WE WILL MOURN OUR DEAD!!!
On Tuesday 18 August, I attended the Portfolio Committee on Land Reform & Rural Development, which was scheduled to discuss Labour Tenants’ claims.I entered the meeting late, while an MP decried the Minister's absence and noted the Committee’s attempts to address the matters of Nkambule and Mkhwanazi. Later that day, I shared this with Dr Mnqobi Ngubane. I was curious about Mkhwanazi, as I had been invited to join the meeting after the open letter published about the Nkambule family.
Dr Ngubane shared with me that there is a labour tenant he knows by that name and that the case should be pressing. Mkhwanazi told him how he had been taken into the middle of a timber plantation, where a white man pointed a gun at his forehead and asked what he would do if he shot him. Mr Mkhwanazi responded that “the trees would see him.”I imagine if he had been shot, he could have been buried in a shallow grave. No one would know what happened to him. Only the trees would bear witness.
I thought about this as I had received several WhatsApp voice and text messages about a commemoration for the 76 black lives lost at the Usindiso building on 31 August 2023. First, the conversation between the survivors and the families of those who died focused on whether to memorialise the deaths and converged into a conviction to congregate in honour of their loved ones. I thought about how this would be the third year people gather to remember the 76 black lives we lost. The partially stripped building on the corner of Delvers Street between Melrose and Albert Street has been the site of the commemorations.
It immediately struck me that the overwhelming majority of those who died lacked human witness. It was the walls, the windows and the burglar gates that witnessed their spirits leaving their bodies. This strengthened my resolve to be present on Sunday 30 August 2026.
Perhaps in the hope that the next black person who is killed by our present condition (being pariahs in the land of our birth) without human witness – may in those last moments think that umzi imnyama will mourn them.
Umzi Omnyama will lament the loss of their lives even without guarantee of non-repetition. That abantu abamnyama will congregate to envision a life where black life is not susceptible to structural and physical violence.
Lastly, I invite every person with ardent love for black people and all people living in South Africa to join the families of those who died, those who were injured and the many survivors of the fatal Usindiso fire at 13:00 on Sunday 30 August.
