Author's take on coloured identity
New book traces the heritage of SA’s coloured people
HIS BOOK about coloured identity is timely as it has been launched just before Heritage Day. Bastaards or Humans – The Unspoken Heritage of Coloured People, by Dr Ruben Richards, was launched at the Castle of Good Hope last night.
Cape Town-born Richards said he felt the need to address and trace the heritage and identity of coloured people without feeling marginalised.
He said the book was inspired by the displacement of his people in South African society as they are constantly “bastardised and racially discriminated against”.
Richards said the title stems from the Dutch word “Baarstard”. “This was the word they used to refer to coloured people during colonisation and apartheid.”
In the book he unravels its history and meaning. “The authorities simply did not know what to do with this wonderfully heterogeneous offspring emerging from liaisons between Khoi, slave, African, European and everyone else. So they condemned it morally – and called is Bastaard,” he said.
Richards said the word stuck with him and he often wondered about the identity and heritage which he represents.
“So I ask the question: What am I to you – a bastaard or a human? And you retort and say, but of course, you are human. And I say, prove it to me that you regard me as a human. And you say nothing,” said Richards.
He explained that the book seeks to address three questions which he feels a lot of the coloured people battle with throughout their lives: “Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going?”
Richards said that he wants to enlighten people and create a platform where coloured people can answer these innocent questions without the discussion being suddenly culturally controversial and politically explosive.
He said that through writing this book he wants to change the overwhelming apologetic attitude coloured people have about themselves.
“They are full-blooded first-class South Africans after all, with a unique socio-cultural history linked to the original peoples of this land, the indigenous Khoisan,” said Richards.
“I want to make a contribution to building our nation in line with the vision emblazoned on our coat of arms – diverse nations unite – a Khoisan expression. Because the wisdom of these ancestors and their descendants needs to be heard again and again,” he said.
Richards added that it is important for people to know where they come from, to know their history and to be proud of it and, therefore, he seeks to illustrate that in his book.
“Unfortunately, history has conspired to bastardise and demonise this identity. In part, this book is part of a growing corpus of literature to rectify the imbalance and a call for not only coloureds but all South Africans to take their rightful place in a country we can be proud of,” said Richards.
Khoisan heritage and slave history specialist Lucelle Campbell said Richards’s book is an affirmation to coloured people that there is no shame “in claiming and owning their indigenous and slave identities.”