Thread by @RuthHallPLAAS

Book launch:
The Lie of 1652: A Decolonial History of Land

by Patric Tauriq Mellet

Launch here 👇🏽 nb.co.za/en/events/1221…

To think about restorative justice, we first need restorative memory..... Patric says he's deconstructing the dominant historiography of South Africa's colonisation. He does this be taking the history of land in 5 'slices'......

@TshepoMadlingo1 is in conversation with Patric about the book about the lie of 1652. Can one claim that history is false while also acknowledging that all history is "a version"? A question about methods.... and how research starts with dissatisfaction with inherited truth.

First off, there's the "empty land" thesis... at the base of much colonialism. Either empty of people, or empty of people with civilisation or a system of property. Says Patric Tariq Mellet. nb.co.za/en/events/1221…

@TshepoMadlingo1: So if land is not merely a physical artefact, what is it? Patric: land and water are not just real estate, cannot be truly commodified. It is common heritage with a spiritual meaning, ancestral continuum, stories, belonging and identity. iol.co.za/weekend-argus/…

The theft of land isn't merely the theft of property. It's about ripping out the soul.

says Patric Tariq Mellet at launch of his book

Patric points out that black Africans and white Afrikaners share this spiritual connection with land.... but cannot share the land. Talking past one another....

There's a problem with our obsession with 1652.... it's as if history starts with colonisation. There's history before, alongside & beyond European settlement and slavery. There's ethno-nationalism about who were the "first people" - it's a colonial idea that suited invaders.

It's inconvenient to acknowledge that there were multi-ethnic communities in the Cape prior to colonisation.... There was massive migration and movement.

Patric says this idea of distinct peoples in our region prior to coloniasation is incorrect. Even now, 20% of amaXhosa people have DNA from San and Khoi origins, as do 36% among so-called "coloured" people.

1652 is a myth. There were 182 years of interaction between people living at the Cape and passing European ships. From the number of ships, that's about 180,000 European and Asian sailors, traders, slaves and others moving into and through the Cape before 1652.

Patric says that in every port city around Africa, there are people who look like those who are called "coloured" in South Africa.... but are not called this. Our racially essentialist categories are still the product of the divide & rule tactics of colonisers & apartheid.

The Cape was a cosmopolitan port, with Europeans, Asians and Africans passing through, before Jan van Riebeeck and the start of settlement.... Patric points out that "African" was an identity first claimed by those who were (mixed) descendants from elsewhere: Asian & European.

Pan African identity founded on the idea of anyone with a forebear from Africa is an African... There's an African consciousness that has been lost, says Patric, as the colonised have embraced the concepts of the colonisers.

Can the settler become native? asks @TshepoMadlingo1 Patric says that the only way beyond the colonial categories is to move beyond categories, to recognise that "we are all creole". But if we are all creole, there's still space for race? A challenging conversation....

Now Patric says that with the decline in the number of farmers, and farm workers, shows that we urgently need 200,000 farmers, and they should come from the majority. I think he's been reading @bencous67245641 and his land reform projections for 200,000 smallholder black farmers.

How did Thailand generate livelihoods at massive scale through small-scale farming? They dismantled their landlordism and created a vibrant, diverse sector at the base of a broad-based economy. SA ignores such options.

Now @TshepoMadlingo1 says the work of decolonisation requires deconstructing whiteness.... First, most white people have mixed heritage. So we must reject ethnonationalism. Second, it requires challenging cultural fences.

Patric: what have a "bursting" of race... neo-colonialism, imperialism, tribalism, xenophobia are bedfellows. We haven't got "demos-kratos" (power of the people) but "party-kratos" (power of the party). We need imagination of what people power & internationalism can produce.

Patric argues that universities must play a role in decolonisation.... We don't have "universities" as in universal thinking, but rather "Euro-versities".

Here's the book. Essential for those passionate about land and politics.
nb.co.za/en/view-book/?…

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