation of the ones without colour, who had come from across the great sea.”
“Makana, the Left-Handed, prophesied outcomes similar to Nongqawuse’s. His magic would turn the bullets of the guns of abelungu to water.”
“At Isandlwana, with spear and shield, Cetywayo’s impis defeated the mighty British army and its guns.”
“Bulhoek, in Queenstown, is another example of resistance I can cite. Close to two hundred people murdered. Their sin? They wanted back their land and took possession of it, claiming it as their own. When they wouldn’t move, even by force, bullets were unleashed on them. But it was all to no avail. All to no avail. To this very day, abelungu are still here with us, Mzukulwana. The most renowned liar has not said they are about to disappear.”
And my son? What had he to live for?
My son. His tomorrows were his yesterday. Nothing. Stretching long, lean, mean, and empty. A glaring void. Nothing would come of the morrow. For him. Nothing at all. Long before the ground split when he pee’d on it, that knowledge was firmly planted in his soul ... it was intimately his.
He had already seen his tomorrows; in the defeated stoop of his father’s shoulders. In the tired eyes of that father’s friends. In the huddled, ragged men who daily wait for chance at some job whose whereabouts they do not know ... wait at the corners of roads leading nowhere ... wait for a van to draw up, a shout, a beckoning hand that could mean a day’s job for an hour’s wage, if that. He had seen his tomorrows — in the hungry, gnarled hands outstretched toward the long-dead brazier, bodies shivering in the unsmiling, setting sun of a winter’s day. Long have the men been waiting: all day. But chance has not come that way today. Chance rarely came that way. Any day. Chance has been busy in that other world ... the white world. Where it dwelt, at home among those other beings, who might or might not come with offers of a day’s employ. Where it made its abode — in posh suburbs and beautiful homes and thriving businesses ... forever forsaking the men looking for a day’s work that might give them an hour’s wage. The men from the dry, dusty, wind-flattened, withering shacks they call home. Would always, always call home. No escape.
Such stark sign-posts to his tomorrow. Hope still-born in his heart. As in the hearts of all like him. The million-million lumpen, the lost generation. My son. My son!
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.
Nongqawuse saw it in that long, long-ago dream: A great raging whirlwind would come. It would drive abelungu to the sea. Nongqawuse had but voiced the unconscious collective wish of the nation: rid ourselves of the scourge.
She was not robbed. She was not raped. There was no quarrel. Only the eruption of a slow, simmering, seething rage. Bitterness burst and spilled her tender blood on the green autumn grass of a far-away land. Irredeemable blood. Irretrievable loss.
One boy. Lost. Hopelessly lost.
One girl, far away from home.
The enactment of the deep, dark, private yearnings of a subjugated race. The consummation of inevitable senseless catastrophe.
[…] My son was only an agent, executing the long-simmering dark desires of his race. Burning hatred for the oppressor possessed his being. It saw through his eyes; walked with his feet and wielded the knife that tore mercilessly into her flesh. The resentment of three hundred years plugged his ears; deaf to her pitiful entreaties.
My son, the blind but sharpened arrow of the wrath of his race.
Your daughter, the sacrifice of hers. Blindly chosen. Flung towards her sad fate by fortune’s cruellest slings.
But for the chance of a day, the difference of one sun’s rise, she would be alive today. My son, perhaps not a murderer. Perhaps, not yet.
