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It is Gaborone that is far away
Again, the experience of the First Peoples of the Kalahari is apposite. Called ‘Bushmen’ of old, they, rejecting this label, call themselves by words that mean, in their various languages, ‘people.’ When anthropologists call them the San, or when the Government of Botswana, sat in Gaborone, calls them Remote Area Dwellers (RADs), they are not impressed. ‘It is the people in Gaborone who are the Remote Area Dwellers,’ they say. ‘It is Gaborone that is far away.’
D R . S T E W A R T G I L L A N BSc MDiv PhD
Jan Goliath -
Primus inter pares of the
San in South-Africa
Message
from people who have been moved against their will from Central
Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana Representatives of the
people who have been moved against our will, choice and consent
from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve during 1997 and 2002, have
consolidated this message. We hope that this message will
accompany the message of the President of the Republic of
Botswana, the Honorable Festus Mogae, in his visit to the United
Kingdom in June 2003.
Background
Information on the Bushmen of Southern Africa
by Survival International (Right Livelihood Award 1989) - The Bushmen are the
oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, where they have lived for at least
20,000 years. Their home is the Kalahari Desert, which is now divided between
Botswana, Namibia, Angola and South Africa.
Film
Recommendations
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A tale of Kalahari Desert Bushmen: “The
Great Dance – the Story of !Nqate”
"The Great Dance” is a fascinating documentary that examines the
unique relationship between Kalahari Desert Bushmen, or the San
people, and the harsh landscape of the Kalahari Desert in
Southern Africa.... |
 |
COSMIC AFRICA
Cosmic Africa is an extraordinary personal odyssey of African
astronomer, Thebe Medupe, who journeys into this ancient
continent’s astronomical past unveiling the deep connection
humans have with the cosmos... |
THE
SAN & THE KHOI PEOPLES and THE KHOISAN LANGUAGES
In parts from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
WHO ARE THE OPPRESSORS ?
The Tswana - and their western corporate
stirrup holders - The Tswanas are a tribe who
migrated from Central/East Africa to southern Africa during the 14th
century. The origin of the name ‘Tswana’ is a mystery, but is applied to a
number of groups who all speak the same language, have similar customs, but
separate names.
See
the
San Library /
References
Land,
Livestock and Leadership among the Ju/’hoansi San of North Western Botswana
(PDF) Abstract:
In Africa, indigenous peoples have had difficulties in gaining secure legal
rights to land and resources. The Ju/’hoansi San of the Republic of Botswana
have had to contend with governmental decisions that have not allowed groups
to claim land on the basis of customary tenure or longterm occupation. This
article examines some of the innovative ways in which the Ju/’hoansi have
dealt with the issues of land and resource rights, including carrying out
detailed mapping of their ancestral territories and using Botswana government
policies on community-based natural resource management to their advantage in
gaining greater control of land, water and wildlife resources.
Hunter
- gatherer time
excerpt from LIVINGTIME:
The Euro-American
image of time is a machine, a factory assembly line chucking out identical
hours, each unremarked and indistinguishable. Worse than that, it has insisted
that its time is the time, and that indigenous peoples all over the world lack
a ‘proper’ sense of time. It is not a lack. Rather they have cultivated a
far more subtle and sensitive relationship to time and timing.
Kalahari
The Kalahari: a vast, dry grassland that stretches over large portions of five countries within Southern Africa - Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola. Though often referred to as a desert, its reserves of underground water allow for a fully vegetated landscape that supports (in its natural state) large populations of wild game. Predominantly flat, like the great Central Asian Steppe, the Kalahari is all about space and silence, heat and
distance.
Exiles
of the Kalahari
(January / February 2005 Issue) Forcibly resettled by a Botswanan
government eager to clear the way for diamond mining, the Bushmen
are battling to regain their ancestral homeland.
Bushmen's Diamond News
AS LONG AS THE
BUSHMEN ARE OPPRESSED IT STANDS: BOYCOTT BOTSWANA DIAMONDS !
Kalahari
Diamond - Project Information
This Summary of Project Information is prepared and distributed to the public
in advance of the IFC Board of Directors' consideration of the proposed
transaction. Its purpose is to enhance the transparency of IFC's activities,
and this document should not be construed as presuming the outcome of the
Board decision.
Our
Perspective on WHAT is ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE?
To Aboriginal peoples, native to the land they live in since time
immemorial, the term "environmental justice" goes beyond
the issue of disproportionate toxic and nuclear contamination and
health exposure of our elders, men, women, youth, children and our
traditional food web. ... ff
Biopirates in
the Kalahari?
How indigenous people are standing up for their rights - the
experience of the San in Southern Africa
INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES KYOTO WATER DECLARATION
Third World Water Forum, Kyoto, Japan,
March 2003
DECLARATION
OF THE PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS - MUMBAI 2004
We, the people's movements representing workers, peasants and
agricultural workers, women, Dalits and Adivasis, indigenous
peoples, fisher peoples, urban poor, the physically and mentally
handicapped and other sectors of the poor and oppressed, have
again come together in Mumbai from 16-20 January 2004 for the
People's Movements Encounters Part II.
Environmental
Colonialism: “Saving” Africa from Africans
Under the banner of saving the African environment, Africans in
the last half century have been subjected to colonialism from an
overlooked source: the conservation movement. Local populations
have been displaced and impoverished in order to create national
parks and to serve other conservation objectives, in large part
because Western conservationists misunderstand African wildlife
management practices and problems.
Convention
concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries
(ILO No. 169), 72 ILO Official Bull. 59, entered into force Sept.
5, 1991 The General Conference of the International
Labour Organisation, Having been convened at Geneva by the
Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met
in its seventy-sixth session on 7 June 1989, and Noting the
international standards contained in the Indigenous and Tribal
Populations Convention and Recommendation, 1957...
Convention
on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and
Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property - 17 Nov 70 Entry
in force: 24 April 1972. - The General Conference of the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, meeting in Paris from 12
October to 14 November 1970, at its sixteenth session...
PROTECTION
OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN TIME OF WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
by JAMES A. R. NAFZIGER - James Nafziger is the Thomas B. Stoel Professor of
Law and Director of International Programs, Willamette University College of
Law. He chairs the Committee on Cultural Heritage Law of the International Law
Association (ILA) and serves as President of the ILA's American Branch. He is
also a member of IFAR's Law Advisory Council.
Land
Rights Movements PDF
Professor Daniel W. Bromley - University of Wisconsin-Madison ---
Indigenous peoples in territories subjected to European conquest
dating from the late 15th century onward have managed to focus
national and international attention on their subjugation and
dispossession. These various movements, primarily concentrated in
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South America, and the United
States, began in different places at different times over the past
several decades.
ABORIGINAL
LAND RIGHTS - looking over the fence to Australia
The Indigenous spending drip - Land rights - the new debate we had
to have - Crikey Daily - Tuesday, 12 April - Political
correspondent Christian Kerr writes: “Indigenous
communities have suffered from misplaced idealism,” Jenness
Warren, a workplace English language and literacy tutor for the
Laynhapuy Homeland Association Inc in the Northern Territory,
wrote in a Financial Review (see below).
Tribe
or Nation?
(PDF)
Nation-Building and Public Goods in Kenya versus Tanzania
International
Alliance Charter
(Established Penang, Malaysia, 15 Feb 1992)
- (Revised Nairobi, Kenya, 22 Nov 2002)
Article 1. - We, the indigenous and tribal peoples of the
tropical-forests, present this charter as a response to hundreds
of years of continual encroachment and colonisation of our
territories and the undermining of our lives, livelihoods and
cultures caused by the destruction of the forests that our
survival depends on. ...
AFRICAN
'INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' SEARCHING FOR A FUTURE
Archive 1993 - 'Indigenous Peoples' from all corners of the
African continent have met for the first time to take stock of
their situation and organise for their future.
Indigenous
Peoples’ Declaration PDF
Indigenous Preparatory Meeting - 16-17 JUNE, 2002 -
International Association Centre- Brussels, Belgium
Primary
Life Concept
Primitivists argue that prior to the advent of agriculture humans lived in
small, nomadic bands which were socially, politically, and economically
egalitarian. Being without hierarchy, these bands are sometimes viewed as
embodying a precursor to anarchism.
At
The Hand Of Man - The White Man's Game
Prince Bernhard and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) - To attract
donors, large and small, as well as media attention, Nicholson,
Scott and the founding fathers of WWF wanted the royal family to
lend their name. They approached Prince Philip to be president.
Philip was an avid outdoorsman and hunter-in January 1961 he had
bagged a Bengal tiger in India-and he and Queen Elizabeth had been
to Kenya, on a safari best remembered because King George VI died
while they were watching wild animals and Princess Elizabeth had
become Queen. Scott sent Philip a draft of the proposed charter.
Philip read it carefully, replying that one provision was "unctuous,"
and another "to wordy."....
WE
DO NOT WANT TO BECOME AND END LIKE ISHI
Ishi was the last surviving member of the Yahi tribe. He was born
about 1862. The Yahi were related to the Yana Indians who once
lived in northern California of todays USA.
World
Wide Fraud - Pandering to the Demands of Industry
All around the world, as you read this, children of other cultures
are being kidnapped and forced into schools against their will and
that of their tribes. People from Indonesia to Zaire are being
forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands into shoddy shanty
towns with poor sanitation and bad food. These people want to stay
in their homelands, living as they always have; with no leaders
and no civilisation; hunting and gathering.
Protected areas and local communities
( RTF )
W R M B U L L E T I N 73 - August 2003 - English edition
Full bulletin to the controversial issue of protected areas in their relationship with people.
UNITED
NATIONS - COMMISION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION AND PROTECTION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
- 8 August 2002 - E/CN.4/Sub.2/2002/24 - ( PDF )
HUNTER-GATHERER
STUDIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT PDF
Anthropological and behavioral ecological studies of living
hunter-gatherers have .ourished since the 1960’s. Researchers
have developed and followed a variety of paradigms, each with its
own assumptions and objectives, based on the behavior of
huntergatherer communities. I argue here that in order to evaluate
the validity of the use of a speci.c hunter-gatherer group for
particular paradigmatic purposes, details of the historical and
social context of the group are needed. The use of an
inappropriate group, as determined by its context, can call into
question the conclusions of a study.
DESCRIBING
POVERTY - DESCRIBING POVERTY : 61 WAYS
NADINE GORDIMER ON POVERTY - Message from James Gustave Speth, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme,
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, New York, 17 October 1996 -
Today marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. On this day,
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) re-dedicates itself to a
decade-long, global effort to replace hunger, helplessness and despair with
opportunity, hope and the promise of a better future. Poverty places an
intolerable burden on the human spirit.
Quotations
from Gana and Gwi Bushmen about their land, torture and relocation
Source:
Survival International -
"The lives of our people are not free. It is terrible not to
be free. In the rest of Botswana people live in peace and harmony
but not in this corner, the central corner of the Kalahari Game
Reserve." - Bushman, January 2002
BUSHMAN
IN-DEPTH
Country: Southern Africa - Population: 100,000 - Who are they? The
'Bushmen' are the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, where
they have lived for at least 20,000 years. Their home is in the
vast expanse of the Kalahari desert. There are many different
Bushman peoples – they have no collective name for themselves,
and the terms 'Bushman', 'San', 'Basarwa' (in Botswana) and so on
are used variously.
INFORMATION
from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
TERMINOLOGY,
IDENTITY, AND EMPOWERMENT IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
The San, who are also called the Khwe (Khoe), Basarwa, or Bushmen, are some of the best-known groups of people in the world, thanks in part to extensive research, films, popular books and articles, and detailed documentation by development workers and extension personnel conducted over many years. Residing in and around the Kalahari Desert region of southern Africa, the San in the past lived as hunter-gatherers
(foragers).
Violations of
'Bushman' peoples rights in southern Africa
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS - Fifty-eighth session - Item 14 (d) of the provisional agenda - SPECIFIC GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS: OTHER VULNERABLE GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS
- Written statementsubmitted by Survival International, a non-governmental organization on the Roster
- The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.
- 15 January 2002
QUESTION AND ANSWER
What is the active ingredient in the arrow poison which the African Bushman make from the grubs of the diamphidia beetle, and what symptoms would it cause in a human?
THE
ILLUSION OF A FUTURE? PDF
MEDICINE DANCE RITUALS FOR THE CIVIL SOCIETY OF TOMORROW - The
medicine dance continues to be the main ritual of the Hai om and
many other groups of southern African “Bushmen,” or “San.”
It is, therefore, an appropriate starting point for investigating
the possibilities for developing a comparative model of the
religion of hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherers, typically provide
exceptions to anthropological models. However, carefully designed
models, in particular those focusing on ritual form, not only
facilitate comparison across space, for example between Africa and
Australia as in this contribution, but also an understanding of
the dynamics of ritual and religion over time.
Life
support PDF
In the name of western-style materialism and so-called progress, a different
way of life practised by small tribes across the world is being destroyed. As
a consequence, we are all losing critical knowledge about the connection
between human existence and nature. - Words by Stephen Corry
How San hunters use beetles to poison their arrows
San ('bushman') hunters use lightly constructed bows and arrows in their hunting which means that the injury inflicted by the arrow is usually insufficient to subdue large prey unless it is supplemented by a poison that has been applied to the
arrow.
Colonisation
is going on !
(e.g. right now in the heart of Africa - from the Congo Basin
where the anglo-american and neo-french interests are at stake
down to the San's Kalahari lands, where DeBeers deals diamonds
with the ruling elite of Botswana !)
THE
REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING
Most of us associate the holiday with
happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that
did happen - once. - The story
began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to
England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery.
Is
primitivism realistic? An anarchist reply to John Zerzan and
others
(December 1, 2005) A reply to primitivist critiques of
'Civilisation, Primitivism and Anarchism' - - One of the major
confusions in the anarchist movement in the USA and parts of
Europe arises out of primitivism and its claim to be part of the
anarchist movement. But primitivism is not a realistic strategy
for social revolution and it opposes the basic purpose of
anarchism - the creation of a free mass society. Primitivists have
attempted to reply to these criticisms but these replies are
easily exposed as more to do with faith then reality.
Why
Race Matters: Race Differences and What They Mean
Book Review - The Western Journal of Black Studies - Although the
question of race has been an important sociological issue ever
since the development of anthropology as a study of different
human groups, contemporary philosophy has had relatively little to
say about the topic. Interestingly enough though, three of the
luminaries of Western philosophy did write about race as if those
human groups that distinguished themselves both geographically and
phenotypically constituted natural kinds in terms of temperament
and intellect.
Bibliography
of Foraging Peoples
Robert Lawless robert.lawless@wichita.edu
please go to: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/Biblio/biblio_forage1.html#A
Hunter-Gatherer
Bibliography
This bibliography was last up-dated on June 16, 1997
Cui
Bono ? or The Policy of Segregation
subtitle: FENCES KILL SENSES, RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT - a radio
broadcast as community theatre in one act -
PDF
about the Bushmen in french language:
Afrique du Sud : des terres restituées aux Bushmen (9 Kb - Ik n° 32 - 1999/06 - )
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