Andres Gonzalez's Proposal

Orphaned and proud, the Rehoboth Basters of Namibia are the bi-racial survivors descending from the sexual union between European settlers and their Khoisan slaves living in and around the Cape Province at the turn of the 19th century. I propose to photographically celebrate the Baster community of Rehoboth Namibia.

The Rehoboth Basters of Namibia.

Deep in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia sits an isolated town called Rehoboth, inhabited by a wonderful, and curious community of people that go by the name of the Basters. Almond skinned, and hard to define from first impressions, the Basters hint at other bi-racial cultures around the world created by the African Diaspora, or the Spanish Inquisition. During the budding years of South African colonization, the sexual union between European settlers and their Khoisan slaves created the Baster race, an unwanted, and stigmatized group to be. Underrepresented in the apartheid struggle, they have managed to survive despite threats to their culture by years of discrimination, and are a fascinating example of how South African Apartheid has affected, and even, created the different ethnic groups throughout the region that today struggle for self-affirmation years after the apartheid system has been abolished.

In a time defined by borders, and skin tone, the Basters are not only a beautiful, and symbolic defiance to the African struggle between black and white, they are a fiercely proud people living out a unique legacy of the apartheid era. My purpose in doing this documentary is to promote cultural understanding by celebrating a different face of Africa, a face underrepresented by foreign media, and by history at large. But more importantly, my personal goal for this project is to understand and photograph the Baster culture as an organic, and therefore contradictory whole. As Robert Adams wrote, "to affirm life without lying about it."

I anticipate this project will raise sensitive questions about the inevitable racial conflicts inherent in all aspects of the Namibian social fabric. I will turn my camera on such questions as: What is the idea of beauty in Rehoboth? Where does labor come from? What does wealth look like? What are the differences between public and private education? How has ideology evolved over the generations, and how are those changes manifest? Do they affect family relationships, marriage, outward migration of the youth?

I have been in contact with Vera Tune, a member of the Rehoboth Town Council and curator of the Rehoboth Museum, who has offered to introduce me to various members of the Rehoboth community, and has expressed an enthusiasm for the documentation of their fading heritage. I have also been in contact with Esther Moombolah, the chief curator at the National Museum of Namibia whom has offered the museum as an editing workspace, a resource center, and a potential gallery to hang a final show. With the assistance of these two contacts, I hope to tell a wonderful tale, one that is as immediate, as it is permanent, in our ever-evolving world.

Background.

Ostracized by both their European fathers, and Khoisan mothers, in 1869 a group of about 90 Baster families migrated north from the Cape Province in search of their own homeland. After years of wandering nomadically, the Basters established the town of Rehoboth, in then South West Africa, where the German colonists allowed them to have their own flag, constitution, and government. It was only after Namibian Independence in 1990, that the Basters were forced to give up their autonomy and take a step towards national reconciliation.

Under apartheid segregation policy, the Namibian landscape looked like a mosaic of fragmented ethnic-states, apartheidŐs greatest form of decentralizing power, and ironically, the way that the Basters were able to survive as a community throughout South African rule. Unfortunately, this system also allowed NamibiaŐs different groups to develop nationalistic ideologies that were linked by blood and origin over nationality, and for the Basters who already had their own autonomy since 1872, this only reinforced their nationalistic tendencies. This is what is so fascinating about Baster history: although spawned directly from the violent beginnings of the apartheid system, they were consequentially allowed to thrive under its policies, being both victims, and beneficiaries of an oppressive system. After years of fighting to keep their autonomy, today the Baster nation ceases to exist. There are, however, 35,000 fiercely proud Basters living in and around the town of Rehoboth, Namibia.

It is undeniable that what makes the Basters remarkable is their persistence for self-affirmation despite their history and origin, albeit, with a strong sense of irony. But in a country still living out the legacy of apartheid, the Basters also represent a sideways glance into an integrated African future, and although healing from such a nightmarish past is a long and arduous process, I hope to find that it can be a beautiful one as well.