Khoisan to reaffirm identity as first people of southern Africa

Caryn Dolley:

Khoisan leaders are gearing up to launch an organisation and more awareness campaigns in a bid to reaffirm their identity as "the indigenous nation of southern Africa".

President of the Indigenous Consciousness Movement (ICM), Khoi Frederick Konstable, said only 16 of about 35 original Khoi clans still exist.

He said the ICM operated countrywide and was established this year "to bring about the restoration of the monarchy of the Khoisan people in South Africa". He believes the Khoi lost their "heritage, language and religion a long time ago" when colonial powers claimed their land.

Later this month the South African First Indigenous and Human Rights Organisation (Safihro), which is already functional in other parts of the country, will be launched in the Western Cape.

Konstable said he does not support the idea of having to state one's race when filling out job application forms and said Safihro, a part of the ICM, would focus on work-related issues such as "to combat affirmative action in the work place".

He denounced the term "coloured" saying that "under the dispensation of the new democracy being classified as a 'coloured' makes it more difficult to get a decent job. Even after 350 years the indigenous people are still marginalised in the country of their birth."

This month awareness campaigns will be held in Bishop Lavis and Eerste River to teach people about their heritage and to make them aware of their true status as descendants of the indigenous people.

Such campaigns have already been held in Athlone and Atlantis where Konstable said attendance was "very good".

He defined the Khoisan people as "aborigines and descendants of the first people in South Africa".

Konstable said the ICM was not based on race but on the claiming of one's heritage.

He said anyone able to prove their identity as that of a Khoisan descendant or anyone "willing to adhere to the principles of Khoisan, to acknowledge Khoisan as the first indigenous nation of South Africa" was welcome to join.

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