Sun, Sep 27, 2020 page4

• South Africa’s Khoisan seek better recognition

  • AFP, PRETORIA
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  A giant bronze statue of former South African president Nelson Mandela overlooks a big black tent that has become a fixture on the lawns of the South African president’s office in Pretoria.

  The tent houses campaigners from the Khoisan community — South Africa’s first inhabitants, whose presence in the country has been dated by archeologists to thousands of years.

  For the past two years, the protesters have been camping outside the seat of government, demanding official recognition of their languages and calling for talks over land ownership.

  

  “King Khoisan South Africa,” a leader of the Khoisan community, poses for a photograph in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Tuesday.

  Photo: AFP

  They also want the word “colored” — the mixed-race tag that they have been carrying since apartheid and which is still largely used in official documents — to be abolished.

  The group came here in 2018, walking 1,000km, in a bid to secure an audience with the authorities.

  “We will wait here until we have what we came for,” said one of their leaders, who calls himself “King Khoisan South Africa.”

  Union Buildings is an imposing 110-year-old structure that has housed colonial, apartheid and democratic leaders including Mandela and now South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

  Placards in front of the tent bear various messages.

  One has inscriptions in Afrikaans saying that Ramaphosa does not give a damn — “We have been here for more than one year and what does he do? Nothing.”

  Ramaphosa last year signed into law the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act, which grants more autonomy to the Khoisan community.

  However, some of the Khoisan remain unsatisfied, and see the law as the starting point for a constitutional and cultural struggle.

  It is unclear how many Khoisan there are, in a population of 59 million — and their identity is also a subject of debate.

  “We talk about Khoi herders and San hunter-gatherers, but archeologically, it’s hard to tell them apart,” University of the Witwatersrand’s Origins Centre curator Tammy Reynard said.

  This month, as South Africa marks its heritage month and attempts to recover from a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, communities such as the Khoisan have been reflecting and questioning their fractured identity.

  The Khoisan have been referred to in the past as “bushmen” — and when the Dutch settlers landed in South Africa in the 17th century, they called them Hottentots, a word derived from the famous clicks in their languages.

  “Classified coloreds want to know who they are — they are coming together like never before,” Indigenous First Nation Advocacy SA founder Anthony Philip Williams said.

  The virus “lockdown put a magnifying glass on the inequality that we have inherited,” said Denver Toroga, a Khoisan-language advocate and poet. “But I think it also helped us go beyond the need to acquire wealth and seek a different type of cultural wealth.”

  The much-publicized issue of handing back farmland taken during white supremacy must include restitution for the Khoisan, as well as for black communities, King Khoisan said.

  “You cannot talk about identity outside of land,” Williams said. “We must engage government for what is called a negotiated settlement. The resources of this land belong to our forefathers.”
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