Long walk to recognition

02 March 2015 - 02:04 By Aphiwe Deklerk
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NOT IMMIGRANTS: A group of 18 KhoiKhoi walked 1000km from Northern Cape to Cape Town
NOT IMMIGRANTS: A group of 18 KhoiKhoi walked 1000km from Northern Cape to Cape Town
Image: ESA ALEXANDER

A group of KhoiKhoi activists has walked 1000km from a location in the Kalahari Desert, near Kimberley, to Cape Town - a 10-day journey - to demand that the government drop the word "coloured".

On Saturday the group of 18 held a cleansing ceremony at the Castle of Good Hope.

Group member Neal Hartman said that to describe his people as "coloured" was racist.

"KhoiKhoi is a proper word that can be used instead ," he said.

He added: "Our language is dying; our culture is dying. There are millions of brown people who don't know where they come from, that are still without an identity."

Aaron Messelaar, administrator of the Griqua Royal House, said: "The government says it has scrapped the Racial Classification Act and yet when you go into any department it is still there. They say we are all African but at the end of the day they still treat us as immigrants. We have claimed the Griqua identity since 1813 right up until today." Additional reporting by Bobby Jordan

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