Category Archives: Ingquza Hill

Understanding Marikana Through The Mpondo Revolts

Sarah Bruchhausen

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate some of the ways in which rural histories can enhance our understanding of both rural and urban resistance, both past and present, in contemporary South Africa. In order to do so, it explores two books in conversation with each other, Thembela Kepe and Lungisile Ntsebeza’s edited volume Rural Resistance in South Africa: The Mpondo Revolts after Fifty Years as well as Peter Alexander, Thapelo Lekgowa, Botsang Mmope, Luke Sinwell and Bongani Xezwi’s Marikana: A View from the Mountain and a Case to Answer. These two books provide a useful platform from which to engage in a re-examination of rurally based protest and repression in order to locate some of the suggestive links, particularly in regard to the transmission of repertoires of struggle, between the Marikana strike and the Mpondo revolts, as well as the on-going struggles of the organised poor in some of South Africa’s urban centres.

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Understanding Marikana Through The Mpondo Revolts

The Peasant’s Revolt

South African peasants have a long history of resistance to oppression. They know what it is to be crushed by the armed forces of the whites, to be imprisoned without trial, banished to desolate parts of the country, and banned from normal social contact.

Since the enforcement of the Nationalist Party’s policies by harsh and frequently violent means, peasant resistance has been widespread and organized. Africans have resisted forcible removal from their homes to new territory. They have opposed the imposition of Bantu Authorities, the extension of passes to women, and schemes for the rehabilitation and reallocation of land.

Between 1946 and 1962 risings have been provoked in Witzieshoek, on the border of Basutoland; in Marico, just south of Bechuanaland; in Sekhukhuneland, in the north-west Transvaal; in Zululand, on the South Coast; and throughout the Transkei, especially in Pondoland. They have been suppressed with brutal force.

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The Peasant's Revolt

Land is at the Heart of our Struggle

Land is at the Heart of our Struggle

Yes I have to be bold and proud to be a South African. But I’m not proud because our lovely country belongs to the wrong hands. Our struggle began with the question of land and land remains at the centre of our struggle today.

In the old days the people in this country were so united. Even those who were not interested in politics they ended up in politics. This unity came from the fact that they were crying for the land of their forefathers that had been confiscated by those who thought the land was supposed to be under their authority. The people’s land had been stolen, fenced and sold.

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Lindela ‘Mashumi’ Figlan

Lindela 'Mashumi' Figlan

Lindela Figlan was born on the 27th of December 1970 in J.B. Location in Flagstaff in Pondoland in what was then the Transkei bantustan.

His mother was from the Radebe family and she kept the home. His father was secretary of the congress that went into revolt on Ngquza Hill in 1960. More than 4 000 men occupied Ngquza Hill. They were determined to fight for their land and for their dignity. The apartheid state sent in the military and there was a massacre. The courage of the men on Ngquza Hill is always remembered in Pondoland today. The songs from that struggle, like 'Asiyifuni idompas', are still sung today. When Lindela was a young boy the police used to come to their home from time to time, kick in the door and kidnap his father. Sometimes they would take him to a place known as Betani where they would force him to dig potatoes with his hands saying that they did not want to risk damaging their tools. When he came home his fingernails would be red.

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Mnikelo Ndabankulu

Mnikelo Ndabankulu

Mnikelo Ndabankulu was a founder member of Abahlali baseMjondolo and was elected as the movement’s spokesperson on 23 November 2008. He previously held this position in 2005, 2006 and 2007. He lives in the Foreman Road settlement where he is Deputy Chairperson of the Foreman Road Abahlali baseMjondlo Committee. He is 25.

Mnikelo has been involved in all of the movement’s major mobilisations from planning to action. He has often been subject to police harassment and on 28 September 2008 he was arrested on charges of ‘Public Violence’ and ‘Attending an Illegal Gathering’ when he went to visit 13 comrades who were being held at the Sydenham Police station. He has recently been closely involved in the struggle to keep Foreman Road electrified. The comrades there are able to re-electrify everyone within two hours after police de-electrification. Continue reading →