Welcome home to Stuurman’s spirit

SPIRITUAL repatriation is something not all South Africans may be able to fathom, but in cases where there are no earthly remains to be found, it is an important symbolic gesture to bring at least some degree of healing and closure to family members and communities.

This purpose was achieved with the spiritual repatriation of MK members Selby Mavuso, Sizwe Kondile and Johannes Sambo last June, more than three decades after they were murdered by assassins from the notorious Vlakplaas unit.

Closer to home, but relating to a time further back in our troubled past, the Eastern Cape this week prepares symbolically to receive the spirit of Khoi leader Dawid Stuurman.

Sydney, Australia is where the man now considered to be one of South Africa’s earliest freedom fighters met his end in 1830, having been banished there by the British colonial powers of the day.

Stuurman, who tirelessly fought colonialism as early as 1808, was reportedly buried in a cemetery near what is now Sydney’s Central Railway Station, before later being reburied in a mass grave elsewhere in the city.

Much of South African history is focussed on the bitter struggle against the evil that was apartheid, and rightly so.

But neither should we forget the degradation and injustices the Khoi and San people were subjected to from the 17th century onwards, when men and women like Stuurman were systematically stripped of land and livestock, and forced into servitude on farms.

Let us welcome home with pride and gratitude the delegation of Khoi leaders, traditional healers, Stuurman descendants and members of the provincial legislature expected to return tomorrow.

We particularly commend the efforts of MPL Christian Martin, who has been instrumental in bringing Stuurman’s spirit home.

Martin dedicated nearly four years to this quest and even vowed not to cut his hair until it was achieved.

A ceremony to lay Stuurman to rest will take place at the Sarah Baartman Heritage Centre in Hankey on Friday.

Like Baartman before him, he has waited a very long time for this final restoration of his dignity.

Stuurman’s story is one that all South Africans can learn from and we must honour him as the heroic man that history has proved him to be.