The Bittereinders and Trump gaslight President Cyril Ramaphosa

Trump’s appalling behaviour towards President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House yesterday has created a storm of different opinions about it in the papers and on Facebook. What Trump and Ramaphosa have in common is no knowledge of art. Trump showed an art installation of white crosses (not graves or on graves) that selectively mark only white deaths in South Africa. Ramaphosa knew nothing about it. The art installation can be found on the Bittereinders website. The Bittereinders (the Irreconcilables) are still fighting the Boer War that ended more than 120 years ago. Trump and his Proud Boys want to go back 160 years to when only Whites had power in America. On the racism score, Trump and Ramaphosa have nothing in common.

A silly story told by an Orange Man

According to Donald Trump, Afrikaners are a persecuted minority in need of rescue by him in return for their support for his MAWA (Make America White Again) agenda. Trump neither knows nor understands the history of the Afrikaner people. South Africa does suffer from too much poverty, criminal violence, and murder, but it is not specifically against white people. Poverty and violence are linked and are post-apartheid problems in South Africa and post-colonial problems in other African countries. Julius Malema, leader of the small EFF, after being thrown out of the ANC sings ‘Kill the Boer’ (Kill the farmer), an old anti-apartheid war song, which may be considered hate speech but is allowed in South Africa as free speech. Many ex-freedom fighters in South Africa reject Malema’s racism. It is not what they fought for. There were, and are, anti-apartheid Afrikaners. My list of those great and brave Afrikaners is in this blog.

Resistance to Oppression

The simplistic use of the terms ‘colonialism’ and ‘post-colonialism’ also ignores the complexity of South African literature, visual arts, and resistance to the apartheid regime. Anti-apartheid and resistance movements against oppression began inside South Africa before it was officially noticed. It is also true that oppressive ideas and habits do not immediately disappear with a regime change. Afrikaners are no different to any other group of people on our planet. Like all people, many think for themselves. The best reject oppression, not only for themselves but for us all.

An Afrikaner Story

Afrikaners are mixed-heritage Africans descended from the farmers of the first 1652 Dutch settlement in the Cape region of South Africa, which provided refreshment posts for the Slave and Far East Trade. The Dutch had not planned to colonise Africa then, they simply stayed on along the Cape coast. The British, however, took charge of the Cape Colony and ended first the Slave Trade in 1807 and then slavery itself in 1833. To escape British dominance and the end of slavery, some Afrikaners made the Great Trek north from 1835, where they set up two republics and lived as subsistence farmers dependent on slave labour. African tribes of that time also took, traded and used slaves.

Population and Language

According to research, by 1867, the Afrikaner population was a mixture of Dutch, German, French, People of Colour, British, Unknown and Other Europeans. They identify as Africans, however, and recognise no other home. Today South Africa recognises 12 different languages, and after Zulu, Afrikaans is the most spoken. Most Afrikaans speakers are Coloured and Black South Africans in the Cape and Gauteng provinces. Like Afrikaners, Afrikaans is an African mixed-heritage language, perhaps first written in Arabic script by Muslims. Afrikaners were devout Christians, but many were illiterate and had to have their Bibles read to them.

The Boer Wars 1880-1881 and 1899-1902

The Boer Wars fought by Afrikaners against the British may be described as anti-colonial wars. To prevent food supplies reaching the Boer commandos, Afrikaner women and children were imprisoned by the British in concentration camps, where they died in substantial numbers because of poor hygiene, dreadful prison conditions and typhoid. The result of the Boer Wars was increased poverty for Afrikaners. A few Afrikaners, the Bittereinders, were never reconciled to British rule and sided with the Nazi regime in WW2. Others like General Smuts fought for the British.

The Apartheid Regime

In the 20th Century, British settlers and Afrikaners distrusted and despised each other, a legacy of the Boer War, but also because of apartheid politics. Defining apartheid as oppression by colonists is questionable, as South Africa was an independent Republic by the time apartheid was law. This is not to deny its appalling racist treatment of Black South Africans, but to show how complicated history can be. Apartheid may be better understood as a power grab by a White African tribe of separatists in a country of many different tribes. It was also revenge after a failed war of Independence against English-speaking colonists by people who were Africans or Afrikaners.

Colonial and Post-colonial Confusions – The Liberation War

The liberation war of South Africa was fought between South Africans, as it was not about expelling outside invaders. It can be described as a civil war complicated by the Cold War. Russia and Cuba supported the liberation army while Britain and America supported the apartheid and Western-leaning government.

Colonialism and Post Colonialism

In Africa, the historical change from “colonialism” to “post-colonialism” is seen as a moral improvement and a social evolution. The term ‘colonisers’ has become conflated with white-skinned people and is used as a propaganda tool in the analysis of evolving political situations. This tidying-up of history can also create falsities in understanding the complexity of South African tribal history and society. Colonisation began with the Slave Trade and the Far East Trade, but the end of slavery in Southern and East Africa was also a result of colonisation. David Livingstone, missionary turned explorer, foresaw that the Arab Slave Trade in East Africa would only end with colonisation.

A Human Activity

Colonisation is common to all life forms on our planet, and it drives them to move to new environments that will continue to feed and sustain the life form when necessary and while possible. Human colonisation happens after a population increase or a change in food supply, trade or climate, but colonisers need to have the ability to colonise through technological mastery of transport and weapons if they are to succeed. Life forms may migrate rather than be forced out by predators. Colonisation and migration occur as a response to circumstances and accidents. It may be sensible not just to see colonisers as bad and the colonised as victims but instead to understand how and why we can change human behaviour.