SMANGALISO MKHATSHWA: MAN OF GOD

Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, Member of the much-beloved ruling African National Congress party in South Africa, is not only a blood relative of mine, but he is among the few human beings that I should like to forever honour.


By the way, our consanguinity is mutually maternal.

How about some purely South African music (artists Ihashi elimhlophe and some excting Afrikaans-language rapper  I had hitherto known nothing about) before we proceed?

THE FAMILY TREE

Smangaliso will  be the son of Swazi Princess Sfaphi Mkhatshwa-Nkhosi waPrince Folozi waPrince Khenkhana waKing Somhlolo (King Sobhuza I of the Swazi Nation).

Blog Author will be the son of Mavimbela-maiden Thokozile (and daughter of Princess Mafede) waPrince Sigeyeza waPrince Khenkhana waKing Somhlolo (King Sobhuza I of the Swazi Nation).

The woman through which Somhlolo was to 'distantly' beget both Smangaliso and Manyanya was Indlovukati Queen LaTfwala who prior to begetting Prince Khenkhana, begot two other Princes (viz. Khoza and a Mdayi who has among his descendants the Shabangu Cousins Zandile and Patience resident in KaNyamazane).  Where the ancestor (Khenkhana) mutual to me and Smangaliso  was the third-born boy, that royal stripling  was followed in birth by the one and only sister, Princess Lositfupha waKing Somhlolo.

Now if the Bible is right in "injunctioning": "[Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother]", it will make the entire Tfwala/Thwala clan holy to me.

The next mutual ancestor between Smangaliso Mkhatshwa and Manyanya Phiri if of course Prince Khenkhana (wife Princess LaKhumalo) who together beget at least two children (Prince Folozi and Smangaliso's maternal grandfather on one hand, and the younger Prince Sigeyeza who is blog author's maternal great-grandfather.


Now if the Bible is right in "injunctioning": "[Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother]", it will make the entire Khumalo clan holy to me. And, for that matter I do not see myself marrying a Khumalo girl because I am trying to honour my maternal great-great grandmother LaKhumalo.

THE SMANGALISO MKHATSHWA LOOKS-ALIKE IN PHIRI'S EYES

For sure, (and like his Nguni name Smangaliso="Miracle", "Mystery" or "Wonderment") my cleric-cum-politician second-cousin-once-removed Mkhatshwa ranks amongst the  most wonderful men that I have ever met face-to-face.  He in fact for me ranks amongst political giants like erstwhile head of Pan Africanist Congress of Azania’s Patrick Johnson Mlambo.

Johnson Mlambo is also known as “Siziba”.  He is a humble man whose humbleness propelled him from one of the humblest villages of Mpumalanga Province and its God’s Window environs to (via Robben Island imprisonment) to chiefship of both the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa/Zion) and its military wing, the erstwhile Azanian People’s Liberation Army (Poqo/APLA).

I met Siziba face-to-face for the first time in his official residence a stone’s throw from the American Embassy in Dar es-Salaam, and of course a place in later years to be bombed by Osama bin Ladin’s followers.

Mlambo was not there for the USA; rather he happened to cohabit an environment the United Republic of Tanzania had reserved for foreign dignitaries and diplomats.

Mlambo was naturally the chief diplomat of the PAC and APLA as the commander-in-chief of the latter and Chairman of the former.

The years was around Year 2000, and Mlambo (now resident around Gauteng’s East Rand per my last visit during a marriage with his wife and a function chaired by nephew Judge Dunstan Mlambo and former schoolmate of mine at Thembeka Senior Secondary School in Nelspruit) had called me in.

Mlambo was gently rapping me over the knuckles for panning out too much out of his pan called Pan Africanist Congress.

You see, I as one of his broadcast journalists over Radio Tanzania Dar es-Salaam had angrily spoken maybe too much over atrocities that I had seen boiling out in Somalia.  I had seen the pogrom there as rendering Apartheid atrocities as looking like kindergarten, and thus chose my own priorities for a radio program.

Mlambo was perhaps scared of my over-independence with his airwaves on Radio Tanzania, but he was not censorious.  I think he was concerned about the imminent democratic voting that was in less than a decade going to take place in South Africa: the PAC could easily lose following because of a Phiri not talking to the South African following.

Of course, good man Mlambo could not have wanted to crush me.  After all, he is, I suspect, the man who created the monster you so avidly read on “Lengibatsandzako” and other blogs.  He recommended I study journalism when I had opened up myself to study anything the broad liberation movement (then ANC and PAC) had chosen me.  In that respect, I remember offering myself to go to Zambia and study child psychology which had been inspired by my year-long work at a kindergarten as a house father in the Dakawa situated in Morogoro Tanzania for the ANC.

Now Mlambo reads my English on the reasons why I had abandoned my stint with the ANC and strangely feels I am journalism material and when I offered myself as carte blanche, he responded with “Go for journalism, Boy”.

I was 29 by then, hungry for knowledge and when I reached the Ilala-based College for journalism I passed cum laude of course only to anger my political detractors even more, which is another story.

I thank Johnson Mlambo for passing my life-path.  I would not be what I am without him.

Of course I met him again face-to-face around Upanga, Dar es-Salaam.  He was having a meeting with his soldiery in order to explain what had been dubbed “talks about talks with the Apartheid Regime in South Africa”.

He surprised me when he said: “Phiri, come and field the questions for me as coming from the cadres.”

I did my best but of course most of the time I passed the ball back to him: “Please, Mr Chairman of the PAC and Commander in Chief of the Azanian People’s Liberation  Army, this question can only be replied to by yourself…he wants to know for example if you have ever met and joined hands as PAC with Oliver Tambo’s ANC to meet the Apartheid enemy.  How would I know being a mere journalist?”

I do not know what today (2013) thinks about me.  Nor do I know what his children or his nephew (the aforementioned Judge of the South Africa’s Supreme Court) and his sister (a beautiful Thoko who was my classmate in at least 1979 where I was monitor of the Thembeka Grade 11 Class) think or will think of me if ever they succeed to read this.

However, I like a lot of Mlambo’s humbleness which I should wish to compare and conjoin  with Roman Catholic’s Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa’s humbleness.  Mlambo, I think, may not be as religious and spiritual as Mkhatshwa, but I will hazard it to state that they serve the same God.

I like Mlambo a helluva lot.  And for some reason I got destined to meet him again and again even after repatriation of liberation fighters like myself from abroad around 1993 and 1994.  And here is how it happened.

I was estranged from my Tanzanian wife and mother of my first two children Thoko and Maziri as of 1994.  But now I was resident in Soweto.

I cannot remember how I bumped into Maiden Sindi Sigela.  But we became friends and later very emotionally-tied friends.

I nearly married her as my second, if South African, wife.  But Sindi, if without intention, tricked out of not marrying.

There was a cousin or nephew of hers that she had adopted from her Chiawelo-Soweto home and every time I visited Sindi she would refer to the boy as ‘my son’.  So  I got the heebie-jeebies there was another man in her life who by no means other than coitus with Sindi, could have brought into the world the existence of ‘My Son’.

I was wrong. 

Sindi was not only still childless, but she was probably a virgin in adulthood.

I later had some other misunderstandings with Soweto’s Sindi and thus we finally could not end up as husband and wife.

Sindi is not the subject of the post.  Rather it is the bridge that crossed me back to Johnson Mlambo that is the subject.  And that bridge was Sindi!

I am forever grateful for having known, befriended and loved Sindi Sigela.

Of course she went on to find a guy more clear headed guy or two than Goodman Manyanya Phiri who luckily gave her first two or three most beautiful children.

I miss Sindi.  She has been a most valuable friend to me.  Not only in the sense of her most helpful brothers Businessman Peter Sigela and Colonel Sigela, but because of the aforementioned bridging process she made between me and Mlambo.

She succeeded in this because apparently her father and Mlambo were amongst the pioneers of the PAC founding if not relatives.  Sindi would call Mlambo ‘uncle’ or something and every time she visited this Mlambo ‘uncle’ she would rope me along.

Mlambo has never changed: whether in power or in ordinary citizenship.  I  like such men and I think Roman Catholic’s Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa is such a man because  I could easily knock him out of his offices housed in tall buildings in Pretoria and reduce him to the backwaters of Mayflower Mpumalanga and he would play pliable.

Hail Mlambo! Hail Siziba!

Hail Mkhatshwa! Hail Zwide.

(THE VIDEO JUST ABOVE IS OF BLOG AUTHOR'S MATERNAL SECOND COUSIN ONCE REMOVED SMANGALISO MKHATSHWA WAXING LARGE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY BONDS, ALBEIT IN THE ULTRA-LANGUAGE NGUNI [SWAZI, ZULU, XHOSA, NDEBELE])

The other man the Roman Catholic cleric reminds of is Chris Hani, a most high-ranking communist with the ANC then, as well as Commissar of the erstwhile armed wing of South Africa’s ruling party (then freedom movement African National Congress).

I was in Angola at that time (1984), a suburb of Luanda known as Viana.  So I see Colonel Mabalane materializing in my tent and says: “Terence Qwabe, the MK Commissar Chris Hani wants to see you right away”.

On arrival at the office (a few months before I had punched a fellow next to a pulp and I was anxious if Hani wanted me to control my temper).

On arrival at the communist’s office I found him so down-to-earth I could have kissed him if he were a woman.

“Comrade Terence Qwabe” (which was my nom-de-guerre with the ANC).

“I see you have been a school teacher at Mayflower Mpumalanga’s Khutsala Primarily school until December 1983.  Now I want you out of Angola for Tanzania because your expertise is better needed there than any furtherance of your military training”.

I was amazed that somebody could decide my destiny just like that.  But I was also happy.

Angola was a hell-hole for guerrillas of MK and every single one of them dreamt of the day they moved out to Germany, the Soviet Union, the USA, Tanzania, Libya or any country but Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ Angola!

I remember the day I was heading for the Airport in readiness for Tanzania, a swarthy guerrilla with great poetic powers, looked me in the eyes and said: “You are a very lucky man, [Phiri]! I have been here in Angola for 10 solid years and Hani has never given me one chance to leave.  And here you come and are offered release at it were, but within 12 months of your arrival.

“I can tell you, Comrade Terence Qwabe that every time I see a plane flying over I cry because it reminds me of the day I flew into Angola with the hope I would fly out soonest either back to South Africa to fight or anywhere else in the world better.  But you, [Phiri] are already eating out of what is for me the Holy Grail”.

I left Angola around February 2005 to arrive to a Tanzania that was beckoning to me complete with my future first wife (Leonilde and Mother to my first two children aforesaid Thoko and Maziri).

Of course in Tanzania I amongst many people met a man who changed my life in many ways, inclusive of Lieutenant General Mojo Motau and of course (if subsequently) Johnson Mlambo.

Now every time I see or think of Roman Catholic’s Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, I think of such men as aforementioned who definitely shaped my life to what it is today, to the day I die, and to the after-life (if it exists as these clerics tell us).

TRANSLATION

Allow me now to translate from the Siswati Language, the video that you have seen of Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa.

Se, sivile kutsi kufanele sibe munye (SO, WE HAVE HAD JUST HOW IMPORTANT IT IS FOR US [FAMILIES] TO REMAIN UNITED)

Let me thank my nephew, Goodman… he really is a good man just like his name.

Sayeth [my niece] Londi [Radebe of Hammanskraal Pretoria]… when she was informing me to say ‘now there is this new Beloved-of-ours called [Goodman Manyanya] Phiri who is dying to see you.’

Now, I for one went like “Phiri…? Phiri….? Who the hack is Phiri among my relatives….?

“But it turned out we communicated with Phiri by means of the telephone.

“Phiri came.  We sat down in my office and I said to him Gosh You Are True Blood Brother!  You belong to the Household!  And you are my junior by only one generational gap!

That which you have started now [to unite and code down family history] is stupendous! Let us all relatives [and South Africans] emulate your example!’

I will now give the reasons why I support Phiri [my maternal second cousin once-removed]…

Some of us have been [blessed] with such occasions as to visit such countries as China, India, Europe, Americas [and] nearly all over the world.  But now, everywhere you globally go you will find that those communities you meet pride themselves on WRITTEN history.

These peoples refuse to say: ‘We will remember and later relate as to what happened to us’

These peoples are going along with the Chinese adage that ‘True, you may remember a lot, but the forgetfulness time shall catch up with you, what with the brain failing as you age. But if you did not codify [your family experiences] is just as good as corrupted, it is gone’

This will be in line with my previous speaker who said even on the day you meet your internment and burial it will strike you very painfully that you are going to the next world with A, B,C that I was supposed to have long shared with this world.

Your worries as you Mr Mrs or Miss Dead-to-be dies,  will go hand-in-hand with the those of us God-fearinng survivors  who will  be cursing: “Damn tight-fisted bum!”   In that respect, I remember conversing with Honourable Walter Sisulu whom I viewed as a father…I have conversed also with much-respected former President Nelson Mandela…and I said to them:

“Look here, Comrades! You have endured the hardships of the notorious Robben Island political prison…

“Some of you, just like Goodman has just said, have endured the hardships of exile

“..But if you Mandela, Sisulu etc. go into the next world without leaving posterity a semblance of record, a platter for spiritual victuals that trails our black past, we will for sure in full song bury you, Guys, while secretly complaining just how tight-fisted you have been with the record of your lives on earth”

So I am saying the Goodman Manyanya Phiri project of uniting close and extended families should succeed, we pray.

Look, good people.  There was a time in African history where we lived in one locality as a family.  Then it was easy to relate and repeat our family history…that is called ‘oral history’.  But what is happening now with the diaspora?

I say there is no way now [for Africa] to rely on oral history.  This brings me to how any student conducts his or her research…

No serious researcher will be contented with their library research and world-wide-web research!   Of course that research should include ORAL HISTORY!  But that is what we, gathered here, are busy doing today!

With those words I should like to say I am eternally grateful to my cousin, Phiri.

Now, if in brief, allow me to talk about my Mkhatshwa clan (REST OF TRANSLATION AND EDITING OF THIS WORK TO FOLLOW SHORTLY…)…