23/05/2021 01 01st2305Mainbody 16 AL smithh 10:57:07 AM

16 May 23 2021 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times A heritage of tears The Bulhoek Memorial was erected at the Israelite I nsig ht Temple in Queenstown as part of the Sunday Times Heritage Project. Co-created by artists Mgcineni Sobopha and Michael Barry, it bears a steel engraving of Enoch Mgijima. The picture shows bishops and Com memoration church elders of the Church of God and Saints of Christ at the unveiling in 2007. Picture: Gary Horlor

Tomorrow marks the centenary of one of the most gruesome events in our nation’s ever-tragic history. In remembering the bloodshed and grief of the Bulhoek Massacre, the hope is that we also learn from it, writes Nick Dall Faith against machine guns

n May 24 1921, over 600 white Mgijima. “I take mine from Jehovah.” policemen and soldiers opened fire Mgijima and 150 of his followers were arrested and on some 3,000 followers of put on trial on charges of squatting, failure to heed O prophet Enoch Mgijima. Known as police instructions and possession of weapons. The “Israelites ”, they had been awaiting trial, which was watched closely in SA and abroad, the end of the world at Ntabelanga was a classic example of a “show trial of empire”, says (mountain of the rising sun), in the Ngcukaitobi . Bulhoek area, near Queenstown in the . The odds were stacked against the Israelites from The Israelites stood accused of illegally occupying the start. The judge was fearsome and very senior and government land and of not paying taxes. But their the prosecutor was the 1920s equivalent of Gerrie Nel. supposed threat ran deeper than this. As (the The Israelites, meanwhile, were represented by two relatively liberal) John X Merriman would later say in young white attorneys with zero trial experience. parliament: “Anybody who studied it saw that it was a The prosecution tried to paint the Israelites as very dangerous thing indeed. The idea was that Africa madmen who went into battle believing that bullets was for the Africans, that Africans must combine and would turn into water. Enoch did not testify but his sweep the white man out of the country.” more educated and articulate (in English) brother Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, author of two Charles did. “Charles explained very clearly the logic, books on the history of land rights in SA, who has also purposes and goals behind the movement,” s ays been professionally involved in investigating the 2012 Ngcukaitobi . , believes that Bulhoek has a lot to Accused of illegally squatting on crown land, teach us, if we will only listen. Charles said it was God’s land. “This statement Ngcukaitobi says that, despite the area now being coincides with African views of land,” s ays called the Enoch Mgijima municipality, most modern Ngcukaitobi. “It is not owned by anyone and can be ANC politicians know little about what happened occupied by any of God’s people.” there in 1921. “South Africa has a problem of Charles also debunked the bullets-into-water memory, ” he says. myth. He reminded the court that two Israelites had There are two schools of thought about the been shot dead a couple of months earlier and he underlying causes of the massacre, says Ngcukaitobi. detailed Enoch’s visions of bloodshed. When asked “The first is that this was a religious movement which why they ran towards the gunfire and not away from went wrong. The other is that it was a land incursion it, Charles’s response was sanguine: “What difference resistance, similar to the nine frontier wars of the would it have made?” Eastern Cape. The truth is somewhere in the middle.” The judge found the men guilty on all charges (he was also critical of the government’s soft approach). Prosperous family Born at Bulhoek in 1868, Enoch Mgijima came from a relatively prosperous farming family. His siblings went to prestigious schools — Lovedale Institution and Zonnebloem College — and became teachers and court interpreters. But his severe headaches caused Enoch to leave school after standard 3. The people burning Back home, he fast established himself as a persuasive lay preacher in the Wesleyan Methodist clinics and libraries were Church. Then, on April 19 1907, aged 39, Mgijima had not at the Bulhoek a vision in which an angel warned him that the end of the world was imminent and urged him to “get people Massacre. But they are to worship God according to the old traditions”, says their descendants Howard University professor and author of Becaus e They Chose the Plan of God, Robert Edgar, who has been studying the massacre since the 1970s, when he interviewed some of the survivors. He sentenced Enoch and Charles Mgijima to six years When Halley’s comet appeared in 1910, Mgijima in prison with hard labour and their followers to took it as a further sign that God was angry with his between 12 and 18 months with hard labour. Charles people . died before completing his sentence but Enoch was As the name of his movement suggests, Mgijima released in 1924 thanks to a petition signed by many drew inspiration from the experiences of the Old Africans in Queenstown and elsewhere. Testament Israelites’ book of Exodus — an d specifically their quest for freedom from the tyranny Of prophets and prophetesses of the pharaohs. Taken at face value, the Israelites’ decision to gather at Mgijima broke away from the Wesleyans and a holy village to await the end of the world might teamed up with an African-American church called seem misguided. But they were neither the first nor the Church of God and Saints in Christ. In 1914, he the last group of disenfranchised people to hold out prophesied that a “catastrophic war on earth would hope for a drastic solution to their worldly woes. As destroy all sinners,” says Edgar. Right on cue, World Edgar points out, the 1920s saw a number of similar War 1 broke out. movements spring up in colonies across the world. Mgijima ’s next warning was that there would be a Perhaps the most famous millennial movement in great war between blacks and whites, in which the S A’s history is the so-called Xhosa Cattle Killing of Israelites would not take part. This violent vision 1856/1857. Acting on the urges of the prophetess worried the leaders of the church in the US, and Nongqawuse, the Xhosa slaughtered tens of Mgijima and his Israelites were excommunicated. thousands of their own cattle and burned millions of Mgijima ’s rise in popularity did not occur in a acres of their own crops. They did so in the belief that vacuum. It had been becoming harder and harder for this would pave the way for the coming of plentiful black Africans in SA to make ends meet, especially in crops, cattle and the ancestors who would drive the Queenstown, which had once been home to many white invaders into the sea. relatively well-off African families. The Natives L an d Far from being regarded as delusionary, writes Jeff Act of 1913, World War 1 and the 1918 Spanish flu Peires in The Dead Will Arise, such acts should be pandemic (which killed more than 1,000 people in viewed as the “logical and rational response” of Mgijima ’s district) were compounded by a crippling desperate people who can see no alternative solution drought and increasing demands for migrant labour to their problems. from white farmers and mine owners. Edgar says: “Because secular authorities and the So when, in 1919, he uttered the words, “Juda , leaders of millennial movements hold vastly different Efrayime, Josef, nezalwane … Bonke bevile”( Judah , world views, they create such negative perceptions of Ephraim, Joseph, and others … They have all heard), each other that they almost inevitably end up clashing his followers knew to gather at the holy village of rather than resolving their differences.” Ntabelanga to await an imminent judgment day. Learning from past mistakes An avoidable tragedy? In the aftermath of the massacre, Abantu-Batho, the The massacre was the culmination of two years of mouthpiece of the South African Native National negotiations between Mgijima and the authorities — Congress (later renamed the ANC), asked whether the first local and then national. government would have treated a white religious Their failure to view “natives ”as equals, or to group “in the same callous fashion”. As Abantu-Batho entertain their claims to the land as legitimate, saw it, the government was just as fanatical as the dogged every step of the process. Israelites. How and why, it asked, did the Israelite Towards the end of 1920, a heavily armed police defiance of the government escalate from a simple force tried to persuade the Israelites to leave the area case of trespassing to a major threat to the state? by offering them food and free train tickets. Graphic: Nolo Moima Fast-forward 100 years and the Black Lives Matter “But after having their land taken away from them movement is asking pretty much the same question of by the 1913 Land Act the Israelites had nowhere to go,” the deaths of George Floyd and many others. Edgar Ngcukaitobi says. So they reacted defiantly. turned out differently,” says Ngcukaitobi. God, people must die,” he said. The Israelites were (who is American) feels that Bulhoek can “remind us On December 8 1920, after more fruitless Smuts won the February 1921 election, and the unperturbed. “Whether you have seen bloodshed or of the importance of black voices which are often negotiations, the police panicked when they saw Israelites ramped up their displeasure by refusing to death, we are not leaving. If there is death, let us die marginalised or completely forgotten”. 1,000 Israelites performing what appeared to be a pay taxes. through our belief,” was the response. Memory, he says, should also spur us to talk about military drill. Not realising that the drill was actually One reader of Johannesburg ’s Star newspaper Whether you have seen The outcome of the battle was a foregone the fact that “police use excessive force when dealing part of a church service, the police fled, leaving their proposed an extreme and vile solution on the letters conclusion. The Israelites — dressed in highly visible with black people. That was raised in the black and food and tents behind. page: “Half a dozen low-flying aeroplanes, using a few bloodshed or death, we white cloaks and carrying only knobkerries, swords even the white press in the aftermath of the Bulhoek This, Edgar and Ngcukaitobi agree, was a turning bombs or machine-guns, would clear up the trouble are not leaving. If there is and spears — ran towards the gunfire in an attempt to Massacre . ” point for both sides. “The Israelites had challenged a quickly, safely and cheaply — besides creating a divert attention from their women and children, who Ngcukaitobi sees parallels between Bulhoek and basic rule of black-white relations,” says Edgar. The lasting impression on the rebel mind.” death, let us die through were singing hymns in the nearby tabernacle. today ’s service delivery protests in SA. “The people white populace expected a response from the The government considered using planes, but our belief Twenty minutes later, Israelite bodies lay strewn burning clinics and libraries were not at the Bulhoek authorities . instead turned up on May 24 — the birthday of both on the ground. The official death count is 183, Massacre , ”he says. “But they are descendants of the The Israelites demanded that prime minister Jan Queen Victoria and — with a crack force of although some bystanders put the number as high as people who were there.” Smuts come to Ntabelanga to discuss the issue in more than 600 policemen selected from all over SA. 400, with a further 100 wounded. Let us remember the spirits of those who died at person. A month later, Smuts talked to white voters at During last-ditch negotiations in the morning, Col The Israelites saw it as a matter “between the Lord One policeman suffered a non-fatal stab wound. Bulhoek . nearby . Concerned about what would be Truter, the commander of the police, claimed he did and the government ”. On the eve of the massacre, Col Truter then confronted Mgijima, who had kept known today as the “optics ”of negotiating with not want to make war — but as Edgar points out, his Mgijima told his followers of a vision he’d had in his distance from the battle. “Enoch, I hold you ✼ Dall is the co-author of Rogues’ Gallery: An Irreverent “fanatics ”, he stayed away from Ntabelanga. arsenal of rifles, cannons and machine guns told a which he saw the police shooting at his people from responsible for this bloodshed,” he said. History of Corruption in South Africa from the VOC to the “If Smuts had talked to them, it could all have different story. many sides. “When people rally round the word of “You take your orders from government,” repl ied ANC