PUBLISHED BOOKS

The Lie of 1652

A decolonised history of land

ISBN: 9780624089704 Epub ISBN: 9780624089711 Publisher: Tafelberg – NB Publishers 2020

The Lie of 1652 debunks the idea that Southern Africa was a ‘land without people’ – terra nullius – when European settlers arrived at the Cape and that while there were small groups of indigenous Khoi and San people, these people have mostly gone extinct. The book challenges colonial historians account for the presence of black South Africans to a sudden wave of Northern “Bantu-speaking” people who arrived in South Africa around the same time as Portuguese explorers rounded the Cape. It further shows that Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape to establish a Dutch refreshment station was not a “first” in that over 1000 European vessels carrying over 120 000 people had visited the Cape just in the 50 years prior to that fateful start of the colony. He shows how indigenous Khoe ran the port operations at Table Bay, after some had been taken abroad for training in London and Java and returned. The founding of the port operation that gre into the City of Cape Town has older roots than that of Jan van Ribeeck. Likewise the notion that a small number of European settlers were responsible for establishing infrastructure and the foundation economy of South Africa is challenged by pointing out that for the first 150 years of settlement less than 1% of Europeans were artisans and labourers, whereas enslaved from Africa and Asia were numerically larger than the European settlers, made up the main labor force but also 25% of their number were skilled artisans and professionals.

The book offers a comprehensive argument drawing on evidence from pre-colonial African history going back 2000 to 3000 years ago and makes the case that the aboriginal San, and migrant Khoe and Kalundu-Urewe peoples are the founding people of Southern Africa and that their blood and ancestral-cultural heritage is deeply embedded in the identity of all black Southern Africans, regardless of Apartheid race-silo classifications. The Lie of 1652 further throws light on land expropriation by violent means carried out by the settlers, by filling in gaps in history to show 19 wars of resistance and disposession over 227 years.

Mellet calls for a reimagining of the project of restorative justice, so that it is embedded in restorative memory and addresses the loss of land, resources, community, culture, liberty, labour, and identity, that black people have endured for centuries under colonialism.

The Truth About Cape Slavery

The Foundations of Colonial South Africa

ISBN: 9780624095293 Epub ISBN: 9780624095309 Publisher: Tafelberg – NB Publishers 2024

In The Truth About Cape Slavery, Patric Tariq Mellet argues that modern South Africa – its economy and politics – is shaped and established on the foundation of chattel slavery just like the United States of America. Cape slavery, rather than minor, was a crucial feature of maritime capitalism. This then moved to become the cornerstone of the Cape’s agricultural economy. He debunks the myth that African-Asian slavery at the Cape was a mild or benevolent practice and throws much light on the origins of the enslaved and the numbers of first generation enslaved, and the successive generations of enslaved offspring. The book further shows how the slavery system was exported to the Boer Republics, and how new systems of labour exploitation succeeded slavery in South africa – indentured labour, migrant labour and labour brokering systems.

Cleaner’s Boy

A resistance road to a liberated life

ISBN: 9780624093657 Epub ISBN: 9780624093664 Publisher: Tafelberg – NB Publishers 2022

Auto-biography – ‘It is through that choice of taking a resistance road, the one less travelled, that I got to experience a liberated life.’

Mellet’s autobiography demonstrates a spirit of innate and unbridled resistance, in small and major ways, that liberated Cleaner’s Boy from an unpromising and tragic early life to a life of influence driven by a deep understanding of identity. A freedom fighter, a mystic and always a firebrand.

REG SEPTEMBER – LIBERATED AFRICAN

Founder of the South African Coloured Peoples Congress

ISBN: 9780796102560 Publisher: Dibanisa Publishing 2023

Reginald Kenneth September was known to all who loved him as Uncle Reg. In his last year at Trafalgar High School in District Six, Reg came to meet a number of influential mentors at the CPSA offices in District Six – James la Guma, Cissie Gool, John Gomas and Moses Kotane in particular, and joined the National Liberation League formed in 1935. In 1953 Reg September as General Secretary alongside James la Guma as President became the founding father, and driver of the South African Coloured People’s Congress (1953 to 1968) modelled on the older African People’s Organisation founded in 1902 and considered its successor.

Reg was a trades unionist, journalist, activist, diplomat, strategist, and freedom fighter who experienced detentions, imprisonment, being put on trial, going on the run, and exile. Sent to London in 1952 for a brief period, together with Vella Pillay they pioneered the first foundations of black South Africa’s diplomatic missions abroad and what would grow into the Anti-Apartheid Movement – the Solidarity Committee for a Democratic South Africa. A right-hand man and close companion to Oliver Tambo, Reg played a key leadership role in the early 1960s leading to the watershed Morogoro conference in 1969. This set the edges for the ANC’s further development at a time when it could have floundered and failed. From 1969 he held the strategic position as ANC Chief Representative for the UK and Western Europe for almost 10 years and went on over time to hold many leadership positions before returning to South Africa in 1990 as part of the first leadership team after the unbanning of liberation organisations and start of negotiations. Many consider Reg September as deserving recognition as being a national Tambo and Mandela type leader arising out of the Camissa African or Coloured community – a quiet, humble gentleman-revolutionary not seeking the limelight. His story deserves to be known more widely.

Voices of Black Entrepreneurs in Tourism

The Inyathelo Peer-Learning Co-Operative Experience

Published: Inyahelo – The South African Institute for Advancement 2003

In 2003, Inyathelo – The South African Institute for Advancement set out on a path tomake a small contribution to promoting equity and transformation in the tourism arena in the Western Cape. Patric Tariq Mellet, the Managing Director of Inyathelo developed an innovative methodology of learning known as a Peer Learning Cooperative, where ten black entrepreneurs in tourism were invited to participate in a development programme which was sponsored by the Swiss South African Cooperation Initiative, BP South Africa, and the National Lotteries Fund.

These are the stories of the participants in the programme. They talk about the challenges they faced in establishing their businesses and the experience of the peer-learning programme. Within the programme the niche area of heritage tourism involving the stories of indigenous Africans and the African-Asian enslaved at the Cape was examined to see how this could bring unique and valuable new products into Western Cape Tourism.

The peer-learning programme exposed the group to some of South Africa’s best strategists, marketing and entrepreneurial experts over the 18 month duration of the programme which was practice-orientated.

Zuidafrikaans Kookboek

Resepten uit de kleurrijkste keuken ter wereld

ISBN: 9021512784 Published: Anti-Apartheids Beweging Nederland / Uitgeverij Kosmos 1987

Contributions from – Patric Tariq “de Goede” Mellet, Anthony Akerman, Zainu Brown, Sarah Carneson, Bongi Dlomo, Abdulhay Jassat, Stephanie Kemp, Mecca Mbata, Rose Motsepe, TommyVassen and the Rabkin Family.

Zuid Afrika – bolwerk van de Apartheid. Kun je daar een kookboek over maken? Het antwoord is ja! Zuid Afrika is veel meer dan alleen het drijven van een blanke minderheid. Zuid Afrika is het erfgoed van mensen met velerlei huidskleur die, soms geduldig,soms veritterd, altijd vasthoudend op weg zijn naar een samenleving waar plaats is voor allen. Voor de meesten is Zuid-Afrika het land van hun voorouders. Voor veel anderen geldt dat niet. Hun voorouders kwamen uit alle delen van de wereld, van Indonesie to Nederland, van Rusland tot Madagascar- soms vrijwillig, vaak gedwongen. Ze namen hun eigen tradities, cultuur en eetgewoonten mee. Messtal zijn die nog steeds herkenbaar,maar even vaak zijn die in elkaar gaan overvloeien, zoals de klerenop eenschilderspalet.Jist dat maakt de Zuidafrikaanse keuken zo uniek en fascinerend.

GOVERNING BOARDS

in the Non-Profit sector

by Ricardo Wyngaard – Patric Tariq Mellet – Shelagh Gastrow

Published: Inyathelo – The South African Institute for Advancement, Non-Profit Consortium 2005

Although it is clear that NPO boards have specific duties of governance,it is often the more nuanced issues that impact on NPOs. These include the relationships between boards and the organisation’s CEO; the fundraising responsibilities of boards; the extent towhich board members become involved in operational activitiesof the NPO, etc. This book, while providing a backdrop to the duties and responsibilities of boards, also explores some of these issues.We hope that it helps board members as well as NPO staff to find a way of working together that satisfies both. The experiences of board members and NPO staff should be good ones. They are, after all, involved with organisations that have a positive and transforming role in South Africa. They work towards solving many social issues and needs and this should be extremely rewarding. A true partnership between board members and NPO staff, particularly the CEO, can be an extremely satisfying experience.

LENSES ON CAPE IDENTITIES

Exploring Roots in South Africa

ISBN: 9780620491778 Published: Dibanisa Publishing 2010 / 2016

Lenses on Cape identities is inspired by South Africa’s commitment t “Unity in Diversity”. Plurality of identity is explored using the author’s own journey, to open discourse on identity that departs from the paradigm of race and ethnicity. Six lenses explore – collective ancestral-cultural heritage; genealogy; history; life experience; genetic ancestry; and national group cultures. The author notes that many other lenses exist andchallenges notions that identity is singular and determined simply by race, colour, ethnicity, language and religion. Mellet says that humans are wired to collect and discard identities, plural, from birth to death. Exploration of identity in south Africa has been stymied by Apartheid ideology, which continues to influence people post 1994, with ethno-nationalism on the rise. Apartheid ideology forced the population into race-silos – white, coloured, black and Asian amplifying ethnicity as identity. Post Apartheid the ANC government has continued some core aspects of Apartheid race-framing in policy and practice regardless of the ICC’s Rome Statute identifying Apartheid as a “Crime Against Humanity”. As the biblical proverb explained, pouring new wine into old wineskins will court disaster. This book works from the foundation of “the ties that bind us’ and presents perspectives to really break the Apartheid paradigm on identity.