Transcultural identities.

I have a real problem with transcultural identities because they're not clear & they're fleeting. I mean, if you identify as two conflicting things what really are you? You're either black or white, you're either Asian or Aborigine not both. Sure, we claim that an individual can be accepted by two cultures & be both. We've seen celebrities try to make being of mixed identities cool & claim they're "of Irish & German descent" or Italian-Chinese-Irish with a black great grandmother etc. We have to wonder how much sense this makes. Can you be both Israeli & Palestinian? If you claim you are, which side are you in the conflict? We'll claim identity is fluid & can be formed by two conflicting parties. But why bother create an identity that is so conflicted?

Look, we live in a multicultural world & quiet often we love outside our culture, race or ethnicity but the breeds created by such relations have to pick an identity one day & it's often an ugly process.

History of the Mpofana by Mthoko M. Mpofana

I'm not very traditional, I'm more straightforward & basic & often disregard cultural nuances so this history of the Mpofana tribe is going to be as direct & concise as possible. Growing up, I grew up knowing that the clan praises or izithakazelo of the Mpofana are "Zulu" & "Ntombela", I never questioned that. What I know now for sure is that there's a lot more that's hidden in history. What I keep seeing being repeated from various sources is that the Mpofana were part of the Amazizi (or AmaTiti) tribe. I now know that in the midlands & perhaps further north, up to the northwestern parts of KZN, they use the greeting "MaZizi okuhlala", perhaps alluding to the fact that the Mpofana as well as other Amazizi tribes were among the original tribes to settle in present-day KZN from 200 AD onwards & the "Dlamini" praise or greeting was used among all Dlamini tribes i. e. the Amahlubi, Amazizi (Mtiti), Hlangwini...

Why "KwaTu"?

We are all "Tu": In many, if not, most of the major indigenous languages in Africa, there's the "tu" suffix or "tu" in the body of the word meaning "a person" (NB: It can be spelt differently depending on accents, in some African languages it's "-du" & others "-tho".). " Tu " may be the best name for Africa collectively. Hausa: Person ~ Mu tu m Igbo: People ~ Ndị mma dụ Swahili: Person or people ~ M tu au wa tu Maybe Tu is too short a word to call a continent so we add the place name prefix "kwa" (meaning at/for) present in Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Zulu & other African languages to make Kwatu or KwaTu .

African Renaissance

• African automotive brands. • African tech. • African diet in 1500 BC. • African invention & innovation. Bowuwazi? Repartition Africa

What's on Mthoko's mind?

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