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The strength of a culture is the strength of its language

On 2 November 2008, I stood along the ancestral graves of the |Khowese Nama people in Gibeon, Namibia, along the banks of the Great Fish River in Greater Namaqualand, north of the !Gurib (Orange-)river. The |Khowese Heroes Day Festival is a commemoration held on the day King Hendrik Witbooi (3rd King of the |Khowese) died in battle against the German authorities who occupied Namibia from the late 1800s. This year's Festival took place against the backdrop of the Celebration of the 30 years of continued and dedicated Chieftainship of the 8th King of the |Khowese people, Paramount King Dr. Rev. Hendrik Witbooi.

I was part of a group of Western Cape dignitaries that attended the |Khowese Heroes Day Festival and was asked to speak on behalf of the group at the ancestral graves. Moments before I delivered my speech tears started welling up, as I soon realized how historic this event truly was, as it unfolded itself. For there I was, in a community that still retained their ancestral Khoe khoe tongue, and I could draw a direct parallel to the "prodigal son" spoken of in the scriptures. Who after he lost all he valued, returned to his father to be accepted again in his father's house. For I stood there addressing the Father of the Nation, Paramount King Dr. Rev. Hendrik Witbooi and other Chieftains , as a descendant of the First Nations of this land, a child of the Great Red Nation. My genetic ancestry testing traced my Mitochondrial DNA to the L0d haplogroup which is thought to be the oldest of the L0 clans, common to Khoesan populations of southern Africa. Coming from an urban background; I lost the ability, not due to my own doings, to communicate in my ancestral language and not in a language that was brought here on a ship; not only that, but I also lost the right to access my ancestral lands freely, which now today are in the hands of multi-national corporations, governments and others who conspired against the First Nations of this Land. The majority of the Western Cape Khoe khoe has to an large extend lost the oral knowledge around rites of passage, customs around marriage, etc. The list carries on.

Aspects of the indigenous knowledge system has in today's world in the urban environment, still been preserved through the practices of Rastafarian Herbalist and Bush doctors who conserved the knowledge of herbs, roots and medical plants. These glimpses of indigenous cultures were like an oasis in a place where the knowledge of the First Nations, has by and large, taken a back seat for dominant Western cultures. Khoe khoe and San languages has been wrongly stigmatized as a "skaamtaal" not to be used. If you had a "korrelkop" or had strong indigenous features, you were ridiculed and joked, because people were either forced to fit into the Western accepted norms and standards of beauty.

This leads me to my next point. One of the horrors of globalization and indeed a true evil is the bulldozing of elements of indigenous cultures, and the systematic destruction of First Nation languages in the wake Western steam train of development. It's true that with a push of the button one can communicate with people across the globe. But at what cost? What is the price indigenous cultures pay? Globalization inadvertently is the post-modern phase of colonilization. Now most youths would not dare appearing in public without any known brands or exposing the latest in fashion, trends and "whats-in".

To echo the words of Marcus Garvey, "People without the knowledge of the past, history and cultures are like a tree without roots."