Milk the Beloved Country is a provocative historical exploration of South Africa’s past and present.
“I am not just reflecting on certain key episodes in our country’s story, I am at the same time questioning things that, to an extent, have not received the contemplation and deliberation they deserved.”
It has been just over a month since South African author and Wits business school graduate Sihle Khumalo’s book, Milk the Beloved Country hit the shelves in bookstores and e-commerce sites.
The subject of Khumalo’s newest book is a hybrid of travel and history, which begins by exploring the landmarks and names of South Africa through a historical lens. The book reflects on South Africa’s history and asks, “how did we get here?”
Ntokozo Ndlovu, South African Facebook book reviewer said the “interesting part of this book is about the naming of towns and cities” which makes for “thought provoking history”. An impressed Ndlovu said, “[Khumalo] is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”
The author’s approach to non-fiction utilises irony and humour as Khumalo mixes historical fact with myth, anecdote and controversial opinion. With discussions such as the failure of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), filling in gaps in South Africa’s colonial history and a name-and-shame approach to dealing with powerful groups such as the Broederbond, Khumalo confronts the reader with an uncomfortable deep dive into some of the issues which have been skimmed over in modern texts.
The image of the past which comes to life on the pages of this book is a multicultural, multifaceted history which describes our complex nation in a way that a chronological, fact-based timeline could not do, although the author’s interrupting and digressive style can at times be difficult to follow. As Khumalo writes, “History, like life, is complicated.”
In the context of South African history, Khumalo’s book is a refreshing antithesis to previous historical analyses of South Africa which tended to fall either on the side of Afrikaner nationalism (pre-1994) or African nationalism (post-1994) which discredited counter-ideologies and portrayed the historical as natural and inevitable. Khumalo examines the ifs, buts and maybes and the various available perspectives on the past.
The book also discusses the “power brokers” of our nation, including the heavy influence of the Broederbond during apartheid South Africa, the influence of communism in the formation of a new South Africa and the legacy of freemasonry in South Africa. Each of the topics are explored with nuance and a colloquial, conversational style.
Khumalo clearly is not afraid to hold up a mirror to our, as he calls it, “perfect-from-a-distance-but-very-structurally-shaky-rainbow nation” and explains in detail who is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today.
In reflection on the text, Khumalo asks vital questions such as, “When did the feeding frenzy on state resources begin?” to which he answers that South Africa’s corruption and nepotism problems extend so far back in its history, one might believe “we have always been led by rogues”.
In an interview with Polity, Khumalo said that his reason for writing this book is that he believes it is time, “to have open, frank conversations about the state of the nation…It is time that we hold our leaders responsible.”
Throughout the book, the danger of leaving out certain histories in favour of upholding the image of a rainbow nation is criticized by Khumalo, who writes, “Due to our obsession with the ‘rainbow nation’…and all those fluffy terms, we lose endless opportunities for having genuine national conversations and instead end up putting lipstick on a pig.” Khumalo’s retrospective on South Africa examines the whole pig in a witty and daring way.
Copies of the book are available online for R300 in its paperback form on Loot, and Takealot.
Vuvu rating: 7.5/10
FEATURED IMAGE: Sihle Khumalo’s Milk the Beloved Country soft cover. Photo: Kimberley Kersten
Reading enables me to escape the confusing and confining circumstances of my own world through gaining a deeper understanding of others.
Literature has always been my escape from everyday life, and when I do face real people, it is also the reason that I resist judging a book by its cover, so to speak.
When life becomes hard for me, such as in 2020 when the covid-19 pandemic trapped me within the walls of my house and I experienced grief for loved ones and family members, I turned to books to escape. Sometimes the characters I used to escape were heroes who looked at the world and tried to make it better. Other times, the characters I read were villains. However, when I read a story, even one whose main character was someone who did bad things, I still grew to understand them, sometimes even root for them. In escaping from the confusing and confining world of my own, I entered the world of others.
A 2012 study by researchers from Dalton State College and Converse College in the US, explains the phenomenon of ‘rooting for the bad guy’. Richard Keen, Monica Powell McCoy and Elizabeth Powell examined how narratives make readers feel empathy. The study used psychological concepts and linked them to literature to conclude that literature makes us feel so deeply for characters because we are given a first-person perspective into their lives and so we avoid blaming actions on the characters themselves but rather blame their circumstances. This is similar to the perspective we take on when examining our own actions. We judge our actions by blaming things outside of our control and rarely blame our own internal thoughts and values for wrongdoings.
Getting lost in these characters has shown me how stories have the potential to make us understand the most incomprehensible situations. Later in life, when covid-19 released its deadlock on our lives, I came across people I couldn’t see eye to eye with, people who hurt me or made me feel inferior but, I had learnt that behind every one of these people who seemed incomprehensible to me, there was a whole story that had led them to where they were. I could not judge them for how they treated me without keeping in mind the villains that I grew to know and love through books. Stories made me feel mercy and empathy in the judgement of the most despicable characters, in books and in life. As there will always be people who hurt me in some way or other, this is something that I like to think I carry with me through life.
As a journalism student and an avid news reader, I notice how often the world and the press in particular refer to people who have done bad things, as bad people. There is little room to explain how factors beyond their control lead people to where they find themselves in the latest gossip or news article. I believe literature is such a valuable art form because through it, while escaping from my own life, I have entered the lives of others and lived how they have lived. It is so important to keep in mind that we judge the actions of others differently to how we judge ourselves, unless we know their whole story. But there is always a whole story. I hope to carry this idea into my own practice of journalism and avoid creating two dimensional characters out of multi-dimensional people.
An unbeaten season for Wits Cricket Club secures a historic first place victory in the Gauteng Premier League 50-over format.
On Sunday, April 2, Wits Cricket Club played in the last game of the season and beat Kagiso Cricket Club by eight wickets. The Wits side were first on the Enza league table and needed a win to maintain their position.
Wits Cricket Club celebrate after restricting Kagiso Cricket Club to 181 runs on Sunday, April 2, 2023 at Wits main campus. Photo: Kimberley Kersten
After forfeiting the toss, Kagiso were sent in to bat first. They got off to a good start in the power play with the first few wickets, but shortly after Wits were able to pull that lead back. With Mohammad Manack’s fantastic spell of five wickets for 21 in 10 overs, Wits restricted Kagiso to a subpar 181 runs.
Ndumiso Mvelase, Kagiso Cricket Club’s vice-captain said that the game was competitive but enjoyable, he said: “We knew that we were playing against the champs and ultimately we came out on the wrong side.”
When Wits took to batting, they were met with the fall of the skipper (Deeran Baba) in the opening overs. But Billy Van Zyl 65* (106) and Manack 81 (78) steadied the ship with a match winning partnership. Lions player, Conner Esterhuisen, struck the final blow with an explosive 25 not out, propelling Wits to 182/2 with 17 overs to spare.
This win marked the second trophy for the team this season after winning the USSA B division in December 2022, which saw them qualify for Varsity Cup and promoted them to the USSA A division.
Spectator Willem Van Zyl said: “The coaches have a lot of experience, they really know what they’re doing.” The new head coach, previous Lions player Nono Pongolo, who took up the post at the start of the year, looks forward to building upon the season’s success by preparing for Varsity Cup in the winter.
Speaking to the season that was, Captain of the Wits Cricket club, Deeran Baba, said: “The boys have worked hard behind the scenes to put out results every weekend and success has come our way. There is definitely more to come.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Wits batsman, Mohammad Manack, hits a ball against Kagiso Cricket Club on Sunday April 2, 2023 at Wits. Photo: Kimberley Kersten
Since her announcement as the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille has dominated national headlines. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing podcast, hosts Lulah Mapiye and Bonolo Mokonoto dissect a media meet-and-greet with the mayoral hopeful. From her extensive political résumé to her controversial public utterance, we examine why the Democratic Alliance has chosen Hellen Zille as their candidate for the 2027 local mayoral elections. Additionally, […]
