In few days time the national and provincial governments, as well as other institutions will host events to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of SS Mendi.
In few days time the national and provincial governments, as well as other institutions will host events to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of SS Mendi.
Few sources managed to carry the memory of the tragic sinking of SS Mendi with over 800 men as much as Samuel Edward Krune Mqhayi’s poem “Ukutshona kukaMendi” does.
Mqhayi begins his poem with calmness that conceals the shock of death of 607 Black South African men who sailed to Europe to assist Allied Forces in their struggle against Central Powers:
Ewe, le nto kakade yinto yaloo nto.
Thina, nto zaziyo, asothukanga nto;
Sibona kamhlope, sithi bekumelwe,
Sitheth'engqondweni, sithi kufanelwe;
Xa bekungenjalo bekungayi kulunga.
Ngoko ke, Sotase! Kwaqal'ukulunga!
Le nqanaw', umendi, namhla yendisile,
Nal'igazi lethu lisikhonzisile!
Loosely translated; After all what happened is what was supposed to happen. We, who can anticipate aren’t surprised at all. Your sacrifice is for the good. Our blood is a good offering.
Exactly why did Africans fight alongside the British during “The Great War”, of 1914-1918?
This question is necessitated by the fact that just less than a century ago Africans were engaged in bitter wars to defend their land against the very British that they were supporting during the war.
In addition, it was just a few years earlier that the Government of the Union of South Africa had promulgated an act that made Africans “pariahs” in the lands of their birth, the Land Act of 1913.
The conflicts, the brutal murders of King Hintsa and Chief Bambatha, the incarceration of King Cetywayo, the concentration camps of South African War and many atrocities that British forces visited upon Africans were still felt when the war broke out. Yet Africans volunteered to defend the tyrannical ruler against its enemies.
Perhaps Steve Biko has an answer to this question. Writing about the condition of Black bodies during the second half of the 20th century he observed, “the black man is a shadow of a man; a man completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity”.
Africans were completely defeated by the British during the wars that took place in the 19th century. Colonial subjugation determined that they were slaves of the British.
Like the enslaved people who were always often ready to defend their masters against any threats, Black South Africans were slaves of the British, “bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity”.
Considering the fact that other subjects of the British Empire, the Dutch who had their own grievances against the empire decided to rebel, adds some weight to Biko’s observation that the black men is “a slave”. Bodies hollowed out by the very tyranny that they went to defend. The white men’s “artefacts”.
But there were incentives too:
• Chaplains and Senior Interpreters earned 6 pounds per month
• Clerk Interpreters and Sergeants earned 5 pounds a month
• Hospital orderlies 4 pounds a month
• Corporals 4 pounds a month
• Lance corporals 3 pounds a month
• Labourers (privates) 3 pounds a month.
In cases where Blacks got injured or died whether from diseases or killed, compensation was as follows;
• Permanent partial disablement 1-20 pounds
• Total disablement 30- 50 pounds
• Death (to dependants) 30-50 pounds.
And so, over 50 000 Blacks enlisted “not for fighting purposes, but for that class employment that was exclusively or ordinarily suited to Natives, such as drivers, leaders (of oxen) and general labourers in the supply of and other units of the Defence Force”.
Men who died in the Mendi tragedy were the last batch of the South African Native Labour Contingent. They enlisted because they felt that it was their duty to defend their colonial master. Additionally, the promised incentives were too attractive to miss.
When Prime Minister Botha addressed Parliament on 9 March 1917 to pay tribute to the fallen, he explained, “the toll, I am sorry to say, is a heavy one… three European officers, six European non-commissioned officers and 607 natives, who until yesterday were unaccounted for, must be presumed to have been drowned”.
A plaque in St Phillips Anglican Church, Grahamstown confirms that 3 of those 607 men came from Grahamstown.
• Lindinxiwa Mahlasela is a researcher at Albany Museum.
