Mother to Mother

"For the years [Mxolisi] has lived, hasn't he learned anything at all? Did he not know they would surely crucify him for killing a white person?"

Although it's not uncommon to hear the word "crucify" in a casual and figurative sense, Magona's use of it has more direct Christian parallels. Both Mxolisi's "virgin birth" and his name ("he who would bring peace") imply that he is in some sense a Christ figure, if an unconventional one. As much as the murdered student, Mxolisi is a figure who pays for the mistakes of his ancestors, and in doing so (perhaps) secures a better future for his people; late in the novel, Mandisa expresses her hope that the "churches and other groups working with young people" may ultimately be able to stop the cycle of racial violence (201). The reference to crucifixion in the above passage anticipates these later events.

"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? Asked to stay in for the week-end—they had their emergency…mine was just not being able to tell my children beforehand that they would be alone for the weekend…not being able to leave them enough food for the time I was away…not being able to phone and tell them of the change of plans."

In this passage, what looks at first like a condemnation of Mxolisi—or, at least, a window into a criminal past—turns out to be a commentary on the inhumanity of the whole system of apartheid. It is not just that the government took no interest in Mxolisi until he committed a crime (though that is certainly part of Mandisa's critique), but rather that apartheid creates an ongoing state of crisis forSouth Africa's black citizens. Here, Mandisa contrasts the "emergency" of the white family—a one-off event—with her own emergencies, which are the mundane realities of living in poverty. The fact that everyday life is itself a crisis explains why, later in the novel, the Xhosa's hopes will hinge on "the natural order [being] turned upside down" (179).

"Like a gigantic, multi-limbed millipede, the group swells as it moves up NY 1. There is neither haste nor dawdling in the manner in which its numerous feet eat up the distance. Hunched shoulders and uniform long, swaggering strides say much about the common purpose that binds the group together, cements the members into one cohesive whole. By the time it reaches its destination, St Mary Magdalene, corner of NY 2 and NY 3, the group has split into two enormous branches."

As he will later tell his mother, Mxolisi was not the only person who attacked the student, and in this passage, we begin to see how being part of a crowd with a "common purpose" influences people's behavior: the group of young men takes on a life of its own, "swelling" and then "splitting up" seemingly without conscious effort on the part of any one member. The comparison of the group to a "millipede" is particularly unflattering, and suggests that humans' more animalistic tendencies can take over when they are part of a crowd. It is important to note, however, that the system of apartheid in many ways fosters this kind of mob mentality; by treating black South Africans as an inferior group, the government strips them of their individuality in much the same way that being part of a crowd does.

"To add to the hardship of living in shacks, a vicious, gale-force wind blew ceaselessly through the area. By day, it whipped sand till it bit into skin on face, arms and legs; got into hair, into eyes, into food, into the clothes on the line, into each and every nook in house or shack. By night, it howled and wailed and shrieked like the despairing voices of lost souls. In fact, some said what we heard of nights were the voices of Malay slaves lost in a ship wrecked hereabouts, when the area was still all sea."

In Mother to Mother, wind often appears in conjunction with irresistible, impersonal forces like fate and oppression itself. In this passage, the windiness of Guguletu recalls the forced relocation itself, which for Mandisa seemed both arbitrary and unavoidable. The reference to the sea, meanwhile, ironically foreshadows Nongqawuse's prophesy that South Africa's colonizers would be driven into the ocean; in this case, it is black South Africans who have been swept away.

"We came here and were confronted and confounded by all these terrible conditions: the loss of our friends, the distances our parents had to travel to and from work, the high fares we had to pay going to and from places with decent food shopping. And then there was the deadening uniformity of Guguletu houses. Had I not been for the strength of the human spirit, we would all have perished. The very houses—an unrelieved monotony of drabness; harsh and uncaring in the manner of allocation, administration and maintenance—could not but kill the soul of those who inhabited them. For some, though, the aridity was to be further aggravated; for some reason, the small, inadequate, ugly concrete houses seemed to loosen ties among those who dwelled in them."

As a segregated community, Guguletu is inseparable from the system of apartheid. More than that, though, its "deadening uniformity," "unrelieved monotony," and "aridity" say volumes about the government's disregard for its black citizens; it has no interest in creating a community that reflects the individuality of its residents, because it sees them as an undifferentiated and inferior group. Over time, this dehumanization becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, because the dreariness of Guguletu stifles all the most human qualities of its residents.

"'Mama!' I cried out. 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' I hollered, hand high up in the air. Hand holding the paper with the lethal words, I galloped all the way home."

Language is a powerful force in Mother to Mother, and this passage is a particularly blunt reminder of its destructive potential. The paper Mandisa is holding is the eviction notice ordering Blouvlei's residents to move—a state of affairs Mandisa likens to death when she calls the words "lethal."

"In a cloud of pink-fleshed faces peeping from beneath heavy helmets, beefy hands sprouting from camouflage uniform, the white men set upon the tin shacks like unruly children destroying a colony of anthills."

Mandisa's description of her family's eviction from Blouvlei is first and foremost a brutal depictionof the callousness of the apartheid government and its representatives; the fact that the army and police approach the resettlement as if they were "destroying a colony of anthills" suggests that they see black South Africans as little more than pests. Strikingly, however, this passage also draws a parallel between the two races by referring to the white men as "children"—the same term Mandisa repeatedly uses to describe the perpetrators of violence within Guguletu. By using the term in this context, Magona suggests the ways in which violence on one side breeds violence on others.

"In 1960 we saw how little difference it made to black people that some whites were sympathetic to their cause. Three young nurses, new in the country, heard of the atrocities the police and army were inflicting on the African people in Langa. No doubt, thinking the presence of outsiders might act as a deterrent, they came to bear witness. Near the Flats, where 'bachelors' were housed, a group of African men, bearing sticks and God only knows what else, came upon them. And beat them. Three defenceless, unarmed women. Beaten by a troop of men. One suffered a broken jaw. Another, several deep cuts at the back of her head. The third, a sprinter, twisted an ankle."

Besides foreshadowing the attack on the American student, the above passage is one of a number of instances of violence against women. Although this attack is not gendered in the way thatsexual violence often is, it underscores the broader ways in which the novel's female characters—black and white—are made to pay for the sins of their ancestors and relatives.

"The havoc our children are visiting upon our homes has made hell-holes of these houses in which they live with the adults who brought them into this world. Intolerable. The children, in their new-found wisdom and glory, have decided that all parents carry sawdust where their brains used to be. In this new world of confusion compounded, the children are aided and abetted by adults we call leaders."

Intergenerational conflictis a recurring topic in Mother to Mother, often intersecting with the novel's interest in the long-term ramifications of apartheid and colonialism.In particular, Magona suggests that the resentment bred by centuries of mistreatment is so profoundthat it tends to poison everything—including the people and communities that harbor it. In this passage, for instance, we see young South Africans' frustrations spilling over onto their own homes and parents. Significantly, however, Magona also implicates the older generations in this destructiveness, suggesting that they have helped fan the flames of anger. Again, this speaks to the nature of racial hatred, which passes down from one generation to the next.

"Click-click! Would you believe human beings have the capacity to stand still long enough to take aim and shoot such a horrific, marrow-chilling scene? Take pictures? Instead of setting the poor person out of his misery? Click-click! went the cameramen—several from various newspapers—from all around Cape Town. The beautiful city of Cape Town. Click-Click! They jostled each other for better positions, a better angle."

Magona frequently draws on images of blindness to express white South Africa's disinterest in what goes on in Guguletu. In her description of necklacing, however, she actually uses sight to make a similar point; the presence of reporters makes the crime widely visible, but Mandisa is appalled by the fact that anyone could merely watch the scene unfoldrather thansee it and intervene.

"'Nono should have taken better care of herself,' [Mama] said. 'It is the girl's responsibility, as far as I'm concerned. To see that certain boundaries are not crossed.'

Instead of blaming Khaya, Mama said, 'Manono should look in the mirror and ask herself what it was she had failed to do for such a thing to happen to her daughter.

'Not that she made much sense to me, but Mama seemed to be of the opinion that Manono was even more to blame for Nono's pregnancy than Nono herself."

Early in the novel, Mandisa claims that "people look at [her]as though [she] did [the murder]" (1). The above passage echoes Mandisa's earlier words and establishes a pattern of mothers being held accountable for their children's actions. While this is to some extent understandable—parents naturally influence the way their children develop—there is also a double standard at play. In this very passage, for instance, we see that women (or girls, in Nono's case) are often held responsible for the behavior of all those around them in a way that men are not; later on, Mandisa will remark in frustration, "if any of our friends or neighbors annoys Dwadwa, he will immediately donate that person to me. 'Your child' and 'Your friend' or 'Your neighbor'" (165). Taken together, then, these passages hint at some of the ways sexism impacts the lives of the novel's female characters.

"Nature follows a divine order. Predictable. Each day, the sun's rays pierce dark night and bleed a new day into being. There is no stopping that, no hindering it, no slowing it down. While the two clans argued, fought, blamed and demeaned each other, my tie came. As it was meant to be, set the day the seed that would be this stubborn child pierced my womb. Without my say-so, without any invitation or encouragement from me or anyone else, for that matter. While the negotiations regarding his parents' union were still afoot, all over the place, he came. Waiting on no one's readiness or convenience, flouting both legal and religious convention, he came."

Fate and free will loom large in Mother to Mother, and the former usually overrides the latter. From start to finish, Mandisa's pregnancy illustrates thistendency of human plans to go awry, with Mxolisi's birth here interrupting plans for Mandisa and China's wedding. By likening Mxolisi's arrival to the rhythms of the natural world, Magona stresses this inevitability, and also foreshadows other instances in which an apparently unavoidable destiny thwarts the novel's characters: the continued rise and fall of the sun after the Xhosa have sacrificed their cattle and crops, Mxolisi's presence on the day of the murder, etc.

"The renaming of Hlumelo upset me. Shocked me. It was as though I had lost a child. What joy can there be in a mother's heart even when the dead child is replaced?"

Names are a particularly important form of language in Mother to Mother; the Xhosa, for instance, have long-established traditions surrounding the practice of naming children, and the names given to infants typically communicate something about the kind of person the family hopes or believes that child will become. The very fact that names are so intertwined with identity, however, causes Mandisa to experience her son's renaming as a loss, further complicating an already complicated relationship. The incident is also yet another reminder of Mandisa's powerlessness; it is her husband's family that has the privilege of "determining" Mxolisi's future personality, not she herself.

"While I would be lying if I said these developments brought me any regret, still I felt Mxolisi's distress at the abrupt changes in his little world. Certainly, to me, he appeared to miss the old geezer. And for a long time after China's disappearance, he would ask me to do some of the things China did with him, such as kick ball or spin a top for him. Also, he would repeat the word tata tata tata to himself during play."

Perhaps because history and ancestry are such powerful and determinative forces in Mother to Mother, Magona spends more time on the backstory of Mxolisi's mother than she does on Mxolisi's own. We know enough about Mxolisi's past, however, to infer that a string of early traumas has shaped his adult personality. This particular passage describes Mxolisi's sadness after losing his father and paternal grandfather, and fits into a broader pattern of rejection and displacement in the novel (the move to Guguletu, Mandisa's banishment to Gungululu, etc.).

"At the Red Cross Children's Hospital the doctors and nurses and social workers were kindness itself. We went there several times. But with all their kind hearts and the many clever things they made Mxolisi do, they could not bring words back to his mouth. They could not plant what the police had scorched away by their violent actions."

More than even the loss of his father, the deaths of Zazi and Mzamo hurt Mxolisi terribly; in the aftermath, he stops speaking in response to the role that his own words played in leading the police to his friends. In this passage, however, Mandisa attributes Mxolisi's silence to the police, saying that they have "scorched away" his voice. In other words, while language is often a destructive force in Mother to Mother, Magosa suggests that stifling someone's ability to speak can be destructive as well; if the violence of apartheid had not silenced black South Africans' voices for so long, perhaps the murder of the student would never have taken place.

"My virginity was rent not by a lover or husband, even. No, but by my son…Where I had often heard it mentioned that a woman will always have a tender spot for the man to whom she gave her virginity, how could I feel that way towards my son? Indeed, how often had I not wondered whether my feelings towards him would have been different had his coming been otherwise."

The above passage points to the complexities of Mxolisi and Mandisa's relationship, as well as the novel's broader treatment of topics like motherhood. Mandisa's remark that she lost her virginity to her son is jarring, particularly because the violent language she uses (e.g. "rent") suggests rape; Mxolisi is Mandisa's son, but in some sense he also functions as both her lover and her abuser. This helps explain both the intensity and the rockiness of Mandisa's feelings for Mxolisi, and also touches on themes of fate and free will; Mandisa describes Mxolisi as both responsible for his own conception and as another person that the conception "just happened" to (156).

"There is a 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."

The "knowledge" Mandisa is referring to here is knowledge of the history of colonialism in South Africa, as well as anger at the race that perpetrated it. In this passage, Magona links that knowledge to the theme of motherhood in order to suggest how anger passes from one generation to another, becoming absolutely central to the identity of black South Africans: for Mandisa, self-awareness is synonymous with awareness of herself as someone who has been dispossessed and oppressed. Magona ultimately depicts this kind of knowledge as understandable but tragic, because it works to perpetuate a cycle of violence.

"First, we keep cattle for a man to offer lobola to his in-laws, who in turn, hlinzeka him—the blood coming to his family from his intended's a sign, a bond cementing the union; we pay homage to our chiefs, applauding their wise decisions and good governance; we bid farewell to our revered departed and greet and remember the ancestors who protect us; and, in times of war, we give cattle to our enemies in exchange for those unfortunate victims taken by the other side. Cattle are also used as umlandu for the services of the healer."

Tatomkhulu's explanation of the significance of cattle to the Xhosa frames and gives depth to his account of the cattle-killing; as he himself says, the practical and symbolic importance of cattle made the decision to sacrifice them a weighty one. It is also striking, though, that so many of the functions Tatomkhulu outlines here are social, with cattle mediating different kinds of relationships. The killing of the cattle, then, foreshadows the corrosive effects that colonialism and apartheid will have on South African communities and families.

"'Mmelwane," Skonana quickly jumped in. 'We have come to cry with you…as is our custom, to grieve with those who grieve."

One of the worst effects of apartheid, in Mother to Mother, is its tendency to chip away at communal and familial bonds; in fact, Mandisa repeatedly links this social disintegration to her son's violent actions. The community of women that emerges at the end of the novel therefore signals the hope that things may improve now that grief itself has brought people together.

"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."

Throughout Mother to Mother, Mandisa looks back longingly on her childhood in Blouvlei. Although the conditions there were not materially better than those in Guguletu, the familiarity of the place and the people made it truly feel like home in a way that Guguletu never manages.Within the context of colonialism, which has quite literally stripped black South Africans of their home (that is, their country) this sense of dislocation resonates even more profoundly. Tellingly, then, when Magona finally does refer to Guguletu as "home," she does so in a way that completely perverts the usual meaning of the word; instead of a place of comfort and refuge, Guguletu is a place where people are trapped with "no escape." Thereferences to "chance" are also significant, and reinforce the sense of powerlessness that pervades this passage; the residents of Guguletu have no hope of ever changing their lives, because nothing in Guguletu itself ever changes.

"Mxolisi's crowd quickly disintegrates, each person going full speed to the epicentre, searching for the one thing that will jump out, the oddity."

Magona depicts the lives of black South Africans under apartheid as consistently and oppressively monotonous. Just like the drab, standardized houses in Guguletu, the futures of Mxolisi and his friends are dreary and uniform—the same as each other's and the same as their pasts (a few pages earlier, Mandisa says that Mxolisi's "tomorrows were his yesterday") (203). Against this backdrop, the arrival of a white person stands out as an "oddity" and, in a terrible way, a chance to experience a reversal of ordinary racial roles; Mandisa will later say that the experience allowed Mxolisi to be "King! If for a day. If for a paltry five minutes" (209).

"Another spray of broken bits of glass. The affronted flesh sprouts surprised eyes that open unseeingly. Red tears slowly ooze out of those eyes, and slowly trickle and join each other for solidarity. Red petals on shirt, on pants, and on legs and onto shoes.

An earthquake rocks the car.

'Drive on!' There is a crazed tone to the voice, urging the impossible.

Red petals in her eyes. Red petals blinding her to a halt."

Magona's early descriptions of the student—filtered through Mandisa's imagination—are heavily idealized: she is almost improbably young, kind, and pure. In this scene, Magona again associates the girl with beauty and innocence, but the effect has become uncomfortable; the "red petals" are actually drops of blood. The jarring description is a reminder of how out of place the student herself is in Guguletu, as well as a reminder of the role that her own "blind" goodness plays in her death.

"Thus rose the cry. Rose and fell to the cheering answer from the crowd. Amandla!a few cried out, their clenched fists high in the air. Ngwethu! came the unhesitating response from the fervid crowd. Ngwethu! 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."

The use of the anti-apartheid chant "Amandla! Ngwethu!" ("Power! It is ours!") in this passage is a good example of Magona's tendency to use such songs and phrases ironically. The murder, for Magona, is actually an act of extreme "powerlessness," not only because it is a response to centuries of subjection, but also because the people carrying it out have no control over their own actions; instead, they are simply playing a role in a preordained story.