The system of Apartheid was a system of racial segregation, imposed by the white government in South Africa in the 20th century. The novel “Mother to Mother“ is set in this time of oppression. The political measures and the effects they have on the society are depicted in a very pure but emotional way. The long struggle of racial conflicts starts with white settlers that came to South Africa in the 17th century, took away the land of the indigenous people, destroying their traditions, forcing them to adjust to a money-based economy and leaving them with a feeling of powerlessness towards the whites. As time moved forward, a government of white politicians formed and they enforced more and more segregational laws and acts.
Mxolisi and his family have personally experienced this oppression. Mandisa explains how she and her family had to move from her home Bouvlei to Gugulethu, where she lives now. There, not enough educational or housing facilities were available and by moving the community, the government destroyed Mandisa’s family’s business, their source of income. Here Mandisa refers to the Group Areas Act. By law, this Act allocated different racial groups to different residential areas in the city at the time of apartheid.
Besides knowing his family`s story, Mxolisi also personally feels the oppression and racism of the white government as well. He experiences the police violence, he is treated worse than whites, as a second-class citizen. This leads to the feeling of powerlessness, ending in a build-up of hatred and anger towards the white government. The hatred Mxolisi feels is generalized, it is projected on all whites, he does not see whites as individuals anymore, he just sees their skin colour.
Besides the trauma Mxolisi faces because of racial oppression, he also has a lot of personal struggles and is traumatized by the violence around him. On the one side, he sees a lot of police violence and violence in the streets. This conveys the feeling that violence is part of his daily life, that it`s normal to behave violently and to act out his anger. On the other side, Mxolisi has been through some emotional violence. His father never really cared for him and abandoned him at a young age. Lungile also left him and he did not get much recognition or love from his mother either. He had to see two of his friends die because of a mistake he made and does not get along well with Dwadwa. At the moment he sees Amy in her car, he feels all the rage that has built up inside him all his life and he wants revenge for all the damage that has been to him.
The biggest danger of large groups is that mob-like behaviour can easily develop. Mxolisi wanders around town with a group of friends when Amy crosses their path. Mxolisi and his friends are already shouting racist slogans, like “One Settler, One Bullet”; the situation is heated. When they see Amy, a white woman, in the car, they only see her skin colour. In the group, they start losing their sense of identity, they don`t feel or act as individuals anymore, but as a group. This means that none of them feels guilty when they start throwing stones at Amy`s car. They are secured by each other and they feel that none of them could be singled out as the murderer. It is very likely that Mxolisi and his friends would not have acted the same way if they had been alone. The mob mentality gives Mxolisi security and reinforces his racist views in order to commit the crime.
Other important themes that Magona addresses are reconciliation and forgiveness. She shows how dedicated she is to this topic by starting her novel with a letter from Mandisa to Amy’s mother, where Mandisa manifests her sorrow and asks for forgiveness. Although Mandisa knows that murder of such cruelty can’t be forgiven, she wants to tell the truth of Mxolisi’s story and hopes that Amy’s mother can understand the reasons and circumstances of her daughter's death.
Here, a connection to the real Amy Biehl case can be drawn. In 1993, the American Student Amy Biehl, who came to South Africa to study at the Community Law Centre at the University of Cape Town, was killed in a township by a group of black men, one of them named Ntobeko Peni. The case was one of the biggest of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Amy’s parents eventually forgave their daughter’s murderers. As an act of generosity, they founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to strengthen and support youth in black townships in their struggles with education and identity. Two of the perpetrators work there with the Biehls today and they have a very special, familiar bond. With her story, Magona sets an example of how reconciliation can be approached, she lets the reader know how important it can be to the family of a perpetrator (to Mandisa) to be forgiven in order to move on with their lives.