For years, a man who calls himself King Khoisan has been camped behind South Africa’s seat of government and is fighting for the rights of his tribe. Now a raid in the king’s garden caused a stir
If there were an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest uninterrupted protest by a human being, it would go to King Khoisan. The traditional leader of the Khoisan ethnic group, who are among the oldest residents of South Africa, has been protesting on the lawn in front of the monumental Presidential Office in Pretoria for more than three years. Not far from the larger-than-life bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, the king, his wife, Queen Cynthia, and Chief Peter Paul Lucas set up camp with bamboo sticks and canvas tents.
The protest of the monarch, whose real name is Thomas Edgar Brown, is directed against discrimination against the “First People”, which includes the San (once called “Bushmen”) and Khoisan (once: “Hottentots”). Unlike all of the other eleven languages spoken in South Africa, hers is not recognized as official; they do not own the land they live on; and they are referred to as ‘Coloured’ rather than Khoisan as they wish. For years they have waited for President Cyril Ramaphosa to walk the few steps from his office to their camp to take up their cause. “He didn’t give us a minute of his time,” Queen Cynthia laments.
Sale funds protest
Instead, two dozen police officers showed up at seven on Wednesday morning. Some on horseback, others in the martial uniforms of the riot police, as if they were digging out a nest of terrorists. However, they were less interested in King Khoisan and his small court than in the vegetable garden that the natives have set up next to their camp. More precisely: several mighty bushes with the infamous seven fingered leaves – commonly known as marijuana or cannabis, in South Africa as dagga.
For the past three years, Dagga cultivation has not been banned in South Africa at all – provided you cultivate the plants on your own land and for private consumption or grow them for medicinal purposes. But King Khoisan could not have smoked the quantities of weed he harvested in the President’s Park himself, with the best of intentions: he is said to have sold it to visitors to secure his livelihood. “People came to us with back pain or cancer,” says Queen Cynthia. “We Khoisan have known Dagga as a remedy for thousands of years.”
The police wanted nothing to do with such statements. Against the fierce resistance of the king, who was only wrapped in a fur apron, the forces tore one bush after the other out of the ground. Like shipwrecked people on the high seas, the monarch and Chief Lucas clung to their livelihood – and were dragged along with the marijuana bushes to the Mandela statue by the uniformed men. There they were arrested for drug trafficking: they spent the night behind bars, the next day they were brought before the examining magistrate. He released her until the trial began in May. In the meantime, however, a second charge had been added to the drug trafficking: that the two natives – despite police requests – refused to cover their mouths and noses with a mask.
Nothing is known about the king’s future plans. King Khoisan first came to the capital on foot from the port city of Port Elizabeth, 1,200 kilometers away, in 2017 to first protest for three weeks in front of the Union Building and then to go on a 17-day hunger strike. It was not clear at the time of going to press whether the monarch would return after the raid. First of all, after the court date and in front of the office building, he lit a pipe with the traditional cheerleader: everything else will work out then.
