Black sash women protest against notices served to 1000s of indian families giving them three months notice to quite their homes in Pageview
Mawlana Abdul Kader Ghoriawalla, a migrant from Namdipur, a village in India, was known as Kader Barber, because his main occupation was to cut people’s hair in the Indian location of Malabarabad, to which his father had been relegated under one of the early pre-apartheid laws. He and his father had eked out a living for over half a century through a small barbershop that his father had set up.
Kader was a tall, well-built man, well nourished and well into his early 60s. He had a chocolate complexion, very much like the colour of liquid cocoa when mixed with milk. He had a large, imposing face and sported a goatee silvery white with age. He had a full blush of hair that matched the colour of his goatee. He walked with a cane, more to add to his stature than as a prop to his otherwise sturdy frame and, as people passed him each day, they kissed his hand in obeisance.
No one could pinpoint exactly what his business was in addition to the haircutting, but he was known to everyone in the area because of his multifaceted skills. Some knew from personal experience that he was a good barber. Others were impressed by his musical talent at weddings, where he sang devotional songs with a melodious voice till the early hours of the morning. A very select few had witnessed him using incoherent incantations for exorcising bad spirits that had possessed their loved ones.
Through all these activities, he catered to a large segment of Malabarabad’s Indian population and the authorities did not consider him a bother. They were quite happy to leave him alone as long as he did not touch the scalps of white people, sing to a mixed audience, or try to exorcize a spirit from a white person. Kader was quite happy to remain within his racial boundaries.
All went well until one Saturday night, when a desperately troubled white family turned up at his home and pleaded with him to help them. They told him that their house was haunted by a ghost that just would not leave. They were hoping that Kader would be able to use his knowledge based on thousands of years of Indian civilisation to banish the ghost to some place from which he could not return.
Kader was chuffed by their entreaty. Of course he would help them, he said, and they arranged for the husband to come and fetch him so that he could perform the ritual. They came at noon and there was Kader, ready in his spirit-extraction gear comprising loose cotton pants like pyjama bottoms, a long shirt that hung loosely over it, and a white cotton cap with beading around it. Over this, he wore a cotton robe. While the husband waited, Kader packed his cotton bag with a rosary, a box of incense sticks, a hand sprinkler, a handful of coral shells and some human bones. He packed them into the bag with great ceremony and then got into the bakkie to undertake what he referred to as a unique “spiritual” journey.
On arrival, he walked on to the stoep and studiously examined the burglar proofing on the windows of the living room that faced the verandah. He pretended to hear voices and then turned to Jannie van der Merwe’s frightened wife, Elsie, who had come out of the house to welcome him, and said: “I can feel his vibrations. He is very stubborn. And what is more, he is very angry.”
“What for?” she asked innocently.
“Over all this movement,” he replied with an air of self-righteousness.
“We must get him out of here,” Kader said decisively. “Quick, let us go into the house and see how we can corner him. Tell me, what does he actually do?”
Elsie answered: “Well, when we sit down to eat at night, we suddenly see our teacups rattling, the spoons begin to fall off the table, the lights suddenly go off and then they go on again, on their own, and we hear a loud burst of laughter.”
“Really, Mawlana, we are so confused,” said Jannie. “The kids also are so scared. They refuse to sleep on their own.”
Kader took out all his paraphernalia and placed them on the floor. He stood in the middle of the room and started chanting “Ab asos suh sub a jamji” in a loud voice. Nothing seemed to have happened. He went to a corner of the room and repeated the words again. This time he suddenly reached out, gave the impression of seizing and pulling on an invisible person’s hair and boxing his body. “Shaitan, hullyween! Shaitan, hullyween! Hullyween!” he shouted. “Bhag, nastic! Bhag!” he ordered.
He fell on the floor as if the spirit was overpowering him and then started punching the air. With perfect timing, after a few minutes he gave a sigh of relief as if he had managed to control the spirit. There was silence for a few seconds and then, turning to Elsie, he said in a reassuring tone: “He will not worry you again. I have warned him seriously. I have told him what the consequences will be if he is seen here again.”
Giving her a bunch of incense sticks, he told her to light them every evening and place a few in each room of the house. He also gave her an amulet, a little metal box in which was a little note, to wear on her arm but cautioned her never to open it. “This will protect you,” he assured her.
Elsie was flooded with relief and told Kader: “I feel the bugger listens to you.”
“Ja,” said Kader. “I have told him that he should not come back here again as you have full occupational rights and that your rights have been confirmed by the Group Areas Act.”
After that, Kader’s reputation as a ghost-buster spread and many people, including whites, who were experiencing supernatural happenings turned to him for help. Makhuloo Mawlana (Big Mawlana) they called him and treated him with the utmost reverence. Kader’s mushrooming ghost-busting business among whites soon brought him to the attention of the authorities, whose spies told them he was providing spiritual services to whites in white areas without a proper licence. Sometimes he was even alone with women in a white home. This was a dangerous precedent. The authorities lost no time instructing their judicial officers to provide a legal opinion for dealing with Kader.
First, the government brief asked for legal clarification on certain matters: What is the colour of a ghost? Is it black or white? Do ghosts in South Africa get classified in two categories or do they coincide with the four racial categorisations under the Population Registration Act of 1951? If a ghost has colour, how do we verify its race? And if there is an ambiguity, can the state pass a pencil or a comb through its hair to ascertain whether it is black or white? Or perhaps coloured?
The government reviewed various statutes and also considered indicting Kader for trying to introduce a foreign law into the country on the basis that his incantations could amount to some form of religious law.
After deliberation and research, the government was persuaded to try to resolve the issue through mediation, which they thought would appeal to Kader. After all, Mahatma Gandhi had come from that background. So, Mr Swanepoel from the attorney general’s office summoned Kader to the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Kader arrived wearing his full regalia.
Mr Swanepoel greeted him with respect and said: “Mr Mawlana, what is going on? We have heard that you are speaking to ghosts in this country in a strange language and that you are making a lot of money. Do you have a licence for this work?”
Kader replied calmly: “Sir, I do not work in this country. I work in another world and do not need a licence. I work with, and for, God.”
Swanepoel was enraged and burst out: “Gott! If you carry on this way, you will be in trouble in both this world and the next! Furthermore, you are already in violation of a Group Areas Act order. You have a notice to leave Malabarabad and you are still hanging around there though we have allocated you some choice land in Platinum.”
Kader listened to him intently, all the while fingering his rosary, bead by bead.
Swanepoel carried on. “Second, you are conducting a business in a whites-only residential area without a licence. You know that carries a heavy fine.”
“Yes, meneer,” replied Kader in a soft voice.
Swanepoel was in full flow. “Third, you are evicting ghosts – white ghosts – from white homes without any legal evicting authority. You are usurping the power of the courts. This is totally against the laws of this country.”
After he was sure that Swanepoel had finished, Kader wiped his beard and in a cold, measured tone, said: “Meneer Swanepoel, I am a ghost-buster. I evict ghosts from the homes of all sorts of people. My ghosts, like my clients, come in all shapes, sizes and colours and, what is more, I have extensive powers over them. I evict them but I also relocate them. I am able to rehouse them in any area in the country. I am able to put up to 50 ghosts in a room and I have no limitations on gender, race or colour. They are free to cohabit.”
Kader had developed a fine sense for drama during his ghost-busting, and he knew that this was the time to deliver the knockout blow. Looking straight into Swanepoel’s eyes, he told him: “I can disrupt all your plans in a moment. All I need to do is relocate the ghosts from where they are to the homes of all those people you have already moved. And you know what? They will all come back to the homes from where you moved them, all the Indians, blacks, coloureds and whites.”