//ambassade van die swart gevaar//

Mesquite is an aggressively thorny tree native to the Americas. Sacred to that place & its people who have used it for food, weaving, construction & much more.

It was introduced to South Afrika in the late 1800s by colonialists for fuel, fodder & shade in the more arid regions of the country. Useful in its early adoption days until with time, lack of natural competition & 60 m deep roots, the tree thrived & outcompeted the local flora, & its initial value eventually transitioned into vilification.

Reclassified from "introduced plant" to "aggressively invasive alien species" by the very invaders who forced it away from home to this unknown place. An irony that is as obvious as it is cruel. Does this remind you of another sacred species, this time moved in the other direction? Taken for its commercial & private value. A useful resource to leverage until much like mesquite, it became an unworthy headache. A thorn to the status quo. Asking for too many liberties & expecting freedom, space & life for free.

It is important to note the deliberate choice of language when it comes to these transplants. The language that sanitises the reality of the experience & washes guilt & responsibility away from the doers like the first summer rains.

A slave/invasive species "chooses" to leave home and go infest unknown lands. Introduced species/enslaved people are forced into the cruelty. Enslavement is an active task executed by an enslaver. Deliberate & thorough. There's a important distinction there.

A coloniser chooses to invade a place & much like relocated mesquite, chokes the land, takes up far too much space & resources & fights with bayonet & thorn, living in fear of the danger and violence that may be reciprocated some day.

An immigrant may seek a different route & try to integrate and co-exist. Not to be confused with an ex-pat, cosplaying at immigration and often moving like an aspirational coloniser. Reaping from the land, exporting and not always putting something back in.

I like mesquite for the duality it represents. The transplants doing their best to exist & thrive in an unknown place and the invaders, doing their best to conquer it all. The nerve and irony of claimed ancestral land while they sleep atop bones on stolen land.