The Khomani have nothing of any economic value except their culture and veld knowledge.
Julie Taylor’s article (“Selling those authentically exotic San”, June 28) articulates her abhorrence of my bringing a Khomani San/Bushman family to Jozi and, allegedly, exhibiting them as a kind of “living zoo”.
She draws parallels between my conduct and that of Donald Bain, who brought a group from this community to Johannesburg in 1936. They went on display at the Empire Exhibition to gain public support for a Bushman “reserve” where they could live undisturbed.
At the time, most of the Khomani had been evicted from what is now the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (their traditional home) and had begun a long, sad period as landless, itinerant labourers.
Bain did indeed gain (white) South Africans’ buy-in for his proposed reserve but his petitions to government fell on deaf ears and he was bankrupted by his efforts to help the Khomani. For the next 60 years, they continued to suffer the kind of persecution and prejudice to which the San/Bushmen have been subjected for generations.
The land claim the Khomani won in 1999 was designed to alleviate this suffering but has yet to fulfil its promise of restoring not only land but also prosperity and dignity to the Khomani. This is largely because of government’s ineptitude and indifference. To this day, the community has no housing or basic services.
The farm management training that the government was contractually bound to provide at the time of the land transfer has yet to materialise, although the matter went to the Northern Cape High Court in Kimberley in October 2012 and the government chose not to contest it. A settlement offer is being negotiated.
Serious allegations
Taylor infers that both Bain and I are guilty of exploiting the Khomani for personal gain, and of treating them like circus acts.
“Glyn could easily have given her talk without the Kruipers’ presence,” she writes, and asks: “Was it necessary for [the Bushmen, as this family wants to be known] to be clad in loincloths, beads and skins?” She suggests that this was a deliberate approach on my part for the benefit of my listeners and ultimately myself.
These are serious allegations and Bain would have been all too familiar with them. It seems to have escaped Taylor, however, that the celebrations and talk she attended marked the launch of a book about this family (What Dawid Knew: A Journey with the Kruipers), the content of which they were intimately involved in guiding.
Wouldn’t it have been strange – not to mention rude – to exclude them from the launch of “their” book? The Kruipers were invited to the occasion and were excited and pleased to come. They sat in the front row and saw my talk about our journey – and their history – which is now being rolled out countrywide. Is that not their right? And my duty?
And most of them wore their traditional skins with pride and bearing, as they do for all high days and holidays. It was their choice, not mine.
One of the reasons I was adamant about bringing the Bushmen to town was because they have been the subject of so many books, photographs, films and research that they have never seen.
Often I have sat in the Kalahari with them and was asked: “What’s happened to so-and-so [invariably an academic]? I gave him/her some precious information and I’ve never seen him/her again!’”
Heritage preservation
Not only are the Khomani largely left in ignorance about what is produced about them but they usually don’t benefit financially from these enterprises either.
Taylor will have heard in my talk that the Kruipers will receive a huge share of the book’s profits. These will go into a trust that I am founding for Khomani heritage preservation and revival, meaning that the chances of the book’s revenue coming close to reimbursing my expedition and research expenses (roughly R350 000, which I generated by remortgaging my house) are slim. A high price indeed for what Taylor charges is an attempt on my part to “boost [my] personal brand with some ‘Bushman mystique’”.
I’m pleased to have brought the Khomani’s plight to the attention of suburban, well-heeled and powerful people and to raise awareness of the shocking human rights abuses that continue to take place.
The Bushmen who joined us that night did, indeed, make ready for a “windfall”, as Taylor cynically puts it. She’s right, “they sold [their crafts] particularly well”, and the next day we went shopping for food.
“Strategic essentialism” it may be to anthropologists such as Taylor, but, for the Kruipers, it’s a means of providing for their starving, beleaguered families. The Khomani have nothing of any economic value except their culture and veld knowledge. Who could blame them for capitalising on it?
Patricia Glyn is an eco-edventurer, author and filmmaker