White King Is Dead, Long Live Black Queen!: Book 2 of a Trilogy About Inter-Racial Marriage

By William O’Dowda

After a gap of two years since where book 1 ended, the groom resumes his tale. He explains how he dealt with the gridlock. It has not been a cooling off periodpassions are still running high. The groom looks deeply into the tension between foreign missionaries from the North and indigenous people on the mission field in the South. Again there is a mix of both narrative and analysis, enriched by research done during the pause between Book 1 and Book 2. Before the book ends, he has visited three other famous mixed marriages over the centuries in South Africa. Some failed and some succeeded, and he observes some South African realities about marriage and dissolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Jan 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781482878264

William O’Dowda

He is a white foreigner who settled in Africa. He has lived in Africa longer than his bride, who has never lived anywhere else. He is an empathetic bridge-builder, unhappy with the status quo in which enclaves can harden into ghettos. He detested apartheid but can still see its legacy.

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by William O’Dowda.

ISBN:                  eBook                  978-1-4828-7826-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa

CONTENTS

Preamble

Methodology

1.     Missionary Melancholy

2.     Involuntary Committal

3.     Love is Blind – Get a Private Eye

4.     Were We Ever Married?

5.     Dissolution of a Customary Marriage

6.     The Case Law

7.     The Cabal

8.     What is Lobola, Really?

9.     Why Marry at All?

10.   A Tribute to Krotoa

11.   A Tribute to Tiyo Soga

12.   A Tribute to Nombuyiselo Noah

13.   Peregrini Missionaries

Epilogue

PREAMBLE

Two years have passed since I wrote Book 1. I have been on a learning curve – not the one that I had dreamed of. In fact, it has been more of a nightmare than a dream.

Still, I believe in failing forward. As Henry Ford once put it – failure is just an opportunity to start over, better informed.

With the release of the feature film Krotoa in 2017, I became more aware than ever before that inter-racial marriage has always been fraught with challenges, right from the earliest arrival of whites in southern Africa.

Book 1: Black Queen White King Check Mate does include some moments of reflection but it is mainly narrative. It tells my story of trying to engage with local culture as a foreigner residing permanently in South Africa, in terms of a Customary Marriage. That was my second attempt at marriage – the first attempt had lasted 40 years. The second one didn’t last 40 days.

So one central question on everyone’s mind is – were we ever married?

I have asked elders, lawyers, Home Affairs, the police, the CRL Rights Commission (one of the Section 9 institutions), the Tribal Authority, and the courts. There is no easy answer.

In keeping with the multiple endings of Book 1, I will let the reader decide that.

METHODOLOGY

Anonymity

Once again, few names are mentioned – mainly just historical figures whose real-life experiences are relevant and thus useful in telling my story.

I continue to write in the first person to keep it up close and personal. Even though Book 2 contains less narrative than reflection.

Research and Personal Experience

I have had two years to ruminate on what really happened. And to seek advice.

Feedback was very confusing at first. But then it seemed to narrow to a point that I could see a credible story-line.

Books are great because you can jump from one continent to another and back and forth between centuries without losing the thread.

So I have packed in some of the highlights of my reading as well as the best advice that I could find. Without losing the plot – my own story continues to unravel from where it was at the end of Book 1.

Experience is a hard teacher – it gives the test first, and the lesson afterward.

Image2801.JPG

1

MISSIONARY MELANCHOLY

I am not a saint. I am a missionary.

There have been various waves of missionaries over the centuries, starting with the Twelve Apostles who fanned out in all directions from Jerusalem. St Peter and St Paul went west – to Rome and on to Spain. St Thomas went east to India and may have even visited China? The Mar-Toma Christians on the east coast of India are evidence of the church that he planted. Some went north into Armenia, others south into Egypt and Nubia. This was the first wave.

My name O’Dowda betrays my Irish heritage. During the so-called Dark Ages in Europe, after the fall of Rome, the Irish Church became the predominant missionary force for several centuries. It was only one more wave of a number. In fact, Ireland had been evangelized by St Patrick during an earlier wave.

After the Protestant Reformation in Europe came the Counter-Reformation. One of its features was the ambitious missionary work of orders like the Jesuits, in a wave that went all around the world. This was during the Age of Discovery when missionaries could travel to the West across the Atlantic, or around the Cape of Good Hope to the East namely the ports of call - all over the Indian Ocean and Pacific rim.

The Modern Missionary Movement

In tandem with the Anti-Slavery Movement a new wave of missionary activity arose out of England first and later America. Some shakers and movers in British Parliament were involved in both the Anti-Slavery and the Missionary endeavours, notably the MP William Wilberforce.

For the first time, an inter-denominational agency was established to send missionaries overseas, called the London Missionary Society. This was a tumultuous period in both colonial and naval history, and the LMS really struggled, at first, to even land missionaries in the target settings as a result. It was an age of pirates and revolutions (e.g. in France and America) when travel was fraught with dangers and ambiguities. In fact, most missionaries on their way to the field did not really count