It’s urgent that we incorporate the Khoisan into the mainstream of SA

IT IS rather uncomfortable, this consciousness, I mean. Part of the discomfort is that yours truly is also part of the crazy game. Let’s face it, the Khoi and the San are the most ancient citizens of this country and continent.

But we cannot speak their languages. Why I ask. I love languages but I somehow never asked myself why the San languages avoided my love for language. This consciousness is embarrassing to me.

The majority in Cape Town is socalled coloured. It is my presumption that they mostly carry the genes of the Khoi and San. But why, I ask myself, don’t they speak the languages of these glorious peoples. More, why is this democratic government silent on the issue.

I know the Khoisan writing on our Coat of Arms, but does it not sound like a mere gimmick when the real South African consciousness about these people is concerned? It is a disgrace that this beautiful country treats this treasure of life in this manner.

I am calling on the Ministry of Arts and Culture to ponder this ethnicity and devise ways and means to incorporate them in the mainstream of our country and society. It is urgent. I can feel the desperation in my brain thinking about this. In my growth in South Africa the image of these people has not been part of the intellect in our discourse.

I still need to meet a person studying the language of the San. Further, introduce me to somebody teaching the languages of the Khoi and the San. Why are we not given bursaries to study their languages? The most popular moments of these peoples on television are in some tongue-in-cheek humorous ads which make me shudder.

Is this indicative of the depth of our intellect?

In the Qaru (Karoo) I used to meet peoples with the San features, but for some weird reason never deepened consciousness on the issue. I am embarrassed by the shallowness of my mind in this aspect. I am more ashamed of my consciousness when I become aware that these, the first peoples of this continent and the world, have been and are still ignored by the so-called “civil” consciousness of people like the South African.

It is also worrying. Join me and let’s find a way in which we can glorify these peoples. Let us as people find ways in which we can narrate the many depths of these people. We need to tell the world that our past treatment of them is a human disgust that must never be repeated.

There is a shudder in my body when thinking of the many possibilities that our endless stupidities have denied us. I am trying to run away from the narrowness of an anthropological or sociological view to the broad scope of possibilities offered by life. The world consciousness is calling on us as a nation to do something. Let’s do something. Something bigger than a cliché intervention.

It is for me not so much about our past, but rather more about a future that these people’s lives can teach us. It is in search of the primary aspects of life that I suggest that the many depths of these people be considered and appraised. It is also important to liberate them from a national discourse. I feel that they are more of a continental concern than the narrow boundaries of one state.

It is also paramount that we observe the destruction of these people’s cultures as a wound that, we as a world, need to heal. It is not an easy one-day project. It is a necessary discourse that cannot be avoided.

I shudder to think that these people are part of a new democracy that does not see them. Come let us abandon the mainstream roads in search of a broader view. Life wants to be widened in the most tender and beautiful ways that we possess. Okay I sound a bit riddled with guilt like the white left during apartheid… so what?

The bigger player in this discourse is the state. Its silence worries me. In cabinet, people like Blade Nzimande are very aware of this discourse. Let’s ask them to get involved. I know we can. We are not to be allowed to fail this discourse. It is as important to the country as it is to the world. I think that in Africa we are the people who must confront it first to teach the continent something about the many depths of the human entity.

It is not something that our country with so many ethnicities can avoid. The state should not avoid it. I think that we owe these people the grace of a continent that still lives in the harshness of a cruel and forgetful world. It is wonderful to live in a world where these people have taught us the many graces of life. It is through them that we are likely to see the beauties of our many glorious lives. It is no debate that they have seldom been seen in places like Parliament.

But that is exactly why I am proposing that they be given a space to exhibit a social dexterity not yet seen. It is important that the many tools of this democracy be employed to help us exhibit the dynamisms of these peoples.

We owe it to the world that their essence be lauded by its peoples. In the meantime can somebody tell me where I can go and learn any of the San languages. I know it is a good thing to do because I know I will be accessing the many depths of their sociologies via language.