Post by Silveira on Apr 23, 2004 16:48:36 GMT -5
I posted the following on Alex´s forum on a thread about Kemp. It is an article written by an English or Australian right-wing extremist who moved to apartheid South Africa, thinking perhaps that it would be some sort of paradise for racist extremists, and offers an interesting perspective on this topic....
wakeupaustralia.net/why_we_got_it_wrong.htm
WHY WE GOT IT WRONG ABOUT THE AFRIKANERS
by John Humphries
Shortly after I emigrated to South Africa, and was still waiting for my work permit to be granted, I spent an afternoon at the Cockney Pride bar on the Durban beachfront. I got talking to a British South African who I met there, but he surprised me greatly by referring to the Afrikaners as "White kaffirs". Prior to emigrating to South Africa I had always regarded the Afrikaners as something approaching White supermen, so I was therefore highly shocked and offended by this remark. Fourteen years later however, when those of us behind S.A.Patriot magazine had no choice but to leave the country, I realised that this stranger may have been very close to the mark all those years earlier.
The "received wisdom" has always been that all Afrikaners were right-wing and pro-apartheid to a man, whereas the English-speakers (British South Africans) were almost entirely incorrigible liberals. The truth, however, turns out to be very different. When one looks at the names of those instrumental in the sell-out of South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s they were practically exclusively Afrikaners - people such as John Vorster, the Bothas, the de Klerks, Gerrit Viljoen, Roelf Meyer, Johan Heyns, Sampie Terreblanche and van Zyl Slabbert. The White opposition to this sell-out bristled with British South African names however, heroes such as Clive Derby-Lewis, Arthur Morris, Carl Werth, Allen McCabe, Patrick Kenney, Owen Parvess, and - dare I say it - those of us behind S.A.Patriot.
But it wasn’t the Afrikaner leaders alone who were eager to exchange Western civilisation for multi-racial chaos; the majority of the Afrikaner people seemed only too willing to follow them like lemmings towards their own destruction. At both the vital 1983 and 1992 constitutional referenda opinion polls indicated that English-speaking South Africans were going to vote "No" in far greater numbers than their Afrikaner compatriots. (Interestingly it was also revealed that Jewish South Africans voted "No" in 1992 in the largest proportions of all - but this isn’t surprising when one remembers the close fraternal terrorist links between the ANC and the PLO). Even as far back as the 1981 General Election it was estimated that the die-hard Afrikaans-only HNP received approximately a third of their votes from English-speakers!
It has been the very nature of Afrikaner "nationalism" which has been misunderstood all too often in the outside world however. Theirs is geographical nationalism, not racial nationalism. The average Afrikaner has little or no affinity with their kith and kin in the Netherlands, yet conversely views the land and soil on which they live - a mere piece of geography - as their "fatherland". From here it has been a very small step to regarding all those who live on this same piece of geography, no matter what their race, as "fellow South Africans".
To understand how this sorry state of affairs came into being we must analyse two important factors concerning the Afrikaner people. Firstly we must understand their history, and secondly we must comprehend their 20th century psyche.
When Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652 on behalf of the Dutch East Indian Company it was not in order to establish a new Dutch colony, but merely a victualling station en route to the main Dutch colonies in the East Indies (today’s Indonesia), and indeed from there to Japan. When the first Dutch East Indian Company employees arrived to man this station they forgot to bring one important "commodity" with them however. Women. As a result it was the local indigenous Hottentot women who became the outlet for their natural sexual energies, and there is much truth in the joke that the Dutch landed at the Cape on 6th April 1652 and the Coloured race was founded nine months later! In spite of the fact that the outlawing of inter-racial sex was subsequently entrenched in law the original settlers had no inhibitions about it, and happily welcomed the resulting offspring into their embryo Afrikaner community (hence the fact that most South African Coloureds have Dutch surnames), and it is estimated that there is 6 to 7 percent non-White blood within the Afrikaner people as a whole.
When Britain gained control of the Cape during the Napoleonic Wars it was by mutual consent. The Dutch East Indian Company was on the verge of collapse because of the Wars, and Britain and the Netherlands had for long been allies. There were initially no ill-feelings among the Dutch/Afrikaner settlers of the Cape towards British rule either - although the same cannot be said about certain missionary organisations. After the arrival of the 1820 British settlers (who did remember to bring their women with them!) the two White communities lived together in friendship and co-operation. When during the 1830s certain Afrikaner pioneer-types decided to head north in what became known as the Great Trek they received nothing but goodwill from the British. This is illustrated in the first frieze at the Voortrekker Memorial in Pretoria which shows British settlers from the Eastern Cape presenting the Voortrekker pioneers with Bibles. A number of British South Africans also fought with the Voortrekkers at the Battle of Blood River in 1838, and when in 1877 the resulting Transvaal Republic was on the verge of bankruptcy it was Britain who came to their rescue.
This basic friendship and mutual-respect between the two main White communities of South Africa came to an end with the ascent of Paul Kruger in the Transvaal however. Kruger was an austere member of one of the more liberal Afrikaans Calvinist churches, the Gereformeerde Kerk (or "Dorpies" - literally "townies"), and was rumoured to have much non-White blood in his veins, which tends to be confirmed by his very haggard appearance. After the discovery of gold in the Transvaal Kruger was quite happy to allow British South African experts to live in the Transvaal and mine this gold for him (which became known as "Kruger’s Gold"), but was not prepared to grant them the vote - in other words putting them on a par with the Blacks. This intransigence led alas to the fratricidal Anglo-Boer War.
wakeupaustralia.net/why_we_got_it_wrong.htm
WHY WE GOT IT WRONG ABOUT THE AFRIKANERS
by John Humphries
Shortly after I emigrated to South Africa, and was still waiting for my work permit to be granted, I spent an afternoon at the Cockney Pride bar on the Durban beachfront. I got talking to a British South African who I met there, but he surprised me greatly by referring to the Afrikaners as "White kaffirs". Prior to emigrating to South Africa I had always regarded the Afrikaners as something approaching White supermen, so I was therefore highly shocked and offended by this remark. Fourteen years later however, when those of us behind S.A.Patriot magazine had no choice but to leave the country, I realised that this stranger may have been very close to the mark all those years earlier.
The "received wisdom" has always been that all Afrikaners were right-wing and pro-apartheid to a man, whereas the English-speakers (British South Africans) were almost entirely incorrigible liberals. The truth, however, turns out to be very different. When one looks at the names of those instrumental in the sell-out of South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s they were practically exclusively Afrikaners - people such as John Vorster, the Bothas, the de Klerks, Gerrit Viljoen, Roelf Meyer, Johan Heyns, Sampie Terreblanche and van Zyl Slabbert. The White opposition to this sell-out bristled with British South African names however, heroes such as Clive Derby-Lewis, Arthur Morris, Carl Werth, Allen McCabe, Patrick Kenney, Owen Parvess, and - dare I say it - those of us behind S.A.Patriot.
But it wasn’t the Afrikaner leaders alone who were eager to exchange Western civilisation for multi-racial chaos; the majority of the Afrikaner people seemed only too willing to follow them like lemmings towards their own destruction. At both the vital 1983 and 1992 constitutional referenda opinion polls indicated that English-speaking South Africans were going to vote "No" in far greater numbers than their Afrikaner compatriots. (Interestingly it was also revealed that Jewish South Africans voted "No" in 1992 in the largest proportions of all - but this isn’t surprising when one remembers the close fraternal terrorist links between the ANC and the PLO). Even as far back as the 1981 General Election it was estimated that the die-hard Afrikaans-only HNP received approximately a third of their votes from English-speakers!
It has been the very nature of Afrikaner "nationalism" which has been misunderstood all too often in the outside world however. Theirs is geographical nationalism, not racial nationalism. The average Afrikaner has little or no affinity with their kith and kin in the Netherlands, yet conversely views the land and soil on which they live - a mere piece of geography - as their "fatherland". From here it has been a very small step to regarding all those who live on this same piece of geography, no matter what their race, as "fellow South Africans".
To understand how this sorry state of affairs came into being we must analyse two important factors concerning the Afrikaner people. Firstly we must understand their history, and secondly we must comprehend their 20th century psyche.
When Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652 on behalf of the Dutch East Indian Company it was not in order to establish a new Dutch colony, but merely a victualling station en route to the main Dutch colonies in the East Indies (today’s Indonesia), and indeed from there to Japan. When the first Dutch East Indian Company employees arrived to man this station they forgot to bring one important "commodity" with them however. Women. As a result it was the local indigenous Hottentot women who became the outlet for their natural sexual energies, and there is much truth in the joke that the Dutch landed at the Cape on 6th April 1652 and the Coloured race was founded nine months later! In spite of the fact that the outlawing of inter-racial sex was subsequently entrenched in law the original settlers had no inhibitions about it, and happily welcomed the resulting offspring into their embryo Afrikaner community (hence the fact that most South African Coloureds have Dutch surnames), and it is estimated that there is 6 to 7 percent non-White blood within the Afrikaner people as a whole.
When Britain gained control of the Cape during the Napoleonic Wars it was by mutual consent. The Dutch East Indian Company was on the verge of collapse because of the Wars, and Britain and the Netherlands had for long been allies. There were initially no ill-feelings among the Dutch/Afrikaner settlers of the Cape towards British rule either - although the same cannot be said about certain missionary organisations. After the arrival of the 1820 British settlers (who did remember to bring their women with them!) the two White communities lived together in friendship and co-operation. When during the 1830s certain Afrikaner pioneer-types decided to head north in what became known as the Great Trek they received nothing but goodwill from the British. This is illustrated in the first frieze at the Voortrekker Memorial in Pretoria which shows British settlers from the Eastern Cape presenting the Voortrekker pioneers with Bibles. A number of British South Africans also fought with the Voortrekkers at the Battle of Blood River in 1838, and when in 1877 the resulting Transvaal Republic was on the verge of bankruptcy it was Britain who came to their rescue.
This basic friendship and mutual-respect between the two main White communities of South Africa came to an end with the ascent of Paul Kruger in the Transvaal however. Kruger was an austere member of one of the more liberal Afrikaans Calvinist churches, the Gereformeerde Kerk (or "Dorpies" - literally "townies"), and was rumoured to have much non-White blood in his veins, which tends to be confirmed by his very haggard appearance. After the discovery of gold in the Transvaal Kruger was quite happy to allow British South African experts to live in the Transvaal and mine this gold for him (which became known as "Kruger’s Gold"), but was not prepared to grant them the vote - in other words putting them on a par with the Blacks. This intransigence led alas to the fratricidal Anglo-Boer War.