The article about race classification by Patrick Laurence (see here) described the cruelty of this system practiced during the apartheid years and warned that the present government's policies involving race are moving dangerously into the same direction. His reference to the Laing girl in the film SKIN and the fact that one of her parents may have had Caucasoid genes touches upon a subject that is avoided by most "white" South Africans, but which might, if pursued vigorously, be used to force the government to abandon the whole BEE system and similar policies which rely on race classification.
Caucasoid is the term genealogists use to describe the people formerly known as the Hottentots and nowadays referred to as the Khoi, or the Khoisan. Many people know that one of the very first marriages to take place in South Africa after Van Riebeeck landed here, was between Eva, the Hottentot girl who grew up in Van Riebeeck's house, and a Dane, Peter Havgard, better known at the Cape as Pieter Van Meerhof. Unfortunately very few people know that Eva's genes were passed on to a large proportion of the "white" people of South Africa.
A book written by professor R De V Pienaar in 2004 about the Pelser families in South Africa provides interesting information. It discloses that one of Eva's grandsons, Pieter Zaayman, had a daughter who married Abraham Pelser. Their Pelser descendants number in the thousands, but the interesting part of his book is the list of people who married Pelsers over the last three and a half centuries. There are more than 8000 names on this list, approximately half of whom were males who married Pelser girls. These 4000 people represented practically every one of the older "white" families in South Africa. Of my own tribe, the Swanepoels, more than a hundred married Pelsers. My great grandfather and two of his brothers married three Pelser sisters. Their offspring must number in the thousands. (Forty Myburghs also married Pelsers, but I haven't checked to see if there was a James among them!)
H.F.Heese's book, Groep Sonder Grense, provides the names of more than a thousand Europeans who married people of colour in the Cape Colony between 1652 and 1795. Each of those marriages may have produced just as large an offspring as the Pelsers and Zaaymans. Then, of course, there were numerous cases of Europeans fathering children out of wedlock.
The point I am trying to make is that in South Africa just about any person who is now deemed to be "white", may claim to have the genes of a coloured person. The BEE Act provides a definition of a "black" person. It says blacks are Africans, Indians and Coloureds, but provides no definitions of "Indians" and "Coloureds". I contend that if a person has the genes of a non-European, he/she can legally claim to be a Coloured and therefore a black person in terms of the BEE Act.
What this means is that people who can afford the expense should form a company and apply for it to be classified as black-owned. If any of the numerous agencies which now issue certificates in terms of the BEE Act were to refuse to give them the required certificate they should take them to court and make a test case of it. This, I am sure, will force the government to come up with definitions for the various race groups, and then, of course, we would be right back under the apartheid government. But, somehow, I think, they will not go that far. It would make them the laughing stock of the world. I think they would rather phase out the BEE Act.
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