with which I will miss my academic comrade, Dr Michael Besten,
brutally murdered during a car hijacking in Bloemfontein, South
Africa, on May 21st. Mike is survived by his mother and sister, to
whom I extend deepest sympathies.
Mike Besten was a rising young African scholar with a glittering
intellect, a gift for academic leadership, and a hands-on approach to
all his projects. Born in Lesotho in 1969, he obtained his first
degree from the University of the Western Cape in 1994. He went on to
take an Honours degree in History (UWC) plus another in Philosophy
(University of Stellenbosch), followed by an MA in History (UWC). In
2006 he obtained a doctorate in History from the University of Leiden
in Holland, with a thesis titled Transformation and Reconstitution of
Khoe-San identities: A.A.S. le Fleur I, Griqua Identities and Post-
Apartheid Khoe-San Revivalism. He subsequently found a base as a
researcher at the University of the Free State, in the Department of
Anthropology headed by Prof. Piet Erasmus. His postdoctoral studies
included the investigation of persisting negative perceptions of Khoe-
San communities, and the role of school textbooks and other media in
the perpetuation of stereotypes.
I first came into contact with Mike in about 2007. His intense
personal interest in the history of the Korana and Griqua people was
taking him and a few colleagues regularly out into the outskirts of
Bloemfontein to interview people of Korana descent, and he and his
team had started to encounter a few elderly people who not only
identified themselves as Korana or Griqua, but still quite remarkably
retained some knowledge of the old language – previously thought to be
extinct. Mike began reaching out urgently to linguists in South
Africa, seeking collaborations, and so we began corresponding. We
remained constantly in touch after that, having discovered that we had
similarly intense feelings about the urgency and value of Khoe-San
studies across a range of disciplines. There were times when his
intellectual companionship and unflagging interest were almost the
only things that sustained me during the years I spent working on my
own thesis on Khoesan languages.
On several occasions he generously arranged for me to travel to
Bloemfontein and participate in events that were nothing less than
inspiring. One of these was the Khoesan Languages Convention held at
the University of the Free State in 2008, which Mike convened, and
which saw the assembling of Khoi and San delegates from all over
southern Africa. On another occasion he organized a fieldtrip for the
purpose of interviewing and obtaining Korana material from one of the
last-living speakers of Korana, on which occasion I had the privilege
of sitting alongside and learning from Dr Levi Namaseb, a linguist
from the University of Namibia. Most recently he worked on the
compilation of a multi-disciplinary collection of papers by academics
from southern Africa and overseas, on aspects of Khoe-San history,
languages and identity. His gift for academic leadership was
apparent in the way he kept regularly in touch with all of us involved
in this project. He also brought all of the contributors together
for a symposium in Bloemfontein, and on this occasion took us to visit
a pilot Early Learning Centre where tiny children from the local
community receive the opportunity to learn Nama and something about
the cultural traditions of the Nama, Damara, Korana and Griqua
people. This project was very close to his heart, since it embodied
the seed possibility not only of language revival, but also of
changing perceptions and a more inclusive embracing of the rich and
diverse cultural heritage of southern Africa.
Apart from his academic work, Mike was equally passionate about his
life on the farm, where he and his comrades were raising Nguni cattle
and the traditional fat-tailed sheep of the Khoi-Khoi on reclaimed
ancestral land, which he dreamed of turning into a heritage farm. I
know from his letters how he rejoiced in the acquisition of every new
animal, and suffered with the loss of every lamb; and I never once saw
him when his hands were not covered in scratches and scars from the
hard physical work of the farmer.
The news this week of Mike's cruel and violent death leaves his
colleagues with the most painful knowledge of unfinished projects, and
an unbearably sharp sense of the loss of his leadership. Heinrich
Vedder published in 1923 a rich collection of texts in the language of
the Khoe-speaking Damara. These include a number of elegiac laments,
in which the grief of a bereaved parent or partner is expressed not in
quiet acceptance, but rather in the anguish of not knowing how daily
life will still be possible with the loss of the hunter – the one who
chased down the giraffe, or the elephant or the zebra. In one of
these, the grieving wife calls out:
Khãi re ẽ sī !gõas !na sī ǂnũ, 'Oh please get up, go into the hunting
shelter and sit,
ẽ !neiba ǁkhõu. 'And kill a giraffe.
ǁHaro tama ta nĩ hã. 'I will be without shoes.
Hama nĩ ǁharo te? 'Who will get me shoes?'
Oh Mike: who will make us shoes now?
-Menán du Plessis
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