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Necklacing
White South Africans of Dutch decent. Sometimes used by Mandisa and others as a synonym for all white people in South Africa.
Boers Quotes in Mother to Mother
The Mother to Mother quotes below are all either spoken by Boers or refer to Boers. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 5
Quotes
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.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
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.
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Boers Term Timeline in Mother to Mother
The timeline below shows where the term Boers appears in Mother to Mother. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Mowbray – Wednesday 25 August 1993
...been burned alive. They wonder if the truck was delivering Tuberculosis medicine, and speculate the “boers are scared we’ll give it to them. Since our mothers work in their houses,” and...
(full context)
Chapter 12
...People begin to chant “AMANDLA! NGAWETHU! POWER! IT IS OURS!” As well as “AMABHULU, AZIZINJA! BOERS, THEY ARE DOGS,” a song Mxolisi has heard his whole life. The crowd cheers Mxolisi...
(full context)
