The National Writers Association of South Africa (NWASA) is deeply saddened by the loss, on 2 June 2024, of its prominent member Mocholoko Dr. Zulumathabo Vusumuzi Lefalamang Zulu due to health complications.
It is indeed difficult and painful to think and refer in past tense an enigmatic personality about whom there are not enough superlatives to describe. His larger-than-life character and electric energy make it unimaginable that he would one day be referred to as someone who is deceased. He was a metaphysical African scientist, cosmologist, ancient sage of our time, doctoral practitioner, scholar, writer, poet, teacher, counsellor, and so on and so forth.
His personal background – “my genesis”, as he puts it – is best explained by himself in line with the Setswana idiom, seso se monate se ingwaelwa (it’s better to scratch own sores), thus:
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa but have lived in eight countries and three continents for the most part of my life; almost half of the continents of the world! I speak more than eight languages. My parents met as a result of the apartheid system of migrant labour. My grandmother Josephine Zulu left KwaZulu-Natal as a young woman in search of economic opportunities in the city of gold and my grandfather Hlathi ka Mfene also left Eastern Cape as a young man in search of economic opportunities. They met each other in Johannesburg. My Mosotho mother who had also come to Johannesburg as a young woman from the Free State province met my father here in Johannesburg where I was born by an ethnically mixed family.
About – Zulumathabo on the Internet 2.0
Mocholoko’s actual date of birth is 17 August 1961. Growing up, he shuttled between Gauteng (Orlando, Soweto) and Free State provinces for his primary and high school education. In 1984, he graduated from England as a journalist and professional writer and was subsequently stationed as a television reporter at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (1985). He later worked for Black Sash as a field worker in Botshabelo. In August 1987, he delivered fiery revolutionary poetry at the Women’s Liberation Conference at the University of Witwatersrand, Braamfontein. This attracted the attention of the apartheid state security apparatus that caused him to flee into exile to Botswana. From there, he migrated to Canada in 1989 where he spent more than 18 years of his life until his return to South Africa in 2010.
It was during his residence in Canada that he obtained most of his university qualifications in computing science, mathematics, graphic arts, printing, typography, darkroom techniques, desktop publishing and more. The roll call of the academic qualifications is as follows: General Arts & Science (Honours) obtained in 1997 at Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology in Ottawa, Canada, majoring in Computing Science and Mathematics; advanced software engineering courses at Carleton University in 1998; post-graduate certificate in General Programming and Database Development in the same year at Praxis Institute, majoring in Object Oriented Analysis & Design; the Prince2 Project Management methodology certification in 2013 in South Africa for a Prince2 methodologist status; and doctorate with the dissertation (nd), Dithoko Tsa Mocholoko: Nalane, Lewasene le Nkareteng (Doctoral Dissertation of Mocholoko: Cosmology, Metascience and Metaphysics).
From his tuition and qualifications in Canada and elsewhere, Mocholoko carved a 20-year plus career as a soft-ware engineer attached to companies such as Bell Northern Research, Nortel Networks, Google Inc., Xwave Solutions, Gameworkz, Health Canada, and Montage IT Services. He has also earned intellectual property certificates from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for his technological innovations in the knowledge domains of Thekwini Visual Canvas (therapeutics), cryptography, digital forensics, color change persistence, Emofeel (diagnostics), among others.
The pinnacle of his career and calling on earth is that Mocholoko is one of a rare breed of South African Black scholars who has established an independent tertiary academic institution named, Madisebo University Research Institute. This much he acknowledges in his own words in NWASA’s UPDATE edition 5, thus:
“I consider myself to be a rare breed and one who has been most blessed to have been moulded by the great village of Matamong. I hope my experiences can serve as a cultural beacon that inspires others to walk a similarly erudite path of our forebears.”
NWASA Update Issue 05 – NWASA
Mocholoko describes his writing, thus:
My writing approach is premised on my invention Mothako Africography Research Framework (MARF), which is a research science framework that underpins African cultural knowledge and language as a template and the ontological primacy of African agency and essence. The implication of this methodological approach is that the African story must be based on the African problem domain and must be consistently narrated from an Africanist point of view at all times. You cannot have a coloniser or colonial descendant becoming, being or serving as the primary or sole narrator and writer of African stories. This would constitute a serious case of sacrilege and miseducation. This would be the same as a man narrating a story of what it feels like to go through the travails of pregnancy when he is not tangibly capable of such a lived experience.
NWASA Update Issue 05 – NWASA
As a writer, Mocholoko has published more than 8 books, written more than 12 books and produced hundreds of unpublished manuscripts. Some of the books and articles (including unpublished) are Sesotho Dictionary of Mathematics, African Origin of Mathematics, The Sacred Knowledge of the Desert, The Philosophy of the Triangle, A Woman in the Bush, Ontological States of the Object, African Telegraphy and Indigenous Innovation, The Basotho Origin of Mathematics, The Numerical Logic of the Basotho, African Philosophy of Co-existentialism and a whole lot more! He has also co-composed with Vusi Mahlasela and Lebogang Lance Nawa the lyrics of the song, Universal Prayer, in Mahlasela’s latest compilation, Umoya.
Mocholoko Dr. Zulumathabo Vusumuzi Lefalamang Zulu joined NWASA on 22 August 2018; four months after the organisation was founded on 25 May 2018 at Kwa-Langa Estate, Midrand, Gauteng. His member registration is No.74; meaning that he was the 74th person to officially enlist with the organisation which has since growth to currently 650 plus members and counting in South Africa, Africa and overseas.
Barely a month later, on 24 September 2018, he made his meteoric presence and rise within the ranks of NWASA membership and beyond by being the first to deliver a seminal public lecture titled, African Calendar and its meaning to oral literary traditions. From there, he blazed media airwaves with his subliminal teachings through interviews. Our own quarterly journal, UPDATE, featured an interview with him in its April-June 2024 edition, unaware of the secrets of the universe that it was his farewell appearance. Perhaps only a sage like him knew that but kept the wisdom from us.
We were looking forward to spending, together with him, many years of glory in literature production and promotion under the NWASA banner. But that was not to be. We will miss him immensely and find it difficult to remove his contact particulars from our registry. Nevertheless, we will take solace in his timeless work and look ahead to immortalise his life and literary prowess through the remembrance of his works via events and publications, subject to approval by the family. We send our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family, relatives, NWASA members and hope that they all find comfort that Mocholoko has left parts of him in all of us to live forever in our memories with his favourite quote: “For we are the unbought and unsold architects of our collective sacrosanct destiny, unimpeded and undefined by the calamitous events of the terrestrial space. In tribute to the erudite African ancestors who have gone before us.” Tsela Tshweu, Mosupatsela! Segadime morago!
As we bid farewell to this sage, we cannot help but notice that like his forebears in the arts industry in South Africa, his exit is not as grand as he (like them) lived – and the finger points back to us; the living within the cultural industry, the state, and the society as a whole!
In South Africa, Black artists, it seems, are valuable only if they are on the public domain. Behind the scenes, they are left to endue isolated, lonesome, and painful wait for their transit. So too Mocholoko was subjected to this. When his health began to deteriorate, marked by the amputation of one leg after the other and the partial loss of sight, he called out – via the media – for help from the nation through a crowd-funding initiative. That did not yield the desired results until to the end when those who really cared for him now run around to raise funds for funeral arrangements.
For Mocholoko Zulumathabo Zulu, death is not the end, but the beginning of yet another life yonder in the company of the other living dead; the likes of our Founding President, Nana Kefuoe Walter Chakela!
Issued by Dr. Lebogang Lance Nawa
NWASA Secretary-General