KHOISAN "QUEEN" SARAH BAARTMAN'S GRAVESITE IN SOUTH AFRICA DEFACED

Khoisan “queen” Sarah Baartman’s burial site defaced

Port Elizabeth, South Africa - The burial site of Khoikhoi, Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was defaced in Hankey outside Port Eizabeth. The defacement of the Baartman burial site comes after the vandalising of national statues and monuments across South Africa.

According to the South African Police Services, Baartman’s world-famous burial site and memorial plaque was splashed with white paint by a group of men. Members from four of the five national Khoisan houses addressed the media at an emotion-charged press briefing following the defacement of the burial site.

Sarah Baartman, most famous because of her large buttocks, was taken from South Africa in 1810, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. After her death in 1815, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in the name of Science until 1985.

 In November 2014, Paper Magazine released a cover of Kim Kardashian in which she was illustrated as balancing a champagne bottle on her extended rear. The cover photo has received much criticism and commentary on Kardashian’s mimicking of the way in which Sarah Baartman was represented as the “Hottentot Venus” during the 19th century. The name “Hottentot” was the then current name for the Khoi people, and “Venus” in reference to the Roman goddess of love. Baartman died in Paris, France on 29 December 1815. A poem written by poet and activist, Diana Ferrus (herself of Khoisan descent), entitled “I've come to take you home”, played a pivotal role in the return of Baartman's remains back to her birth soil in 2002.

In recent months the statues of Queen Victoria, the Horse memorial and

the Anglo-Boer War memorial in the Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage metropolitan area, the Mahatma Gandhi statue in Johannesburg, Cecil John Rhodes statue in Cape Town (after protests by university students), the Andrew Murray statue (South African writer, teacher, and Christian pastor) in the Wellington, and the Paul Kruger statue on Church Square in Pretoria was also vandalised. Most of the vandalising was politically as well as racially motivated.

How South Africa confronts symbols of its difficult past are being discussed in newspaper columns, television talk shows and mainstream politics. Some white activists claim they are victims of “reverse racism” from the African National Congress (ANC) government. In the face of what is happening in other parts of SA, one has to take the defacement of Baartman’s gravesite and the statue of Andrew Murray seriously because both of them weren’t involved in politics. Many South Africans believe that these vandals do not represent the heart of beautiful South Africa.

The South African Police Services are investigating the defacement of the world-famous burial site.

Here is an Afrikaans/Khoisan poem I wrote in 2002 after the burial of Sarah Baartman:

gebed van saartjie baartman*

in ‘n land van beskaafdes
was jy as frats ingehok
en moes wag vir die vloek se heengaan:

"Jirre, ek is een van djou se tjeeners
maar’ie mense hille algar sê ek is ‘n goggatjie
moet’ie lat hille my seer of doodmaak’ie"

maar as verlange jou byt
kon jy gaan na ‘n beter plek
met jou kaalvoet-gebed:

"Jirre, as djy weer sulke reënbooggoggatjies stuur
om te kô kyk of dit genôg gereentit
sê hille ‘seblief om my te kô haal"

saartjie, toe diana* jou oorskot uit die koue bring
en jou vel die afrika-son voel
het o’s hulde gebring:

"Jirre, vindag wil o’s trug report –
daar’s niks meer om oor te stry
of te wonner oor vergewe en vergeet’ie…"
want saartjie ís vry

– Selwyn Milborrow, CNN iReporter #cnnireport #SarahBaartman ‪#‎statues