Queen Annette IIXe’gwi’s San principal visits Highveld
Queen Annette highlights the resilience of the San people, illustrating their efforts to preserve their cultural identity.
ERMELO – Queen Annette Loots (Vorster), monarch of the San people, recently undertook a visit to this town and Chrissiesmeer to draw attention to the plight and endangered heritage of her people.
This follows a social media connection with Athol Stark, of the Highveld Heritage Route of Mpumalanga, who had been sharing information about the Southern African tribe’s history and the struggles they currently face.
“About a year and a half ago, I saw his content on Facebook and made contact to see how we can work together to revive the history of the San. I wanted to bring it to life again, to restore historical sites and artefacts and save them from being vandalised,” she said.
Queen Annette expressed distress at the visible vandalism of rock art and caves she had observed in the area.
Upon making contact, Stark informed Queen Annette of the dire conditions in which some of these people are living.
Queen Annette described how they have been suppressed, displaced from their ancestral farms and the lands where they traditionally sustained themselves, and forced into a society alien to them, a situation she attributes to political actions.
A particularly poignant moment during her trip was a visit to Sam Nkosi, one of the oldest among the San in the Chrissiesmeer area, where the queen found Sam and his brother gravely ill.
“While the ANC and their leaders are sleeping warm and have health services and a proper roof over their head, the real owners of this land have nothing,” she recounted.
Read the complete article in Highvelder.
