The Lie of 1652. Patric Tariq Mellet
But by far the greatest and permanent displacement of all groups would be as a result of European invasion and the wars of forced removal and destruction of the farming communities of indigenous Africans – San, Khoe and Xhosa.
Leadership and governance traditions among the Khoe
In the over 500 years from 1000 CE, the distinct southern Khoe developed sustainable micro-communities with their own brand of social cohesion. This was rooted in a long tradition of avoidance of the state-formation (or kingdom) process. In the northern parts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique, the Khoe largely assimilated with other communities that went on to form large states with hierarchical structures. As the Khoe moved southwards they kept the character of an alternative path, and therein lay their distinctiveness.
It is interesting to note though that all the southern African states or kingdoms that followed the Nkope-Kwale influence, including the kingdoms within the Xhosa confederation, had as their supreme leaders a figure that had ‘divinity’ or ‘priestliness’ vested in leadership – Nkosi or Moerena or Lord. In this type of leadership there are two different themes to be explored – priest as servant of the people and intercessor with the great force of nature; or a ‘divine right’ to overlordship and dictatorship. The former reveals a degree of synergy with the older Khoe and San approach to leadership.
Abrahams112 elaborates as follows on the practice of collective non-hierachical leadership among the Khoe, with reference to the book by Elphick that was mentioned earlier:
The Khoisan displayed a considerable degree of social homogeneity. They did not seem to have chiefs, or if they did they certainly did not hold them in respect … Elphick used (the) concept (of chieftainship) with many reservations. He noted that the ‘… Khoikhoi failed to develop a form of hereditary chieftainship that could hold society together even during relatively short periods of hardship, …’ He also argued that ‘… the effective power of chiefs varied as much as the trappings of their office …’ In view of these reservations it is tempting to wonder whether the Khoisan could be said to have had chiefs at all … The Europeans who came to the Cape had what may be called a cultural bias towards hierarchy … The issue of who were regarded as authority figures within Khoisan society must be separated from the fact that the Europeans preferred to deal with individuals rather than collectives and would designate a particular group after that individual: ‘Herry’s people’, ‘Gonnema’s people’ and so forth.
In my reading of Elphick he disregards his own caution to a great extent and fails to identify the mischief at work, whereas Abrahams hits the nail on the head in identifying the thought behind the European bias. I would go on to emphasise too that the Europeans’ main motivation was to find a means of transferring land and resource ownership to themselves from the commonwealth of the indigenous Africans that was convenient for their own legal systems. They needed figures with vested authority to sign treaties and to transfer power to them.
Muthien113 makes the following point with regard to colonial imposition of male domination and European imposition of social order by the sword: ‘Scholarship on, as well as practices of, the Khoesan evidence normative nonviolence, as well as gender egalitarianism. These ancient norms and practices are still evident in modern KhoeSan oral history and practice.’
The Europeans projected and imposed the concept of male-only leadership on indigenous communities to reflect their own social norms, with the result that the imposed ‘chiefs and kapteins’ paradigm of hierarchical leadership also became a male affair. Later the missionaries further overlaid their patriarchal faith on Khoe society, so that to this day male domination in the traditional leadership arena is a strong feature. But as argued by Muthien,114 women in Khoe leadership and gender egalitarianism were strong features of pre-colonial society; the colonial imposition of a male supremacy order in society has always been challenged. In the 19th-century Khoe revivalist movement (Griqua, Korana, Orlam Afrikaner, etcetera) the older indigenous tradition of strong female leadership was brought to the fore again, as is evidenced by the East Griqua women leaders Margarete Kok (died 1889) and her daughter Rachel Kok, who married Andrew Andries Stockenström le Fleur (known in popular parlance as ‘de Kneg’). A modern-day example is the election of Hendrina Martha Afrikaner (died 2011) to leadership of all the Orlam Afrikaners in 2009. Flexibility of gender roles has been much stronger among the San and Khoe than among other African peoples in South Africa, but in modern times the influences of European patriarchy and of royalism in broader African society have strongly impacted San and Khoe community life.
The southern Khoe, today referred to as the Cape Khoe, one of five formations regarded by international bodies as ‘indigenous peoples who face marginalisation and discrimination’, followed a trajectory that found a distinct social space. This space was somewhere between the large form of ‘state’ or ‘kingdom’’ with stratified subjects on the one hand, and small micro-communities or clans on the other. It took the form of council-led communities of federated micro-groups of clans. These southern Cape Khoe federal communities were resilient and organised, and had their own distinctive social cohesion by the time they engaged the Europeans.
Centuries later these forms of ‘government by the people for the people’ have found resonance in the contemporary world in the smallest and most democratic forms of government that enjoy closest proximity to people – such as People’s Councils in Cuba and Vietnam, or even the commune system of local government in Paris, France. In the late 19th century the struggle of the defeated Paris Commune became an inspiring symbol for global freedom movements that, alas, missed the point and adopted huge command-state models instead, which led to the demise of socialist systems in the 20th century. The core democratic model of Khoe societies still holds great lessons for 21st-century societies. This is a point to which I will return in the concluding chapter.
The Cape Khoe brought families of communities (clans) together into larger communities such as the Hessequa, Chainouqua, Cochoqua and so on with councils of leaders/elders (Bi’a – heads agreed by concensus) and council meetings presided over by a person recognised as a Kai Bi’a (great head). Structures were kept flat and democratic without concentration of power in leaders. The Kora terms Bi’a and Kai Bi’a were adopted for use by the present-day Gorachouqua community in preference over the trendy and unauthentic use of royal titles such as chief, paramount chief, or kaptein, which are not part of Cape Khoe heritage. I was privileged to be involved in the research and production of a guiding handbook and workshopping of this process of discovery with the Gorachouqua council, working closely with Kai Bi’a Hennie van Wyk and Bi’a Jeanette Abrahams, two of the leaders of the Gorachouqua community.
When communities grew too large and livestock too plentiful, groups split off and moved further south. Later, when they were under threat from colonialism, some communities were flexible enough to re-unite in single formations. There are no overt signs that the development of these community formations was as a result of any serious continuous antagonism or violent clashes. Friction was generally well managed. Skirmishes involving violence (and records of such do exist) were quickly subject to intervention and largely resolved through negotiation between councils of leaders of the different formations. A system of ‘paying tribute’ was used to show recognition and to make amends, and there were the innovative mock-battles and the ‘cattle-reeving system’ for dealing with infringements involving livestock losses.
Muthien115 states that ‘[m]any ancient indigenous societies, including the KhoeSan, were premised on a partnership model, characterised by horizontal linkages, egalitarianism, harmony and balance, employing constructive conflict resolution (rather than violence)’. The different formations in the southwestern Cape were also well networked as inter-reliant communities. A strong consciousness and practice of inter-reliance contributes towards non-violent resolution of conflict. Value-driven exchange was intricately bound up with values-driven interaction, and this would quickly expose the dishonesty employed by Europeans in the bartering and payment for livestock and other local products by offering tinsel and glitter rather than substantial exchange. As such, violations appeared in European–African relations before any shots were fired. The Khoe would first attempt to seek redress for the violations using their traditional methods. As will be seen in the next chapter, only when that failed after eight years had passed would they resort to the path of armed conflict