A few months ago while I was in Johannesburg, I walked from Parktown to Rosebank Mall I was struck by the number of oomakhulu (older women) begging on the side of the road and isidima sabo (their inherent dignity), despite the dehumanising effects of poverty that had led them to the roadside in the hope of getting some kind of sustenance.
There seemed to be umakhulu at each intersection I approached. This felt particularly jarring and I wondered when this became the norm. I could sense their fatigue and resignation and decided to keep walking and respond to their pleas with a perfunctory greeting and apology that I could not help them.
I was reminded of the saying “Inyathi ibuzwa kwabaphambili [wisdom is sought from the elders]” as I walked past oomakhulu who were begging to survive. This is an insufficient translation of an adage in isiXhosa (with variations among other Nguni languages) that captures the value of abantu abadala (elders), because wisdom and life lessons are sought from those who have gone before us.
In a world that values youth and invests in technology to harness youthfulness, the place for elders keeps shrinking. Equally, in a world where more and more elders are disappointing us in our homes, in public and the political sphere, so too does the belief in eldership diminish. Knowingly or unknowingly, elders are often at the root of the dysfunction in our homes when they turn a blind eye to abuse. In the public and political sphere they are often the face of corruption and a lack of integrity.
The image of people on the side of the road — no matter what their age — is one that has become commonplace in countries living with inequality. It is only after I visited more affluent countries where there were few beggars that I began to realise how poverty has normalised this form of survival.
In South Africa, a mother and her children can stand on the side of the road begging for help and we pass them by. And in doing so, our collective humanity is diminished. Whether we can or cannot help, whether we feel it’s the state’s job to solve the problem, or whether we think rich people should give up their wealth, our humanity is implicated in the face of poverty.
Seeing oomakhulu joining in this chorus of desperation has left me asking: what are the consequences of abandoning abantu abadala to poverty? Some might say that in a country where there is a state old age pension they should not be begging because they have a buffer.
But it’s more complicated than that. Oomakhulu have become breadwinners through their pension grant, using the money to support the household rather than for their own needs. In the context of the staggering number of unemployed youth it means the social order, where young people take on the responsibility of looking after their elders, has been inverted.
Elders look after their unemployed children with the measly amount they have because that is the only source of income in some homes.
This inversion has dire consequences for us and in the ways poverty reproduces itself. As Zoe Modiga lyrically muses in her song Abantu: “Intlupheko iyadabukisa / ayisifanele nje ngabantu abamnyama. Noma sikulesimo thina / Akush’ ukuthi kumele siphile kanjena [Poverty is saddening, as black people this should not be our reality. Even while we live this way, it does not mean we should be living this way].”
Implied in Modiga’s lament are the historical foundations where poverty has been engineered by colonialism and apartheid and further exacerbated in post-apartheid South Africa.
In her article, Repositioning uMakhulu as an Institution of Knowledge: Beyond Biologism Towards uMakhulu as the Body of Indigenous Knowledge, published in Whose History Counts? Decolonising African Pre-colonial Historiography, Babalwa Magoqwana writes about how the role of oomakhulu has “been eroded by colonisation, religion, and today, increasingly promoted by neo-traditionalism (concealed as ‘African culture’), which resembles the colonial, patriarchal structures in erasing African women’s contribution in African societies”.
Magoqwana’s way of showing this shift of how society values oomakhulu should have consequences for how we think about social policy for elders. She explains how understanding the full extent of the word and its variations has implications for how we can understand history as well as the present.
Although umakhulu has been translated as grandmother, Magoqwana says the words umama-omkhulu (elder mother) and umo’mkhulu (senior mother) mean more than grandmother.
Like Magoqwana, I have eschewed the use of grandmother as it underplays the significance of umakhulu, which demonstrates a worldview about the role of senior women — beyond familial relations — in African societies.
In her memoir, The Ochre People, Noni Jabavu writes about Daisy Makiwane (who later became Mrs Majombozi), her mo’mkhulu. She calls her Big Mother, her mother’s older sister, who is more than her aunt.
In the introduction to her 1982 publication Jabavu explains that she wrote about umo’mkhulu to show the “splendid link she was between my generation of the family and those that had gone before … her wide-ranging interests; her erudition; one of the most inspiring people I have ever known”.
In a sense, Daisy Makiwane was a living archive for the Makiwane and Jabavu families as a senior mother. Jabavu recalls her father’s awe of Big Mother, whom he referred to as Sis’ Daisy to enhance her seniority. Jabavu tries to show her father’s respect for mo’mkhulu when she quotes him as saying: “Now that mother of hers is the last surviving individual who has authority in this union of families, Makiwane with Jabavu.”
Later in the memoir, Jabavu describes Big Mother as “the anchor of all those linked through the Makiwane navel”. I include this to show the historical and cultural nature of the idea of senior motherhood and eldership and how it has changed over time.
There are sociopolitical, material and communal consequences when we abandon this form of relating to each other as we experience it in a context where black older women seem to only be the face of poverty.
These cultural representations that emphasise isidima sabantu abadala are crucial for the humanity of black people. In her article, An ‘Aesthetic Inheritance’: uGogo the [Visual] Griot”, Kholeka Shange writes that “the idea of ugogo as a figure who is situated phambili [before or ahead of us] is that it disrupts the trope of elderly Black women as senile, out-of-touch, purposeless and distinctly vile”.
In her book, Ancestry: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Life, Nokulinda Mkhize includes a chapter, Eldership, Matriarchy and Leadership, in which she says that “eldership in our communities, historically, also tended towards a strong matriarchal element … The maternal ancestral lineage is sacred”.
Beyond the political and historical implications, I am also interested in the psycho-spiritual implications of oomakhulu. I wonder what it means to have oomakhulu begging and tiring themselves out to survive in a deeply unequal world. What kind of ancestors will they become?
Modiga’s song, Umdali, points to this musing of ancestors who are co-creators once they are the living-dead, izinyanya. Modiga’s song is a warning that if we do not take elders seriously, we do so to our own detriment.
In this song Modiga explores the temporal nature of dignity, dreamscape and ancestry:
“Uma singaz’ izifiso
Ezabaphambili
Amaphupo akudala sizowafeza
kanjani na?
Bayasidinga basicelile
Bayasidinga basicelile
Likhon’ ithembu’ ukuth’ amaphupho abo azofezeka
Njengoba kush’ umdali
[If we do not know the wishes
Of those who came before us
How will we fulfil the ancient dreams?
They need us, they have asked us
They need us, they have asked us
There’s hope that their dreams can be fulfilled
As the Creator says.”
I have been silent on ootatomkhulu (elder men); that’s a story for another day. As someone who was raised predominantly by women, I do not have the experience of a meaningful expression of love from older men. My tatomkhulu died when I was very young. My mother was raised by her grandparents with her tatomkhulu as the primary parent because her makhulu was sickly.
I experienced his tenderness vicariously through her stories and I have always felt that tenderness and a nurturing presence is possible for older black men even while the present experience of most women and children is often characterised by violence and neglect in relation to men.
The role of elders in the past, present and future is captured in Modiga’s words in similar ways as expressed by Magoqwana, Shange and Mkhize’s work about the place of oomakhulu.
When oomakhulu are begging on the side of the road, there is an injustice that needs to be addressed. Our ancestors’ needs and dreams do not disappear. They seem to linger on. Perhaps until there is a sense of meaningful justice.
Athambile Masola is a writer, researcher, lecturer and poet.
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