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Vetkoek
Informers or traitors, specifically those called out by politically active youths.
Iimpimpi Quotes in Mother to Mother
The Mother to Mother quotes below are all either spoken by Iimpimpi or refer to Iimpimpi. 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:
).
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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Iimpimpi Term Timeline in Mother to Mother
The timeline below shows where the term Iimpimpi appears in Mother to Mother. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...neighbors, or saw that they were collaborating with the apartheid government, calling these potential traitors “Iimpimpi.” Parents continued to praise their children, and increasingly feared them and their power. However, Mandisa...
(full context)
