Hi folks,
This is totally Off Topic, so if you don't like it, please just delete it and
move
on.
Many years ago I was introduced me to the writings of Sir Laurens van der
Post, who wrote much about the remarkable race of little people of the
Kalahari, once over all Africa, but displaced by negroid races from the north
and whites from the south, during the last 400 years. If you do a search on
bookfinder.com for "van der Post" his books should turn up; the first I would
read are "The heart of the Hunter" and "The Lost world of the Kalahari".
I would have loved to go there but is has never been possible for me and I feel
sure I'll never make it there now.
Through an Oxford University magazine I get several times a year, I have
become aware of the plight of the Kalahari bushmen of today.
In a letter, this is in part what I read.
"Abandoning the more enlightened policies of Botswana's first President
Seretse Khama, current president Festus Mogae and his government have
brutally evicted all but a few of the last 700 Gana and Gwi from their
ancestral land in the Kalahari Game Reserve, cutting off their water supplies
and banning them from hunting and gathering. They are being forced to live in
bleak resettlement camps which they describe as "places of death", where
they become dependent on government hand-outs and are reduced to
boredom, alcoholism and despair.
Survival International (http://www.survival-international.org) the world-wide
organisation supporting tribal peoples, is running a major campaign in
support of the Gana and Gwi and their right to choose for themselves how
they wish to live, on the land that is their under international law. In
striving for recognition of this right, these peoples are meeting fierce
resistance from some of the Oxonians in Botswana.
END OF QUOTE
I have decided to give a small regular donation in their support. It's at least
something positive I can do. I'll never get there myself now.
OM content - there are - or used to be - great photographic opportunities
there. But a tough tough climate.
These are the little people who figure in the films "The Gods must be Crazy"
and "The Gods must be Crazy II".
A very nice coffee-table book which contains very many stunning shots is
"The Bushmen". Photography Peter Johnson & Anthony Bannister, Text Alf
Wannenburgh. Country Life Books, 1979. ISBN 0 600 31575 4
Brian
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