Estate Living Magazine New Beginnings - Issue 37 January 2019 | Page 65

g o o d
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Creating congregations
While both Gandhi and Dube were devout believers in, respectively,
Hinduism and Christianity, they were just men – albeit exceptional
ones. But their neighbour, Isaiah Shembe, was a prophet, who –
evidently – had direct communication with God.
The Phoenix settlement ultimately consisted of a school, a farm,
and a printing press from which issued the Indian Opinion – the
newspaper that was, largely, the voice of the Natal Indian Congress,
the political movement started by Gandhi.
Creating nations
In 1894, Gandhi and others started the Natal Indian Congress
(NIC). Six years later, no doubt partly influenced by his neighbour,
John Dube was the moving force in the founding of the Natal Native
Congress (NNC). In 1908 and 1909 Dube and the NNC petitioned
strongly against the Act of Union, travelling to London to state their
case, and then playing a leading role in the South African Native
Convention, which tried to obtain equal citizenship rights for all
races in South Africa. They were unsuccessful, but three years later,
in January 1912, many of the delegates, including Dube, met in
R
So – to summarise – both Dube and Gandhi started self-sufficient
communities with schools, industries and a newspaper, and
founded political movements. It doesn’t take much to figure out that
these two exceptional men must have spent many hours chatting,
comparing ideas, and sharing dreams of equitable societies.
While Dube and Shembe had some theological differences, they
are known to have communicated, and it’s almost certain that
Gandhi joined in some of their conversations.
A few minutes’ leisurely stroll away was where missionary-cum-
educator-cum-activist John Dube established the Natal Native
Congress, and published South Africa’s first indigenous-language
newspaper, Ilanga Lase Natal. Dube had also started a school
that focused on practical education and ethical religious beliefs.
Established in 1900 as the boys-only Zulu Christian Industrial
School, it grew to become the co-education Ohlange High School
after a girls’ dormitory was built in 1917. This, the first educational
establishment founded by a black South African, complemented
the older mission-founded Inanda Seminary for Girls, which is still
going strong, and is the alma mater of some of South Africa’s most
prominent women.
After wandering a metaphysical desert for a few years, Shembe
bought land at Inanda and founded yet another community – the
holy ‘city’ of eKuphakameni. It sounds quite pie-in-the-sky, but
Shembe, while definitely a mystic, was a practical mystic. The
church – initially – lived as a sustainable community, growing their
own food, subsidised by members who had jobs in town. Shembe
discouraged women members from going into domestic service,
suggesting rather that they make and sell crafts on the Durban
beachfront – a market community that has become an integral part
of the tourism scene, and has grown to include many non-Nazarites.
Another notable thing Shembe did was to instruct his followers: ‘If
you are standing at the bus stop, and someone eats an apple and
throws away the core – pick it up, bring it back here, and plant it.’
The Shembe church – or, more correctly, the Church of Nazareth –
is still going strong with about four million members.