The Khoi-San are an ethnic group residing in parts of South Africa and Namibia. They are the first nations people of South Africa going back to about 60,000 years. They were dispossessed of their lands as the colonists moved inwards from the Cape and the Bantus from the North, the Khoi-Sans eventually settled in the interiors of the harsh and unforgiving Kalahari Desert. The Khoi-San people suffered from harsh racial discrimination and cultural annihilation first by the colonists and then by the apartheid policies.
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| Scenes from a vintage film about the Khoi-Sans |
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| Scenes from a vintage film about the Khoi-Sans |
The colonists deliberately tried to suppress the indigenous culture of the Khoi-San. They were punished for speaking their own tongue and forced to adopt the lifestyle of the colonists. They were given new names, new religions and entirely new identities. Gradually the Khoi-San lost memories of their own culture and traditions. They forgot what it meant to be a Khoi-San.
The years of assault on the
Khoi-San destroyed their communities and deprived them of the cultural and
spiritual resources needed to launch a successful struggle to secure their
rights as indigenous people. The material impoverishment, lack of inspirational
heroes and erasure of the cultural and spiritual traditions of the Khoi-San has
had devastating consequences on the community. In the Western Cape, gangsterism
is endemic amongst the Khoi-San youth (also labeled as Coloured) and they
account for 60-80% of the prison population. There are several cases of
HIV/AIDS and TB outbreaks in the Khoi-San settlements. To make matters worse,
heroin abuse and foetal alcohol syndrome plague their communities future.
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