I here want to tackle a serious and vexing issue which poses a threat to the Khoi Revivalist sector and to all South Africans. It is a painful matter to talk about but it cannot go unchecked. It is as serious as the racist outbursts on social media by the likes of Vicky Momberg and Penny Sparrow. These are the foul, contemptuous and racist outbursts used with impunity on social media by that part of the lunatic fringe or Fake Khoi with their fake histories and fraudulent claims. If one studies this phenomenon we can see that it traces back to the same extremism of the white right-wing and it goes back to PW Botha’s strategy to indoctrinate those labelled “Coloured”.
Those who spread hatred and false Apartheid history and make false claims about themselves and for their own personal advancement are doing immeasurable harm to the cause of those Khoi and Camissa who are seeking restorative justice for our communities. Our aims are to address our dignity within broader SA society and not narrow ethno-nationalism, separatism and championship of racist agendas and antagonisms to our fellow African cousins.
I want to appeal to the genuine Khoi communities and to Camissa people in general and all South Africans to challenge these racists and to begin to also take these to court and the SAHRC. Also please block these from your timelines on social media and isolate the old Apartheid nonsense. Many track back to the SAP, security police, informers and Cape Coloured Corp of the SADF who opposed our struggle and now continue to make mischief or are after some material gain through their mischief.
I put much effort into challenging colonial history and education so that our people may explore their past free of constriction by Apartheid walls and anti-intellectualism. Frequently I find myself abused on social media by these merchants of fakery posing as Khoi activists.
PW Botha asserted that there is a “Totale aanslag, sielkundig, polities, informasie, ekonomies en militêr” and it was from this concept of TOTAL ONSLAUGHT he developed a counterinsurgency strategy called the TOTAL STRATEGY complete with a more effective total communications and reputation management strategy called STRATCOM. Botha described a communist “Total Onslaught” on the good, White, Christian, pro-western values that the apartheid system sought to uphold. Total Onslaught for Botha had to be countered by a “Total Strategy” inside and outside of South Africa using whateber manipulation could be mustered focused on many different areas and this included winning the hearts and minds of “Coloured” people so that they see themselves as “Bruine Afrikaners” and not the same as “Black” people but as allies of White Christian values.
The white nationalist ideology and concept of “Swart Gevaar” was then deliberately exported and race-antagonism fanned in “Coloured” areas and in rural towns in particular. The Cape Coloured Corps in the SADF, the SAP, the Coloured Education department and schools and the evangelical Christian churches were used as vehicles to propagate the “Coloured” were not “black” but “bruin” and they spread the false history and doctrine that all “Coloured” people were the descendants of so-called “Bruin” Khoi and San who were the only true “owners” of South Africa. Those like these racist fake Khoi characters who propagate PW Botha’s theories as though this represents liberation for the Khoi are elevating the ideas of the man who was most responsible for presiding over forced removals of Khoi and Camissa people (“Coloured”) in our lifetime.
This Total Strategy doctrine propagated that “Blacks – Bantu – Nguni” were an alien race that invaded South Africa from West Africa and the Great Lakes and that whites had come to the aid of the Khoi and San to protect them from these invaders. They also spread the false story that the Khoi had always lived in the Cape for thousands of years, which academic research shows to be false. The Khoi had certainly been in the Cape before 1652 but had only arrived as migrants in the Western Cape by 1050AD and in the Eastern Cape by 650 AD. Botha’s propaganda was aggressively pushed to indoctrinate “Coloured” youth away from making alliances across the Apartheid race silos with “Black” people. He also tried to squash any recognition of African, Indian and Southeast Asian slavery heritage, as part of building a wall between “Coloured Bruine Afrikaners” and what he saw as subversive Indians.
This aspect of Botha’s strategy was to combat the BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENT which had a different meaning for the term “BLACK” where the BCM said this was “ALL PEOPLE OF COLOUR”. Up to the adoption of the TOTAL STRATEGY first Africans were called Kaffers, then Natives and the Bantu. Botha killed two birds with one stone when he ethnicised the term “Black” to mean only those that his party had designated as “Bantu”.
Botha was not original in making these statements as this was classic US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual phraseology that spells this out too. Most important to what I want to say here is how this US military manual defined the “information” aspect….. They defined it as appeals to historical, religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs….. and how Botha’s TOTAL STRATEGY was effected within the communities labelled “Coloured” and how this is still being rolled out on the fringes of the Khoi revivalist and restorative justice movement. Also I want to point out how the FAKE KHOI ACTIVISTS and the fakery and fraudulent revivalist elements undermines the genuine Khoi Revivalists and the South African state through fomenting conflict and antagonism within communities labelled “Coloured”. Effectively this old counterinsurgency methodology exploits ignorance and uses fake Khoi history, narrow ethno-nationalism, and people posing as Khoi leaders to subvert the genuine Khoi Revivalists and to stir up antagonism within the Khoi Revivalist movement and between these and other communities and ultimately to subvert social cohesion, law and order and the South African state. To ignore this would be a big mistake.
Both the genuine Khoi Revivalists and their organised formations as well as the state and also the SA Human Rights Commission must take action to stem this subversive and racist tide of BOTHA-KHOISM.
A set of norms and values by the Khoi Revivalist Movement is necessary to show the public what Khoi Revivalism is NOT and some key points that defines the fakery also needs to be published and spread widely to isolate the fakery and fraudulent subversion. It was a very effective move and within a relatively short period the effects of the TOTAL STRATEGY REGARDING COLOUREDS was being manifested in communities.
Botha had actually built on a very old SPLIT AMONG KHOI PEOPLE manifested by the PACIFIED COLLABORATOR KHOI and the RESISTER KHOI traditions. The former were those who accepted being in the old Commandos against fellow Khoi, /Xam, Gqunukhwebe and Xhosa. The latter resisted conscription into commandos and miltia, and the Pandoeren Corps and its successors right up to the formation of the Cape Coloured Corps. Resister Khoi made common cause with their cousins in the Gqunukhwebe and Xhosa. There are 9 Khoi tribes and clans in the Xhosa.
Botha and the National Party regime supported by white academics spread an intellectual culture that falsely propagated that there was no African civilisation or social history in South Africa. They implied that most of South Africa was empty of people except for small groups of San and Khoi. The entire more complex and old PEOPLING OF SOUTH AFRICA was falsified. The terms “Bantu”, “Nguni”, “San”, KhoiSan” and “Khoi” were false presented as anthropological “RACIAL TYPES” as though these were specific “group identities” rather than simply academic terms used to distinguish linguistic streams and old roots of micro-communities who drifted across Southern Africa from 3000 years ago. Research evidence and artefacts were not exposed to the public and in cases such as the Mapungubwe finds actually locked up and kept from public view and discourse.
The true story of the PEOPLING OF SOUTH AFRICA through the coming together of micro-communities with many different names now no longer current, representing hunters, herders and famers between 100 AD and 350 AD, and giving birth to new peoples with new names, has been kept from South Africans. This is the legacy of Apartheid Total Strategy manipulation in the worlds of information and intellectual life.
The ignorance displayed by the Fake Botha-style Khoi element is astounding. The people that they disparage using the term NGUNI have a history that goes back over 1800 years in South Africa where the San, Khoi, Tsonga, Bakoni and other peoples over time came together and a new people emerged in KZN. These drifted over a long period of time Southwards, just like the Khoi migrated southwards. They connected up in time with the migrant Khoi and early //Kosa in the Eastern Cape and this is how a confederation of Xhosa people emerged. As much as around 30% of people labelled "Coloured" have Khoi ancestry so too around 20% of Xhosa have Khoi ancestry and can show evidence of 9 Khoi formations within their community. The cousin connections with Xhosa, with Zulu, with Sotho and Tswana are a fact of our history - as much as it is a fact of history that some Khoi remained in the Cape as distinct groups. This fact should be no threat to any but those with racist and separatist views.
That element of the Fake Khoi revivalists that are undermining the struggle of the Khoi people today are so imbued with Apartheid Propaganda that they cannot see the beautiful story of South Africa’s pre-colonial history and the Ties that Bind Us. Genuine Khoi Revivalist leaders and groups see no threat in the real story because it places the Khoi as being central as a FOUNDATION PEOPLE in the history and heritage of the Peopling of South Africa. They see in the true social history a coherent story that actually strengthens the fight against marginalisation and discrimination of indigenous groups with San, Nama, Korana, Griqua and Cape Revivalist Khoi heritage, and of Camissa people in general. It strengthens the fight for restoration as an unrecognised AFRICAN people.
It is important that genuine Khoi revivalists fighting for their basic rights identify what constitutes fakery and fraudulent claims that undermine the struggle against continued marginalisation and discrimination. THESE ARE THE POINTS THAT IDENTIFY FAKERY:
1.) Racist and Hate-Speech language against fellow Africans and misusing the terms like BANTU, NGUNI, KAFFERS and BLACKS in the same manner as used under Apartheid and by racist organisations such as the AWB and BOEREMAG.
2.) Claims that say that all people who are labelled “Coloured” are the Khoi and that “Coloured” people are the only true descendants of the KHOI and that as such are the ONLY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE of South Africa.
3.) Abusing the foreign terms of “FIRST NATION” and “FIRST PEOPLE” in a manner inconsistent with South African history and Heritage, rather than using the more accurate description of FOUNDATION PEOPLE .
4.) Making false claims that those they brand as BANTU, NGUNI, KAFFERS and BLACKS are aliens that invaded the land of the Khoi and saying that the people they label as such are not indigenous Africans of South Africa, and say that the Khoi must secede from South Africa and expel the aliens.
5.) They spread a false colonial and Apartheid history of the Khoi and San and make outrageous claims based on these false histories including claims of being leaders and royalty, and changing their names, creating entities that either never existed or are a warping of what did exist.
6.) Stereotyping of Khoi and San people and heritage to fit European and colonial descriptions using texts in a mischievous and inappropriate manner so as to bring discredit to the history of indigenous people; while also being proponents of Apartheid style separatism, some even going as far as suggesting that they are a “pure race” free of “contamination”.
7.) Generally attacking all people who contradict their utterance, with abusive and threatening language and threat of violence.
8.) Falsely representing Khoi and San people as though they were legitimate leaders talking on behalf of all with Khoi and San heritage, signing agreements and manoeuvring themselves for recognition of status and recipients of land and resources for personal gain.
9.) Insulting and trashing others labelled “Coloured” or Camissa as being “half-caste” and also alien because they celebrate a multiple heritage including a broader range of indigenous African ancestors, Indian and Southeast Asian slave ancestors, other ancestors who were migrants of colour and non-conformist Europeans.
10.) Attacks on the state and on liberation veterans in general as being responsible for the condition of the Khoi and San, rather than placing the blame squarely on colonialism and Apartheid, and failures to address the legacy of discrimination and marginalisation faced by San, Nama, Korana, Griqua, Cape Khoi Revivalists and Camissa people.
It is vital that all genuine Khoi activists disassociate themselves from BOTHA-KHOISM so that our struggles, as Khoi Revivalists and Camissa heritage activists, is not undermined by racism and fakery. My work in research and writing aims to separate mythology and Apartheid and colonial overlays on our history and heritage. This work opens up further exploration which we were not allowed to do in the past. Some things which some hold dear will be demolished but overall a whole new view of our past opens up and the dignity of all of our people in our diversity and in the ties that bind us, will enhance our lives and contribute to our total liberation in the family of African peoples. Threatening and disparaging researchers because it challenges fakery cannot be ignored.
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