by Vryburger | Sep 24, 2017 | Who is the Boer?, Wie is die Boer?
By Adriana Stuijt
This family history is being repeated by every Boer family in South Africa right now – people are again losing their ethnic identity and confused about what to call themselves – Boers, Afrikaners or whites, which are you?
They are losing their ethnic identity – and it’s not the first time this tragedy is occurring.
So who are these people – first called the Grensboere (Border-boers), then the Voortrekkers, then Boers, then Afrikaners – and who again being degraded to “whites” – people in other words, who have no right to live on the African continent.
Many people in the news media still ridicule me whenever I write about “Boers” or “Voortrekker-descendants” on the website The referenced website does not show this link anymore – either by accident or for alternative reasons/agendas GO BACK here for MORE INFO from other sources – original link at bottom of page. But has anybody ever figured out why so many people have stopped referring to themselves as Boers since 1902 even though they know they were directly descended from Boers?
And does anybody know today why there are so many Afrikaners still refusing to admit that the Boer history even existed?
There are still some South Africans who are still referring to themselves as “Afrikaners” such as Dan Roodt of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG) but this number is dwindling rapidly as their identity is being taken away from them by the current regime. But refer to this group as Boers and they get angry.
And increasingly one finds this besieged minority referring to themselves in the same racist terms used by the ANC, namely “whites”. So what is going on here? Many people not familiar with South African history are confused – and with right, because the history has become very muddled-up over the years.
And now, these people are again at risk of losing their ethnic identity even further – and thus also losing their rights to remain in Southern Africa as a unique, ethnically different nation.
Even those still daring to call themselves “Afrikaners” are falling victim to this identity crisis, which is being created by the ANC-regime.
How did this tragedy — the loss of one’s ethnic identity and the loss if the history of your people — actually come about?
As soon as all these people start referring to themselves as “whites” they will have lost all rights to remain in South Africa. We know why their identity is being taken away.
But we don’t know how these so-called Afrikaners have also actively participated in the steady removal of the Boer nation’s identity before these current events. And that’s what makes a lot of people confused about their own identity.
It’s a little-known part of history which started shortly after the end of the Anglo-Boer war in 1902, when the Boers were a defeated, poverty-stricken people who had been chased off their farms and whose towns had been destroyed by the British. They were dirt-poor and plunged into an unprecedented famine. Many had to flee to the cities to survive – places which were totally alien to them, places were only English was being spoken, places where their churches were being run by people who referred to themselves as Afrikaners.
Up to that point, the Boers had had a rich history and people still find old history books referring to this nation.
Recently a kind lady from Louisiana mailed me a copy of the “History of the Boers in South Africa,” written in 1887 by a Canadian missionary with no political axe to grind: namely George McCall Theal.
It contains a map showing the territories which were being farmed by the Boers: from the Olifants/Limpopo rivers in the north to below the Orange River in the South (Colesburg).
It shows the names of the towns they had started which carried names such as Lydenburg, (Place of Suffering) Vryheid, (Place of Freedom) Pietermaritzburg, (named after the famous Voortrekker leader) Philippolis and Bethulie, (named after their beloved Bible) and Potchefstroom, Rustenburg, Winburg and Bloemfontein… as they Trekked, the Boers named the map of South Africa, and many of its vegetation and wildlife as well.
All these Boer names are now being wiped off the map of South Africa in one fell swoop by the ANC-regime — even though the Boers’ official history had ended in 1902, long before the elitist-Afrikaners who ran the secret Afrikaner Broederbond cabal had started apartheid in 1948.
Yet this is not the first time that the Boers are facing such an ethnic cleansing campaign by a nation which is hell-bent to remove their very rights to exist in South Africa – this is actually already the third time in Boer history.
The first time the British tried to eradicate them from the map of South Africa with their vicious war and their even more vicious concentration camps where many tens of thousands of Boer women, children and elderly starved to death within just a few months.
After this first genocide to target the Boer nation, their descendants still managed to cling to their identity for at least another generation – until the secret cabal of wealthy Afrikaners called the Afrikaner Broederbond gained hegemony — and then took away their identity from about 1933 onwards.
When the Afrikaner Broederbond ‘s National Party won the elections, and took over the governance of South Africa from 1948 and launched the system of apartheid, the first thing they did was to completely rewrite the Boers’ history.
Suddenly, all the accomplishments of the Boers became ‘Afrikaner’ accomplishments.
The Boer Women’s Monument in Bloemfontein, erected in memory of the murdered Boer women and children who died in the British concentration camps written about so eloquently by British pro-Boer campaigner Emily Hobhouse, even became the Afrikaner Women’s Monument – a truly vile insult to their memory. The Voortrekker Monument is described in terms which honour the memory of Afrikaners — not the Boers who had actually undertaken the Great Trek.
Paul Kruger, their last president who was so sadly exiled to the shores of a lake in Switzerland, became an “Afrikaner” president in the history book — when he himself never referred to himself in any of his correspondence as anything except a Boer.
Thus all the history books were rewritten and Boers with too-long memories such as Robert van Tonder of the Boerestaat Party and Eugene Terre’Blanche (of the incorrectly-named) Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging were persecuted publicly by the regime, aided and abetted by the Afrikaans-language news media. Eugene’s heart is in the right place: he bears the flag of the old Boer Republic and he refers to himself as a Boer. But his organisation’s name bears witness to his ethnic confusion, caused by the Afrikaner Broederbond’s rewriting of his own history.
And now the ANC is completing this vile task which was started by the Afrikaner Broederbond, and has even changed the names of their towns – and even of the historically–important “Voortrekker” streets which indicate the routes which the old Voortrekker Leaders such as Bezuidenhout had taken while battling their way to the north to get away from British hegemony in the Cape.
The old Voortrekker Streets all over South Africa are now being renamed to Chris Hani and Nelson Mandela streets and other names of people who, unlike the old Voortrekkers, actually have contributed absolutely nothing to the development of those streets whatsoever.
Thus the ANC is proving itself to be just as fascist in its nature as the old Afrikaner Broederbond they had replaced.
Both organisations are still hell-bent to wipe out all evidence of the Boer history.
They even continue to persecute and jail anyone who wants to rekindle Boer history such as Eugene Terre’Blanche and the Boeremag-15, undergoing their hyped-up, trumped-up treason trial in Pretoria High Court.
It’s no coincidence that the public prosecutor of the Boeremag-21 just happens to be a well-known former Afrikaner Broederbonder, Paul Fick, who even admitted to being a Broederbonder when I interviewed him for the Sunday Times during the apartheid-era, when his organisation had launched plans for a new flag and wanted to test public opinion…
And if Robert van Tonder, riddled with cancer and suffering terribly, hadn’t committed suicide a few years ago, they would have also had him in jail by now under trumped-up charges.
He and other Boers still proudly spoke the Taal, the language of their forebears – the language which now is being wiped off the map of South Africa.
Today, people no longer know who these Boers were – nobody knows about those dirt-poor Boer women who founded the garment workers’ union, those famished women who had left their beloved farms and had gone to the cities to try and survive after their defeat in 1902.
Women like Johanna and Hester Cornelius of Thabazimbi, who even wrote their own plays, describing the Boers’ history in the cities, those many thousands of women and girls who had marched behind the Red Flag of the communist party in the cities of South Africa.
And the Boer men who founded the Mineworkers union (now named Solidarity), and who had fought so valiantly against the mine magnates during the mineworkers’ uprisings at the Witwatersrand and of whom thousands had been shot dead by their own compatriot soldiers from the countryside, who had been told by the government of Jan Smuts that these men were the enemies, the “communists”. They were shooting their own Boer kindred and didn’t know it…
Nobody knows the history of these Boer people today because the Afrikaner Broederbond has deliberately written these facts from their history books.
History researcher Elsabe Brink wrote brilliantly about these defeated Boers in the cities of South Africa who put up such a valiant fight for their own identity – and whose ethnic identity is now again being discarded today in the latest ethnic cleansing facing them.
The elitist Afrikaners of the Cape, who had been ashamed of the Boers to the north who had fought against the British, were equally ashamed of these poor, defeated Boers who were trying to survive in the cities — forced to work in mines and factories “like black girls in the factories” as they referred to them.
Hand-labour was as abhorrent to these elitist Afrikaners as it is to this day. That’s why Orania is so newsworthy: because these Afrikaners are actually doing all their own labour…
The old Boer mineworkers were equally despised – they and their families were referred to as the “new poor-white problem” in a Red Cross report published about the devastating poverty among the descendants of the Boers in 1923.
But these weren’t “whites” — these were all Boers. I recorded many of the names of the mineworkers in the Witwatersrand towns like Springs and Vrededorp who had been shot in the Cottlesloe uprising by Jan Smuts’ troops – and they were carrying Boer names.
I also have a record of all the Boer children of Langlaagte and other Afrikaner-run orphanages who were adopted by wealthier English-speakers over those years — and thus were lost to the Boer nation forever.
These adoptions went on until well into the early 1970s and I know many people today with English surnames who were raised as Englishmen yet do not know that they are descended from Boer families.
And again we find these Boers back today – again growing increasingly poor and again fighting for their survival and their ethnic identities in internal refugee camps, and again giving up their children for adoption to wealthier elites.
These internal refugee camps for Boers are now run by organisations such as “Afrikaner Charity.”
Yet this is also the very same group who still refers to themselves as Boers to this day. Just go and talk to them and ask them about their history. They know who they are descended from.
So please don’t refer to these dirt-poor working-class people, who refuse to be defeated and who refuse to forget their own history, merely as “whites.’
It’s an insult to their proud history.
by Vryburger | Aug 26, 2017 | Who is the Boer?, Wie is die Boer?
by Ron: During some of the various posts I have contributed here & elsewhere there have been those who sought to impugn or marginalize the discernment & insight I have gained from the many years I have spent looking into & reading up on the Boer people. Westerners often do not realize & even refuse to acknowledge the Boers as a people indigenous to the African landscape who were formed in an era preceding the arrival of the Colonial powers. Certain non-White racial Nationalists can not see beyond the general paleness of their skin as though their colour disqualifies them from being a homegrown people tied to the African continent. Then there are those who ignore the anthropologically distinct origin of Boers on the Cape frontiers & refuse to recognize the Boers as a distinct entity from the bulk of the macro Afrikaner population.
The advocating of self determination for an ethic / cultural group is not about “dividing” the said ethnic group from any other related ethnic group but rather about empowering that ethnic group in question. All throughout history whenever an ethnic or national group wanted freedom from oppression & to find self determination for itself: they have often had to do so on their own as many others [ even closely related groups ] refused to support them or even refused wanting freedom for themselves. Just as when the Boers were seeking self determination on the Cape frontier & later beyond: the Cape Dutch did not support such moves & refused even to struggle for their own freedom from Colonialism. The long standing anti Colonial outlook of the Boers’ & their centuries long struggle for self determination has always been one of their most striking & contrasting features when juxtaposed next to the pro Colonial & anti-independence Cape Dutch / Afrikaner population.
The pro status quo sentiment of the latter & their modern descendents is the consensus outlook within the bulk of the macro Afrikaner population while a significant portion of the Boer descendents have never abandoned their republican & independent outlook nor their long standing desire for self determination. While there are of course exceptions to this generalization [ ie: Cape Dutch descendents looking for independence & some pro status quo Boer descendents ] due to basic numbers: the Boers [ & others ] looking for independence will always be outnumbered within the macro Afrikaner designation by those who are not in favour of independence or of secessionist proposals. The notion of intermarriage is a moot point because individuals often assimilated into the culture they live among just as no one would dispute that former President Vicente Fox of Mexico is a Mexican despite having an American grand father. When the Czechs & Slovaks opted for independence in 1993 no one asserted that they were “diving” the West Slavs because the point of the secession was not division but self determination. Czechoslovakia was a macro State which lumped two related but distinct groups together. I set out over 15 years ago now to learn about the Boer people in particular [ which by its very nature entails sifting them out from the bulk of the macro Afrikaner population ] & to research their history & the context in which they exist in the modern era. The Afrikaner domination of the Boers is a discernible reality which one inevitably will encounter while investigating the topic & can not be ignored for whatever reason as it plays a significant part in the suppression of the Boer people in their continuous efforts at finding self determination.
The main reason I ever started pointing out the valid distinction of the Boers from the Afrikaners was due to being constantly exposed to Westerners’ total ignorance on the topic & their irritating / unjust & continuous erroneous assertions that the Boers were “responsible” for the behaviour & laws which were enacted in the 20th cent by a people who in fact marginalized the actual Boers This ignorant behaviour is tantamount to accusing the Acadians of passing Bill 101. [ The French language law in Quebec. ] based solely on an erroneous assumption that all French speakers in Canada “must be” Acadian. It is evident that many people have a glaring blind spot when it comes to the actual Boer people because a lot of folks make sweeping presumptions based solely on the fact that the folks who ran South Africa in the 20th cent were generally White & Afrikaans speaking & automatically presuming [ or rather jumping to conclusions ] that these White Afrikaans speakers were all descended from the Boers while never once taking the time to discern that this is mathematically impossible as the actual Boer people have always been outnumbered by the erstwhile Cape Dutch: the Afrikaners of the Western Cape who have had a totally different outlook to the Boers who developed on the frontier.
When I note the Boers as distinct from the bulk of the Afrikaners: I am not trying to “divide” [ as though a marginal blogger such as myself even has the power to do so ] them from anything they do not wish to be divided from [ in fact it is totally their own decision even if they should all wish to remain part of South Africa & hope for the best ] because I am trying to do justice to the actual Boer people & their centuries long just struggle for self determination.
The problem is that a lot of people forget or do not realize that the Boers have had to struggle not just against the Dutch & British powers in the past for self determination but they have also had to struggle against the Afrikaner power as well. The first notable example of this was with the Maritz Rebellion of 1914 but the most blatant example of this was during the 1940s when the drive to restore the Boer Republics was popular among the Boers [ massively so ] & was only stopped because the Afrikaner establishment broke it up fearing it as a threat to their control & even later when Robert van Tonder left the National Party in 1961 in order to advocate for the restoration of the Boer Republics as he felt that they were being betrayed [ 1 ] under Hendrik Verwoerd who created a nominal republic for the macro State of South Africa that exact same year. Boervolk Radio Chairman Theuns Cloete noted publicly that key Afrikaner leaders [ even those who were political opponents ] organized & broke the Boer Republican movement of the 1940s down to nothing. [ 2 ]
Therefore to simply ignore the Afrikaner dynamic in the subversion of the Boer people is to perpetuate a grave injustice against the Boers as the Afrikaner establishment has routinely worked against Boer aspirations of independence & self determination. It has been repeatedly observed that the erstwhile Cape Dutch have never had a struggle for freedom. This is due to the salient fact that they were often quite content with Colonial rule [ 3 ] & could not understand why anyone would want to be independent from the Colonial powers they admired. While the Boers on the other hand have had numerous freedom struggles & have had a strong desire for independence from the start & were formed as a distinct people on the Cape frontier over this independence desire when they trekked out of Colonial society & into the Cape frontier during the late 17th cent & were initially known as Trekboers. The Boers therefore have a long history of anti Colonialism. A sentiment which eventually led to the establishment of upwards of 17 Boer Republics from 1795 to the late 19th cent. When the macro State of South Africa was created & the Boers were subjugated & forced into it: the Boer Republican outlook was soon replaced by the neo empire building of the Afrikaners who institutionalized laws which are often ignorantly blamed on the actual Boer people who had a very minimal role in the implementation of the said laws ergo any conflation of the subjugated Boers with the larger Afrikaners only further perpetuates an injustice against the Boer people who were now under the domination of the Afrikaner network.
No people anywhere on Earth can ever hope to find authentic self determination if they are forced to be tethered to another ethnic / cultural group [ particularly one which is either unsympathetic to them or might even work against them ] even if they might happen to share a language. It is for that reason why there exists separates states / collectivities / provinces for the Germans & Austrians. The Serbs & Croats. The Romanians & Moldovans. The Canadians & the Americans. The Quebecois & Acadians. Etc. Few would tell the Basque people to give up their struggle for self determination just because they are under the Spanish State or have “intermarried” with the Spanish people. The only way for the Boers to find self determination is to do so as Boer people because anything else is just a license to dispossess them further under a macro designation which was only ever used in the first place in order to achieve such a goal. [ 4 ]
Few would assert that the Coloureds are all one nation or not recognize the Cape Malays as a distinct group from the Griquas & recognize that they are both distinct from the macro Coloured population. Few would argue that Xhosas & Zulus no longer exist & that they are all one nation. Despite their common Nguni origins. But for some strange reason there are those who would deny the Boers their distinct nationality & argue that they are not distinct from the bulk of the Afrikaner population.
When Dixie declared independence no one claimed it was “dividing” the North American English speaker. [ The assertion was that it was diving a “union” re: macro State ( which was supposed to be voluntary) but not a monolithic people. ] When the various countries of South America were established no one asserted that it was “dividing” the local Spanish speakers. Cultural groups are organic & are the result of anthropologically distinct histories. The desire of self determination is the natural process of cultural groups to take responsibility for their own well being & to defend themselves from forces which are detrimental to their long term survival.
The homepage of the old Stop Boer Genocide web site specifically noted that the Boers are a distinct entity from the Afrikaners. Therefore no one should have to endue attacks for simply noting what others [ who are more directly related to defending the Boer people ] have already mentioned themselves. These attacks only serve to obscure the distinct struggles & history of the Boer people which is probably the whole point of the cavalier attacks in the first place.
The point of pointing out this valid distinction is not about “dividing” but rather about raising cognizance of the fact that the Boers can not find the self determination that they seek & have been struggling for centuries now so long as they remain under the tutelage of a powerful & well funded Afrikaans speaking network which works hard to keep them on the Afrikaner reservation which works at maintaining the Boers as a colonized people under the suzerainty of the macro State of South Africa & at the mercy of its neo colonial surrogate ruling regime which is in fact tied to the Afrikaner financial [ 5 ] power.
Not enough generations have passed to have merged the two groups as the different political outlooks between the two are still evident. All one has to do is to contrast the sentiments of the mainstream Afrikaans media outlets with that of the actual Boer people. Afrikaner academics even use crafty techniques when they assert that the independence outlook of the Boers “is not within the mainstream of Afrikaner thought.” [ direct quote ] Well no kidding genius because the Boers are only a segment of the macro Afrikaner grouping – ergo even if every single Boer were to stand up & say they want independence [ or even just like the colour blue for that matter ] the Afrikaner academics could still claim that Boer thought “is not within the mainstream of Afrikaner thought” thereby marginalizing them as though they are just some fringe movement that “average” Afrikaners need not pay any attention to. Are the anti-Boer neo Afrikaner Nationalists starting to wake up to the danger of the proposed “unity” they seek to propagate? Do they not consider just who will ultimately control such a language based union?
Consider also the fact that if White Afrikaans unity becomes such an “important” political goal: then what is to stop the natural progression & calls for White “unity” / South African “unity” / African “unity: / Global “unity”! [ As is already happening ] Notice more dangers to ethnic / national independence? Do not be fooled that you can call for one type of “unity” & be able to refuse the others because as history has clearly shown [ especially in South Africa ] one call for “unity” will only embolden & “legitimize” [ there is the real danger as even the illegitimate macro State of South Africa has an “air of legitimacy” as a result of just such “unity” behaviour ] other calls for “unity” until everyone will be dispossessed of their inherent national [ or folk ] right to self determination.
Furthermore an eclectic range of personalities & vast array of sources have noted this distinction as well. The following notable folks ALL recognize the distinction between Afrikaner & Boer: Theuns Cloete of Boervolk Radio & Boer Separatist / Adriana Stuijt: a Dutch born former South African journalist / the late Robert van Tonder of the Boerestaat Party & founder of Randburg / William McWhirter of Time Magazine / Noel Mostert former Canadian journalist. Arthur Kemp former South African policeman / author. Fred Rundle long time Boer self determination activist. Malcolm & Debbie Wren of Stop Boer Genocide.com. Professor Tobias Louw. Frank / John & Peter of the Right Perspective radio program. Louis Pepler aka Bok van Blerk & Johann Botha commenting on the De La Rey song. [ 6 ] Theuns Cloete notes that: “we are being told that we’re Afrikaners & that has been our death”. The Unrepresented Nations & Peoples organization has accepted the Boers into the organization & separately from the Afrikaners they accepted into the organization prior further demonstrating recognition of the distinction.
One can propagate the dangerous & insidious meme of “unity” with all Afrikaans speakers all day but what point is there to such a mindless action when such an association will only come to the great detriment of the Boer people [ & anyone attempting to find self determination ] who will be represented by the Afrikaner leadership who are by their very nature totally against any notion of any authentic form of self determination. I have tried to understand what possible benefit could ever come from advocating that the Boers must submit or continue to submit to the Afrikaners just for the sake of a dangerous “unity” with the very forces which work so hard at undermining & subverting Boer self determination. This act simply makes no sense at all & is suicide for Boer freedom. I however do favour unity in the name of Boer independence [ & ethnic / national independence in general ] but one must be careful about simply aligning with everyone just for the sake of increasing numbers when many among those numbers might simply be adamantly opposed to the goal of Boer self determination.
None other than Paul Kruger himself was rather wary of allowing too many of the Cape Dutch into the ZAR as he felt that they were too influenced by the British [ pro British ] & would work to undermine the independence of the ZAR. [ 7 ] Just as their descendents are today too influenced by the current & past South African regimes & could threaten the independence of any future Boer republic.
I remember reading many years ago an informative article on this from a Radio Pretoria news commentary or from another Boer news service website about the danger of a mindless Afrikaner union which noted that the Boers who seek independence must be careful about the non-Boer descended Afrikaners who could be the “albatross” [ their word ] around the neck of the Boer Nation in any reconstituted Boer Republic because they would naturally undermine Boer traditions & would agitate towards the inclusion of all & any other surrounding cultures into the new republic. Therefore the call for this sort of dangerous “unity” is not all that different from the folks who call for a “unity” of all of the peoples of South Africa because in the end the right to ethnic & cultural self determination will be conquered in the face of the union as the majority of the folks within such a union will not favour such self determination.
Theuns Cloete of Boervolk Radio has noted that the Afrikaner financial elite are adamantly opposed to Boer independence & spend lots of money against it & that they would not want to live in a Boer republic because “they do not accept that they are Boers” [ as Cloete noted ] & would be forced to go back to the Cape & Natal. Therefore to those who falsely accuse [ or rather to the individual who has ] please cease with the shortsighted & erroneous allegation that any recognition of Boers as distinct from the bulk of the Afrikaners is “divisive” when in fact any ignorance to or dismissal of such an inherent & documented distinction is dangerous to the cause of Boer self determination. Because the Afrikaner political elite KNOW that Boers are a distinct entity from themselves & work hard & have worked hard in the past at preventing the Boer from reclaiming their self determination.
Just remember that the term Afrikaner is a macro term / label which was applied to all Afrikaans speakers & includes two main ethnicities / cultural groups within the White population in the same way the term Coloured includes numerous ethnicities / cultural groups. The term Afrikaner just means African therefore everyone in Africa is an Afrikaner therefore this term spells even more trouble for those of Boer descent [ & even Cape Dutch ] as it has the potential to dispossess them even further as more & more ethnicities claim the Afrikaner designation.
Notes.
- Robert van Tonder Dies.
Quote: [ Van Tonder broke away from the National Party in 1961 because of what he described as its betrayal of the old Boer republics. ]
- Verwoerd was not a friend of the Boer Nation.
- Cecil Rhodes and The Cape Afrikaners. Mordechai Tamarkin.
- Who Are The Boers. From Arthur Kemp.
Quote: [7. The Afrikaners.
Thus at the time of the ending of the Second Anglo Boer War, there were three distinct ethnic groupings amongst the broad White population of South Africa :
(i) the internationally recognized and indigenous Boer people;
(ii) the Cape Dutch Settlers, loyal to the British Empire ; and
(iii) the British settlers, also loyal to the British Empire .
The British Empire realized that it had to bring the Boers under control for once and for all, and therefore devised a plan to neutralize the Boer Republics – a plan to make them join up with the other two White segments of their colonies in South Africa .
The British masters of Southern Africa therefore engineered the National Convention of 1908, which saw the creation of the Union of South Africa. This union consisted of the former Cape Colony , the Natal colony, and the two former Boer Republics . This union was not merely a geographic convenience, but a deliberate plan to try and destroy the independence minded Boers by mingling them with the Cape Dutch and British settlers.
It is worth noting that the British Empire used their technique in other parts of Africa as well – reference can be made to the short lived federation of Nyasaland ( Malawi ); Northern Rhodesia ( Zambia ); and Southern Rhodesia ( Zimbabwe ) to name but one.
The prime representative of the British Empire in South Africa , Sir Alfred Milner, put it this way: “The new tactic (to subjugate the Boers) must be to consolidate the different areas of British South Africa into one nation. Although unification will initially put the Boers into political control of the entire South Africa , it will, ironically, eventually lead to their final downfall.”
This was of course precisely what happened – but not until a new name had been developed for the new “nation” which Milner spoke about. They could not continue to call the new nation a “Boer” state, because the Boers had been subjugated.
They could not call it a ” Cape Dutch ” state, as the Dutch colonialists were now British colonialists, and they could not call it a British state, for obvious reasons. The answer then was to give a general term to all the White inhabitants of the new union – “Afrikaners”. Although the word originally meant “African” it as politicized by a group of Western Cape Dutch propagandists under one SJ du Toit in 1880 (the same year the Boers in the Transvaal took up arms to fight the British colonialists) in literature of the time. It was then decided to try and blend the Boers into the Cape Dutch and British populations by calling them all Afrikaners instead of referring to their real cultural bases.
This then is how the world began to hear of “Afrikaners” – although only 80 years ago there was no such word in the international vocabulary.
That the concept of an Afrikaner is all embracing is underlined by the fact that in 1998 the former Afrikaner Broederbond (now called the Afrikaner Bond) announced that it classified all those sharing a broad Afrikanerism to be Afrikaners – to this end they acknowledged that many Cape Coloureds, who speak Afrikaans and who attend a NG Church are Brown Afrikaners. In reality they are of course correct.
This illustrates the difference between Boers and Afrikaners in a very vivid way: A Coloured will readily agree with the definition that he is an Afrikaner, but will emphatically deny being a Boer. If Boers and Afrikaners are the same thing, why the differentiation in the view of other groups?
By forcing the Boers into the Union of South Africa, the British made them co-responsible for the policy of racial segregation, which had of course been established and legislated by the British colonial government.
The new “Afrikaners” – in fact a coalition of Cape Dutch , British and some Boers – tried as best they could to come to grips with the racial and geographic legacy left to them from the British colonial times – and it was from this disaster that the policy of Apartheid was developed.
It is of supreme importance to note here that the Boers were dragged unwillingly into the Union of South Africa – and at the first opportunity which presented itself they tried to extricate themselves by force of arms. This was the unsuccessful 1914 Boer rebellion, which ended when some Boer war era generals were killed or imprisoned by the pro-British Union of South Africa government.
It is a little known fact that the manifesto which was issued by the 1914 Boer rebellion leaders contained as its primary demand the restoration of the Boer republics and the dissolution of the Union of South Africa.
It is thus unfair of the international world to regard the “Boers” as having been responsible for what happened in South Africa during the second part of the 20th century – the Boers were just as much victims of the colonial powers as were any other indigenous people of Africa .
Milner’s words were true – by forcing the Boers into the Union of South Africa, he was forcing them to be subjugated by the broad South African British colony, and this has led directly to the situation the Boers find themselves in today.]
- Fred Rundle notes the ANC connection with Sanlam.
- Johann Botha during doc on De La Rey song / video. Quote: [ Inside the group calling themselves Afrikaans a smaller group calls themselves Afrikaners and inside that an even smaller group who see themselves as Boere. These are not necessarily people with Right Wing political sentiments wearing khaki clothes and who want to shoot wildy at people who look different from him. They are people who share a common historic identity. ]
- Clare Wyllie interviews Professor Gerrit Schutte.
Quote: [In 1880s the real interest developed, with the Boer rebellion. From then the Dutch began to consider the Boer Republics something like a Dutch colony – not in a political sense but as having a cultural dependency. Many Dutch occupied positions in the Transvaal: the preachers in churches were mostly Dutch, about 20 percent of the administration was Dutch, there were hundreds of Dutch schoolmasters and railways in the Transvaal were run by a Dutch company. The Superintendent of Education was Dutch, as was the Secretary of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. The Transvaal government made the republic attractive for Dutch people. Paul Kruger did not like people from the Cape – he felt they were subjugated by the British, so he encouraged people from the Netherlands to work in the Transvaal as a way to strengthen Boer independence.]
Post Script. I hope this once & for all sets the record straight concerning this topic.
Download a printable version of the article here.
by Vryburger | Aug 12, 2017 | Who is the Boer?, Wie is die Boer?
THE TRUTH AT LAST
Dedicated to the 24,000 Boer Children and 3,000 Boer women and Men who died in the Great Boer Holocaust of 1900-1902.
THE cries of the dying children have been scattered by time, but the message of sacrifice and struggle which they carried can still be heard, the sound of distant drumming, the march of feet, the legions of the dead marching on. They beckon on those left behind: find the strength to carry on, for we died not in vain.
(50 % + of all Boer CHILDREN under 16 years were killed)
(The Havenga report hidden under secrecy act says much MORE were killed)
Foreword.
This work has in essence to do with the difference between culture, race and nation-hood. Too often, either through ignorance, indifference or maliciousness, the distinctions between these three concepts are blurred, obscuring the real drivers of history and preventing an understanding of the true causes of events.
A race can be defined as a group of individuals who share broadly the same common genetic characteristics. In this way, broadly speaking, the peoples of Europe share a common genetic inheritance which can be seen through their physical appearance.
The same applies, broadly speaking, to the other main racial groups around the world: the Black (Negroid); the Mongolian (Asian) and so on. This common genetic heritage defines not only the different races’ physical appearance, but also (and more controversially), their intelligence and cognitive abilities.
Nationhood can be defined as the feeling of unity experienced by a group of individuals, and not necessarily racially defined. It is possible for a collection of individuals from different races to claim a common nationhood, depending on how that nation defines itself.
This is linked to the concept of culture: for example, although the peoples of Europe share more or less a common genetic heritage, no-one in their right mind will claim that Irish culture is identical to that of, say, Austrian. The fact remains that cultures differ, even amongst virtually identical racial groupings.
It is this difference in culture which forms the basis of this paper.
It is important to note that culture is transferable. An example: if a German born baby is taken at birth and raised in a Scottish household, that child will, culturally speaking, be a Scotsman first, and then a White person second. Being a German will not even rate as a third place.
In this way a nation known as Boers has come into existence in South Africa. The Boers are a collection of peoples originating in Europe who have coalesced into a culturally, and even ideologically, uniform group which has set them apart from others in Africa – including Whites who have not made the cultural shift.
The Dutch, German, French, Belgian, Danish, English and Irish surnames one sees amongst this group testifies to the transferability of culture – and also to the unique blending process which has given rise to one of the most hardy indigenous peoples of Southern Africa.
It is towards a greater understanding of the drivers of culture, race and nationhood that this work is presented to the reader.
The Author gave me, Theuns Cloete, full permission to edit this document
Historical note: the outline of this paper started life as a submission to the United Nations Sub Commission on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples when the Commission held its annual meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in June 1995.
- Introduction
- Definitions
- White Settlement
- The Cape Dutch Settlers
- The British South Africans
- The Boers
- The Afrikaners
- An Indigenous People
- Conclusion
- Introduction
There is a conception held by the outside world – and indeed by many within South Africa – that all the White inhabitants of South Africa are a uniform group – that they are all united and until very recently, all wished to dominate other peoples under the banner of Apartheid.
This is a misconception, a factual inaccuracy, perpetrated by those who had either absolute political power in South Africa as their aim, or who wished to see the only indigenous White people of Southern Africa, the Boers, be taken up and destroyed in a larger whole.
There are Whites in South Africa who are not part of the colonial heritage; who are not part of the “white South Africans” who until recently were regarded as the polecats of the world. This group of people is known as the Boers.
- Definitions
According to the Oxford Dictionary, “indigenous” is an adjective meaning “native, belonging naturally to the soil,” (from the Latin indigena).
An indigenous people are therefore a people occupying a territory whose roots can be shown to have come from that particular territory, and not some other part of the globe. This is a crucial definition to bear in mind when the Whites of South Africa are analysed.
Although the outside world has now for many years wrongly regarded the Whites of South Africa as a single ethnic group, there are in fact three distinct ethnic groupings within the White population:
(i) the British South Africans,
(ii) the Afrikaners, and
(iii) the Boers.
The distinction between these three ethnic groupings, and particularly the last two (the “Afrikaners” and the “Boers”) is of crucial importance in determining the Boers’ rights as an indigenous people.
- White Settlement
Although the first Whites landed at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, they did not come as settlers. They were Hollanders who came to set up a refuelling station for their ships traveling to and from the east. The first White Hollander ashore, Jan van Riebeeck, in fact left Africa shortly afterwards and never returned.
It was however a number of other Europeans who came to the Cape shortly after this Dutch supply station had been set up, who formed a core of real settlers, based around the Western Cape. These settlers came from various European countries such as Holland, Germany, France and a number of other smaller nations.
Many of these people were members of the Protestant Churches in Europe, and came as religious refugees. This wave of Protestants firmly established a Protestant ethic in South Africa to the extent that to this day Protestantism is the dominant Christian religion in the country.
The Cape was all this while under Dutch rule, which became increasingly autocratic and intolerable. Slowly but surely a section of these white settlers, many of whom had already once fled persecution and therefore had an already established tradition of independence, began to agitate against the Dutch colonial rule. This agitation resulted in the “Vryburger” movement (the “Free Burgers”) which pressed the Dutch colonialists for more and more independence.
The Free Burgers were the first Whites in South Africa to make the transition from “settlers” to an indigenous people growing “out of the soil”. Most of the Vryburgers had been born in Southern Africa, and many were two or more generations removed from Europe already. It was members of this community which started migrating away from the Cape, motivated by a desire to escape Dutch Colonial rule.
This agitation against colonial rule can be said to be the first origins of the only White indigenous people of Africa. It is therefore crucial to bear in mind that the very first anti-colonial movement in Africa was the White Vryburger movement – which was the Boer nation in germination. These attempts to escape colonialism were the origin of the Boer people.
However, it is also equally true that a large number- in fact the majority – of White settlers at the Cape did not support the Vryburger movement. Most of them were quite happy with the colonial situation, and perfectly happy to stay under the Dutch flag.
These people formed the core of what is today known as the “Afrikaner” people – mainly Cape based. This group is dealt with in detail below.
A third wave of White settlers arrived in South Africa in large numbers after 1820. The British Empire had by this stage occupied the Cape during the Napoleonic wars in Europe to protect the eastern Sea Route.
As a result of the British occupation of the Cape, a large number of English speaking settlers arrived in the Cape, bringing with them their language, religion and other cultural expressions.
- The Cape Dutch Settlers
When the White population at the Cape split over the colonial issue – as detailed above, those who wanted to escape colonial rule migrated away from the Cape, while those who had no nationalistic zeal and who wished to keep their links with Europe stayed behind.
These people who stayed behind were all Dutch citizens, and when the British occupied the Cape, were perfectly happy to become loyal British vassals.
Those who stayed behind in the Cape became known amongst the independence minded Boers as the “Cape Dutch” – symbolizing their attachment to Europe. This group loyally supported any European colonial government, and vehemently opposed all attempts by the fledgling Boer population to break ties with the colonial governments.
This group stood in strong opposition to the fledgling Boer population and differed with them on all levels – starting with their approach to colonialism and extending all the way through even to language. It is not widely known for example that there are for example marked accent and pronunciation differences between the Boers and the “Cape Dutch”.
The vehemence with which the Cape Dutch opposed the Boer population was underlined when the Boers were excommunicated from the Cape Dutch Reformed Church when they moved away from the Cape.
This group of Cape Dutch settlers therefore always opposed the Boers’ drive for independence and anti-colonialism, and, along with the British settlers, were the true colonial masters of Southern Africa, while the Boers always tried to escape from this mentality and state of affairs.
- The British South Africans
After the British occupied the Cape for the first time in 1795, the British decided that Africa should be added to the then expanding British Empire. For this purpose the British government engaged in large scale settlement of its citizens in South Africa.
The first large wave came in 1820, and these people settled in first the Cape and then later in what became known as Natal. While a few of the British settlers immediately assimilated themselves in the mind-set of the Boer frontiersmen, a large number retained the British link.
The reaction of the Boers to the British occupation of the Cape is important because it provided an impetus for the continuation of the migratory process away from the Western Cape, a process which had already started in protest against the White Dutch colonial rule.
The Boer rebellion against British rule in the Cape reached a high point with an armed rebellion in 1812\1813, known as the Slagtersnek rebellion. Although this rebellion failed, it did exemplify what the difference between the Boers and the White settlers – both Dutch speaking and English speaking – was all about).
The Boers wanted independence and not to be part of a colonial expedition, while the other settlers were just colonists and nothing else.
The British settlement in South Africa formed the second major ethnic grouping of Whites in South Africa. To this day they have retained their British heritage and affinity for their homeland, even down to the extent of most of them having dual nationality or at least access to such dual nationality – South African and British.
This British element, for the greatest part, has remained loyal to Great Britain throughout their history in South Africa, and needless to say, actively opposed the Boers’ anti-colonization drive as well. The culture of these British settlers is still firmly part of their European homeland.
This does not however counteract that fact that a portion of English speakers actively identified themselves with the Boer cause – then and now. Those who did, and do today, are assimilated into the Boers as quickly as other nationalities are.
- The Boers
As the first anti-colonialist drive began under the Dutch colony in the Cape, so did the most zealous “Boers” (the word originally means a farmer) begin to move away from the Cape in search of freedom and independence. These people were continually moving further and further away from the Cape and eventually met the first great Nguni migrations – the Xhosa people – who were moving South at the same time. This meeting took place in what is today known as the Eastern Cape.
As the two great migrations – Boer and Xhosa – met at the Fish River in the Eastern Cape, so did these two migrations stop for a while. In the interim however, the British
Empire occupied the Cape Colony, and the Boers, who had sacrificed so much to escape their White colonial Dutch masters, once again found themselves under White British rule.
It was from the Eastern Cape that the first of what has become known as the Great Trek movements started. This Great Trek was in fact the migration of the Boer people away from the British Empire – proof yet again that the first anti-colonial movement in Africa was a Boer movement – an indigenous people trying to escape colonization by a European power. In many ways this of course mirrored events in North America.
The main cause of the Great Trek was the British colonial masters trying to colonize the Boers of the Cape frontiers. There were other smaller factors, but it can be said in summation that it was the Boers’ desire to be free and independent of colonial rule which caused the Great Trek.
It is of crucial importance to note that whenever reference is made to the Great Trek, history writers always refer to the “Boers” who took part in the great Trek. There was no “Afrikaner” Great Trek, and there were no “Afrikaner” Great Trek Leaders, just Boer Great Trek leaders. This is an indication that at this stage already the Boers had developed an identity of their own, as distinct from the Cape Dutch and English settlers of the Cape.
The independence minded Boers packed up their belongings and headed north – into what today is known as the Orange Free State, Transvaal and into Natal.
Although there were scattered Nguni speaking peoples living in these territories, particularly in Natal where the Zulus held sway, large parts of these territories were vacant, having been decimated by the Difaquane, or inter-tribal wars said to have originated with the Zulu King Shaka.
The first Boer movement into Natal attempted to negotiate land from the Zulu King, Dingaan. These attempts to trade land with the Zulu ended in failure and the Boer leaders were murdered.
The Zulu army was however defeated at a Battle which became known as the Battle of Blood River in 1838, and the first Boer Republic was established in Natal shortly thereafter.
The Battle of Blood River is regarded by Boers as the symbolic birth of their nationhood, although of course in reality the Boers had established an own identity long before this event. The reason why the Boers however regard the battle as being the symbolic birth of their nation was that they felt that their victory against overwhelming odds was divinely inspired. The Boer Trekkers had taken an oath to the Christian God that if they were given the victory that day they would hold the day as holy – and the Boers have held this tradition ever since.
Immediately after the Battle of Blood River – and the defeat of Dingaan – the Boers renewed negotiations with the Zulus, and their new King, Mpande. The new Zulu King agreed to let the Boers have territory in Natal. It can be seen that from this early period then, the Boers were recognized by other peoples in Southern Africa as an independent nation and not part of the colonial governments – in other words already then they were recognized as an indigenous people.
However, the British Empire still wished to colonize the Boers, and in 1840 annexed Natal. After a few skirmishes with the British, the Boers once again packed up their belongings and left Natal, leaving behind only a small number in Northern Natal.
The Boers from Natal then went and joined their fellow Boers in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, which had in the meantime been put on the road to nationhood as well.
One of the major clashes of this period took place at a place called Vegkop in 1836, where a Boer party was attacked by an advance army of Matabeles, many miles before the Boers hade actually penetrated Matabele territory. The Matabele were defeated, and fled across the Limpopo river, where they are to this day, in what is now called Zimbabwe.
While there were scattered Black indigenous tribes living in the territories which became know as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, there were very few other major clashes between them and the Boers. When such clashes did take place, they were usually over matters such as stock or grazing rights – things over which indigenous peoples would clash, rather than the battles of conquest which conventional colonisation produces.
In 1852 the British Empire recognised Boer independence at the Sand River Convention. This year marks the firm establishment of the Boers as an indigenous people in international law, in the same manner in which American independence was achieved.
At this early stage not one, but two independent Boer Republics were recognized by the international world, and were granted contractual capacity as with any other independent indigenous nation. The mere fact that the British colonial masters accepted this state of affairs shows that even the European powers recognized the independence of the Boer nation, and also accepted that this independent was not a colonial experiment.
The Boers had in the interim developed their own culture and language – in fact the language spoken by the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State Republics is one of the newest languages on earth. Many of its words have origins in Africa – and not in any European language.
Linguistically then, the language of the Boers was created in Africa – yet another indication that the Boers and their culture are indigenous to Africa, and not a colonial import.
It is also of crucial importance to note that when any mention is made of the independent republics, they are always called “Boer Republics” – and never “Afrikaner Republics”. This is of course confirmation that the Boers had a separate identity from the Cape Dutch and British settlers. This separate identity was confirmed in International Law by the Sand River Convention of 1852.
Although the Boers though they had at last found freedom from colonialism, they were wrong. The British Empire launched two more attempts to recolonise them – the second time being successful.
The first attempt to colonize the Boers came with the occupation of the Transvaal by a small British contingent in 1877. This event led directly to the First Anglo Boer War (note again that it is called an “Anglo Boer War” and not an “Anglo-Afrikaner” war) and by 1881 the British forces had been defeated by the Boers to such an extent that the British were forced to once again recognize the independence of the Boer republics. This recognition was given formal effect by the London Convention of 1884 – the second time that the Boers had been recognized as an independent and indigenous people in international law.
It is a sobering thought to realize that the very first liberation war against colonial masters was in fact fought by the White Boers against the White British colonialist – preceding any Black liberation war by many decades. It can be argued that only an indigenous people can wage a liberation war, and that this therefore shows once again that the Boers had by this stage firmly established themselves as an indigenous people of Africa.
The second attempt by the British to colonize the Boers resulted in the Second Anglo Boer War of 1889-1902 (once again note that it is called the Anglo-Boer war and not the Anglo Afrikaner war). This war resulted in the development by the Boers of the guerrilla warfare method, since used by many liberation movements in all parts of the world. Although the Boers fought bravely against overwhelming odds, the British used a cruel and till then unheard of measure of fighting – they rounded up as many Boer women and children as they could find and put them into concentration camps scattered around South Africa. In these camps, as a result of judicial executions, starvation, disease and ill treatment, some 27,000 Boer children and woman died – some 60 + percent of the total Boer child population under 16 years of age of the time.
(The Havenga report hidden under secrecy act says much MORE were killed.)
Against such inhumane methods the Boers could not fight, and eventually the British succeeded in their dream of colonising the entire Southern Africa in 1902, when the treaty of Vereeniging, ending the Second Anglo Boer War, was signed. Even in defeat, the Boers were recognized under international law.
The position of the Cape Dutch and British settlers during this conflict also goes to show that these people did not associate themselves with the Boers. Although a few Cape Dutch did take up arms and fight on the side of the Boers, (they became known as the “Cape rebels” for this reason – and they were severely punished if caught) the vast majority of the Cape Dutch and British settlers in the Cape and Natal supported the British colonization of Southern Africa, which then also included today’s Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and territories even further north.
The treaty of Vereeniging therefore marks the subjugation of the Boers by White European colonial masters – a fate shared by countless other indigenous peoples while the British and other European empires still regarded Africa and other parts of the world as their personal possession. The Boers were however unique in that they were the only White indigenous people to be subjected in this way.
- The Afrikaners
Thus at the time of the ending of the Second Anglo Boer War, there were three distinct ethnic groupings amongst the broad White population of South Africa:
(i) the internationally recognized and indigenous Boer people;
(ii) the Cape Dutch Settlers, loyal to the British Empire; and
(iii) the British settlers, also loyal to the British Empire.
The British Empire realized that it had to bring the Boers under control for once and for all, and therefore devised a plan to neutralize the Boer Republics – a plan to make them join up with the other two White segments of their colonies in South Africa.
The British masters of Southern Africa therefore engineered the National Convention of 1908, which saw the creation of the Union of South Africa. This union consisted of the former Cape Colony, the Natal colony, and the two former Boer Republics. This union was not merely a geographic convenience, but a deliberate plan to try and destroy the independence minded Boers by mingling them with the Cape Dutch and British settlers.
It is worth noting that the British Empire used their technique in other parts of Africa as well – reference can be made to the short lived federation of Nyasaland (Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to name but one.
The prime representative of the British Empire in South Africa, Sir Alfred Milner, put it this way: “The new tactic (to subjugate the Boers) must be to consolidate the different areas of British South Africa into one nation. Although unification will initially put the Boers into political control of the entire South Africa, it will, ironically, eventually lead to their final downfall.”
This was of course precisely what happened – but not until a new name had been developed for the new “nation” which Milner spoke about. They could not continue to call the new nation a “Boer” state, because the Boers had been subjugated.
They could not call it a “Cape Dutch” state, as the Dutch colonialists were now British colonialists, and they could not call it a British state, for obvious reasons. The answer then was to give a general term to all the White inhabitants of the new union – “Afrikaners”. Although the word originally meant “African” it as politicized by a group of Western Cape Dutch propagandists under one SJ du Toit in 1880 (the same year the Boers in the Transvaal took up arms to fight the British colonialists) in literature of the time. It was then decided to try and blend the Boers into the Cape Dutch and British populations by calling them all Afrikaners instead of referring to their real cultural bases.
This then is how the world began to hear of “Afrikaners” – although only 80 years ago there was no such word in the international vocabulary.
That the concept of an Afrikaner is all embracing is underlined by the fact that in 1998 the former Afrikaner Broederbond (now called the Afrikaner Bond) announced that it classified all those sharing a broad Afrikanerism to be Afrikaners – to this end they acknowledged that many Cape Coloureds, also known as the Brown People, who speak Afrikaans and who attend a Dutch Reformed Church are Brown Afrikaners. In reality they are of course correct.
This illustrates the difference between Boers and Afrikaners in a very vivid way: A Coloured will readily agree with the definition that he is an Afrikaner, but will emphatically deny being a Boer. If Boers and Afrikaners are the same thing, why the differentiation in the view of other groups?
By forcing the Boers into the Union of South Africa, the British made them co-responsible for the policy of racial segregation, which had of course been established and legislated by the British colonial government.
The new “Afrikaners” – in fact a coalition of Cape Dutch, British and some Boers – tried as best they could to come to grips with the racial and geographic legacy left to them from the British colonial times – and it was from this disaster that the policy of Apartheid was developed.
It is supreme importance to note here that the Boers were dragged unwillingly into the Union of South Africa – and at the first opportunity which presented itself they tried to extricate themselves by force of arms. This was the unsuccessful 1914 Boer rebellion, which ended when some Boer war era generals were killed or imprisoned by the pro-British Union of South Africa government.
It is a little known fact that the manifesto which was issued by the 1914 Boer rebellion leaders contained as its primary demand the restoration of the Boer republics and the dissolution of the Union of South Africa.
It is thus unfair of the international world to regard the “Boers” as having been responsible for what happened in South Africa during the second part of the 20th century – the Boers were just as much victims of the colonial powers as were any other indigenous people of Africa.
Milner’s words were true – by forcing the Boers into the Union of South Africa, he was forcing them to be subjugated by the broad South African British colony, and this has led directly to the situation the Boers find themselves in today.
- An Indigenous People
The Union of South Africa led directly to the attempt to extend and hold the British originated policy of racial separation in South Africa – an attempt which ended with the election of April 1994 and the coming to power of the African National Congress in South Africa.
This change over of the reins of power does not however mean that the underlying causes of the downfall of the Union of South Africa (later the Republic of South Africa) have been removed. They are still there – namely the reality that there are numerous different ethnic groupings in the greater Southern Africa, all wrestling to establish their own territory and space.
The Boer nation is one of these groups. The Boers have not disappeared – the British Empire and their unitary state merely tried to define them out of existence – in vain.
The existence of the Boer nation has nothing to do with racism or apartheid – the Boers existed long before Apartheid, and continue to exist after Apartheid, for that matter. The Boers are a well-established indigenous grouping who fought the first anti-colonial liberation wars in Africa.
If the Boers were, as the world might like to view them, just “white racists” then they would never have come into conflict with the White colonialists!
The subjugation of the Boers does not however negate the fact that they are a people all by themselves – they have their own unique history, their own traditions, own festival days, political dispensation, political philosophy, they had their own territory (state), own symbols, own flags, anthems and so on – all developed in Africa.
This then is truly an indigenous people – in contrast to the Afrikaners and British South Africans, who developed nothing new or original but remained loyal to their colonial masters’ emblems and traditions.
The Boers do not want a state or territory for the “Whites” of South Africa. This is a falsehood which must be dispelled for once and for all. All the Boers want is an own independent territory, just as they had before the White colonialists took it away from them. Nothing more and nothing less will do.
This has nothing to do with race or racism – merely the desire of an indigenous people to be themselves and to rule themselves in their own territory – a right, incidentally, enshrined in the United Nations charter.
- Conclusion
In summation then it can be clearly seen that there are differences between the cultural groupings making up the White South African population.
It is important to note that the cultural differences are to a large extent determined by the groups themselves, with no force or law creating these divisions.
Many English speaking South Africans, for example, will never agree to being defined as Boers, while equally some Afrikaans speaking Whites will never agree to being defined as Boers. The multi-racial nature of the Afrikaner grouping, as evidenced in the 1998 decision by the Afrikaner Bond (and discussed above) is another differentiating characteristic.
Perhaps one of the clearest differences in the cultures of Boers, Afrikaners and British South Africans is illustrated by the political divide. At the time of the referendum over the republic of South Africa, the Transvaal and Orange Free State voted overwhelmingly in favour of breaking ties with Britain, while the Cape and Natal voted in favour of staying on as a British vassal. Because of this division, it was only by the slimmest margin (51 percent) that the Republic was created. It was only the vote of the inhabitants of the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State which clinched the Republic.
This north/south division continued to present times, with the north always being known as more conservative than the south.
This does not mean that only the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Boer Republics qualify as Boers. The concept of a Boer (as opposed to an Afrikaner or a British South African) is a cultural concept and is as such transferable.
Such assimilation must however be mutual – it is possible for anyone to become a member of any of the groupings mentioned – providing they are amenable to the notion, and providing the group they are assimilating into fully accept them as such. In this was it is possible to Afrikaners to join the British group (Sir Laurens van der Post being a prime example) and for British South Africans to join the Boer grouping in the same way that many Irish or other European nationalities have done.
The Boers then can ultimately be defined as a group with a common genetic heritage (European) and a common cultural heritage, which has its roots in the desire to be part of a new and independent nationhood.
“What Afrikaner Nation?”
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