The term Afrikaner - as anyone studying its roots knows - is a political term that was first used to describe a political abstraction within a political context during the late 19th cent & was initiated by a Cape organization composed of Cape Dutch intellectuals & two individuals from Holland. As such, this term was significantly influenced by the British colonial power. The following are some quotes further outlining this fact.
Quote: [ Another point of grotesque confusion that we need to clear up, is that Boers are not "Afrikaners". None of your co-workers seem to have any understanding of this. All Boers are aware of the systematic subterfuge and distortion of "identity" that has been the result of the makings of the Broederbond and the National Party, based upon the then image of the British imperialist gentleman. This artificial identity was meant to wean away the Boers from their strong identity, from their history, from their nationalism, and thus weaken them. ]
From: Professor Dr. Tobias Louw. Open Letter to the Institute for Security Studies. September 16 2003.
From: Professor Dr. Tobias Louw. Open Letter to the Institute for Security Studies. September 16 2003.
Quote: [ As a point of departure it should be stated that Cape Afrikaners, upon encountering British occupation, possessed only a rudimentary collective consciousness. The process of collective consciousness formation among them took place largely, as we have seen, under the aegis of British rule. Generations of Afrikaners had been born as British subjects before this process matured in the 1870s in ethnic political mobilization. British colonial experience, with all its contradictory ramifications, left a deep impression on their evolving collective consciousness. The manifestations of loyalty by the Afrikaner Bond serve as clear evidence thereof. It may sound somewhat speculative, but the admiration and love for the Queen may suggest that she played a role in the formation of Cape Afrikaner group identity and consciousness. They seem to have adopted Queen Victoria as a collective mother figure. Praising and congratulating the Queen on her birthday in 1890, the Z A suggested that if a president were to replace the Queen, the centrifugal forces in the Cape would increase. Cape Afrikaners seemed to have internalized their imperial monarchical experience. Beyond that, it was the balance of their colonial experience which influenced their disposition. ]
From: Page 61. Cecil Rhodes and the Cape Afrikaners. Mordechai Tamarkin.
Quote: [ THE "AFRIKANERS"
7.1 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 English speaking White settlers, also loyal to the British Empire.
7.2 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.
7.3 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 & English settlers.
7.4 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.
7.5 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 be initially put the Boers into political control of the entire South Africa, it will, ironically, eventually lead to their final downfall."
7.6 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 White inhabitants of the new union - "Afrikaners". Although the word originally meant "African" it was politicized by a group of Cape Dutch propagandists under one SJ du Toit in 1880 (the same year the Boers 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 English speaking White populations but calling them all Afrikaners instead of referring to their real ethnic bases.
7.7 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.
7.8 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.
7.9 The new "Afrikaners" - in fact a coalition of Cape Dutch, English speaking Whites 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.
7.10 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.
7.11 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. ] Source: [ http://www.arthurkemp.com/whoaretheboers.htm ]
From: The Boers of Southern Africa. Arthur Kemp.
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