Khoisan activists condemn ‘Krotoa’ portrayal of history

A DISCUSSION about the newly-released movie Krotoa became heated when people from the coloured and Khoisan communities aired their reservations.

“We are not originally from Hanover Park and Lavender Hill. We were thrown there. The Khoisan stayed here in Camps Bay, but were also thrown out here. It is as if we did not exist.

“The colonialists must admit that what they did was wrong. In areas such as Manenberg and Hanover Park people are killing each other. Our land and identity was stolen,” Khoisan activist Denver Breda said. He was a panellist during a discussion about the movie.

The film is about a Khoi woman, Krotoa, who was a translator for the Dutch. Other panellists included the film’s writer Kaye Ann Williams and its

director Roberta Durrant. Mitchells Plain community activist and artist Blaq Pearl asked the panel, “Jan van Riebeeck came here to colonise, how did you manage to underplay that in the film?”

Williams said the film intended to highlight Krotoa. “I worked with youth in communities of Bonteheuwel and Grabouw. I saw how young girls did not know who they are. And that they did not realise that they came from someone so strong as Krotoa. If I knew this when I was 15, 16 years old, I would have made different choices. I wrote the film as a gift to young coloured women.”

Another Khoi activist Bradley van Sitters said: “So-called coloured people are the most imprisoned people in the world. Child abuse and alcohol and drug abuse are high.”

What happened 356 years ago could be linked to what happened in coloured communities today, he said.

“If you take into account the resistance the Khoi put at D’Almeida against the Portuguese, when they wanted to take their children and women, I don’t think that a 10-year-old Krotoa was given to Jan van Riebeeck. When the Dutch came here they pitched their tents right next to the huts of the Khoi, where the parade is today.”

After watching the movie he felt disturbed and was not proud of it, said Van Sitters.

“It was completely from a white man’s perspective. You did not see the entire Khoi tribes in it and the war between the Khoi and the Dutch was taken out of the movie. And Krotoa was portrayed through the eyes of Europeans. While filming the movie we asked the film-makers, to also include in it that it is fictional.”

Durrant said Van Riebeeck was 33 when he arrived at the Cape .

“He arrived with 100 men and set about building a fort. I did not do in-depth research, but when he came he had an objective. He had a reasonable relationship with the Khoi. Trading was one-sided and a decision was taken to take the land.”