There are some folks who often erroneously presume that the Great
Trek of the 19th cent was from Cape Town [ as noted by the author cited
in source # 17 of: The Cape Rebels Were Not Cape Dutch. ] when in fact
the Great Trek was virtually entirely from the Cape frontier where the Boer
population had developed at least 150 years prior. This confusion likely arises from the fact
that the centennial celebration of the Great Trek was organized to start
at Cape Town but that did not reflect the true history concerning the
matter. One of the main reasons for recreating the Great Trek as starting at Cape Town during
the centennial celebrations was no doubt to
foster a monolithic Afrikaner identity so as to cover up the distinct
Boer identity of the participants of the Great Trek. The Boer people of the frontier
were much more prone to trek [ & in fact had a long history of trekking ] due to their long standing anti-colonial
outlook & desire for independence & freedom on the
African continent. This outlook was not shared by the Cape Town & Cape Dutch population.
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12 comments:
This is an excellent blog. But I'm keen to understand the difference between Boers and Afrikaenrs? Very interesting. Thanks!
Thanks. I try to post the most relevant points. For further understanding concerning the particular & important issue of the difference between Boers & Afrikaners: I refer you to the following articles I authored based on numerous other sources. The term Afrikaner was simply a political term devised in order to lump all of the White Afrikaans speakers under the same umbrella. This dispossessed the Boer people in particular as they are the smallest segment of the artificial macro group.
The Population of the Boer Nation.
The Afrikaner Domination of the Boers.
The Noted Distinction of Boers From Afrikaners.
The Purposeful Omission of a Distinct Nation.
The Boers Documented as a Distinct Nation.
The Term Cape Dutch Was Documented.
The Persistent Blind Spot.
I hope this will help.
Getting back to the points raised in this particular post. The centennial celebration of the Great Trek [ during the late 1930s ] was organized by the Afrikaner Broederbond: the semi secret society of Afrikaans speakers who were working to create an artificial union or pan identity under the dispossessing term Afrikaner. This is why they started at Cape Town instead of the Cape frontier where the Great Trek actually started & took place into the interior. The idea was to hijack an important part of Boer history in order to build a new political based identity for all White Afrikaans speakers which marginalized the Boer people in particular & prevented them from reclaiming their conquered Boer Republics & from obtaining any other form of self determination. The Boer people existed long before the Cape Dutch started calling themselves Afrikaners [ circa late 19th cent. ] & then after the second Anglo-Boer War [ for which most Cape Dutch were on the side of the British ] started calling the Boers "Afrikaners" as well as part of the Afrikaner colonization of the Boer Nation.
The Afrikaner colonization of the Boer Nation in the wake of the second Anglo-Boer War was the main reason why the Boers have had a difficult time in trying to reclaim or restore their Boer Republics because every time they try: the Afrikaner establishment organizes to stop them. The Afrikaner designation when applied to all White Afrikaans speakers works as a divide & conquer strategy as it forces two different ethnic groups under the same designation thereby causing instant friction. The Cape Dutch segment thus always outvotes the Boer segment & the Afrikaner leadership always accuse the Boers of being "divisive" for wanting self determination. The Afrikaner designation works to marginalize the long running & just cause of Boer self determination.
There are Afrikaner Professors who like to accuse those Boers who want freedom & independence as being part "of a fringe movement" but that is a clever & dispossessing talking point because it is only a "fringe" movement when lumped in with White Afrikaans speakers in general [ as the Cape Dutch segment is larger ] but it is not a fringe movement among the actual Boer people. A lot of Boer descendents are still clinging to the Afrikaner designation & even tragically think that they could ever achieve independence under it as they simply do not take into account the controlled & compromised nature of the designation nor of the fact that the Cape Dutch segment holds the actual power. This is why the British promoted the Afrikaner designation as they knew it was the surest method to block the Boers without having to go back to war. The Cape Dutch were mainly pro British during the 19th cent & under the Afrikaner designation their descendents hold the voting power.
Hello Ron
Thanks for the info. I label myself as a Boer and I must say, this is eye opening.
Do you have a FB/Twitter account I can follow you on?
Thanks
Thanks for the compliment. Though it is quite sad that a lot of Boers do not even know much of this - but this was likely due to the strong power that the Afrikaner Broederbond had which controlled or influenced just about anything of importance. Much of this was eye opening to myself as well as I progressed along in my research. I just wanted to learn about the actual Boer people & upon making my discoveries started naively posting points about the Boers onto various forums since from 1997 & along with facing opposition from the usual opponents such as Black Nationalists [ though not all ] & White Leftists & even some White Nationalists / Rightists - I was initially surprised to see some opposition from so called Afrikaners starting in about 2005.
I was surprised to see how even some bloggers who I naively initially thought were on our side are actually fundamentally opposed to the Boers. One in particular erroneously stated in one of his articles that Stellenbosch University was "a Boer Oxford"! When I respectfully [ but naively ] pointed out to the individual [ circa 2006 - 2007 ] that his assertion is IMPOSSIBLE as the Boers [ then known as the Trekboers ] MOVED AWAY FROM the region by the early 1700s: he started to ATTACK me over it! He would later state in a smarmy manner that "you Boers are an exclusive people". I was puzzled. As he often closed articles with God Save The Boers! [ Looking back now it is eerily similar to the British National Anthem! only replace Boers with King / Queen! I guess it was a clue I did not realize at first. ] It took me years to realize why he was so adamant in promoting the the old discredited Broederbond propaganda notion that the Boers "were now all part of the Afrikaners" - but it came after he most vociferously attacked me repeatedly over a two year period from 2009 to 2011 [ complete with profanities ] in another blog [ as well as elsewhere ] on which I was invited to contribute. After I was gratuitously attacked / insulted / defamed / had straw man arguments used against myself & had my very own words distorted for simply stating the TRUTH - I realized just how bad the Afrikaner usurpation really was - as I was prior to then thinking that the Afrikaners could not really be so anti-Boer.
The reason why they often are of course has everything to do with the fact that most of the resources & minerals found in the modern day State of South Africa are found overwhelmingly within the old Boer Republics. Therefore if more Boers were to start reasserting their proper identity in large enough numbers [ ie: as opposed to going along thinking that they are Afrikaners thus under the sway & decision making power of the Afrikaner leadership ] as Boers & not Afrikaners & if enough of them started to demand or work for the restoration of the Boer Republics as they have historically done... then the Afrikaner leadership would be left without much of the resources of the region. Thus it should not be too surprising that they fight the authentic & DOCUMENTED fact that the Boers are a distinct people from the Afrikaner conglomeration. The inescapable reality of the situation is that the Boers will never find the self determination that they seek & have been struggling for now ever since 1795 if too many of them continue to allow themselves to be conditioned into seeing themselves as Afrikaners thus part of the Cape Dutch under the dispossessing Afrikaner designation which was a political context started by a few Cape Dutch intellectuals back when the Boers were mostly independent within their Boer Republics. The term Afrikaner was used by just about all types of Afrikaans speaking peoples of different races at varying times - but it was never used in a political context reserved to described just Boers & Cape Dutch until starting in the late 19th cent & well into the 20th cent. Therefore the term is totally compromised & acts to marginalize the numerically smaller Boer Nation.
The above comment is spam & does not address the topic.
Further illustrating the deceptive propaganda of the previously mentioned anti-Boer propagandist blogger: he outrageously claimed that the Boers of the Maritz Rebellion era were "former Boers" & deftly expressed feigned confusion as to why these "former Boers" were "divided" [ ie: trying to lay blame entirely onto the Boers while tellingly omitting the fact that the White Afrikaans population was composed of mostly Cape Dutch whom the actual Boers were lumped in with under the dispossessing Afrikaner designation ] while also routinely asserting the patent falsehood that "Boer Generals" ran South Africa for close to forty years despite the fact that two of the three so called "Boer Generals" were not from the Boer population. Thus he exposed the fact that he arbitrarily struck the Boers from existence while promoting the lie that the Cape Dutch Generals who fought with the Boers were "Boer Generals" at a time when by his own standards should have been called "former Boers". His anti-Boer rhetoric knows no bounds as he also asserted that the Boers ran the National Party & were responsible for Apartheid [ by deftly conflating the original National Party with the decades older D F Malan reorganized Purified National Party & later Reunified National Party ] despite the fact that the Boers were outnumbered by the Cape Dutch & had a very minimal role in the implementation of Apartheid while all done under the British then later Afrikaner rubric. The Afrikaner Collectivists like to usurp Boer hist while defaming the actual Boer Nation.
There were just so many shocking lies from that individual that it is hard to believe that it was due to pure ignorance or Broederbond propaganda as he aggressively declared that the Boers "were Cape Dutch that trekked" which is no doubt designed to confuse the issue & to insult the Boers as the Boers were from the Trekboers not the Cape Dutch population. He tried to downplay the importance of the role of the Trekboers by cynically but erroneously asserting that the Trekboers were the Voortrekkers. One would laugh at his ignorance if it were not so serious & damaging. In fact the Voortrekkers [ a term coined 100 years later btw by the Broederbond ] often encountered a number of Trekboers during the Great Trek as a number of Trekboers had begun crossing the Orange River decades earlier. The northernmost Trekboer migration remained as Trekboers for the longest time while the others settled down & planted roots at the northeastern Cape. He also goes out of his way to highlight how Boers are "traitors" while never talking about the role of the Cape Dutch. Though it is quite clear that his definition of traitor is anyone who would oppose Afrikaner domination as he is a strong supporter of the traitor Verwoerd whose anti-Boer agenda further entrapped / stripped & marginalized the Boer Nation.
That tactic was instrumental in exposing the reality that the Boers did not disappear or were "assimilated" as he ridiculously asserted prior [ only in reaction to my salient point that the Boers were not assimilated - just renamed ] because when he wrote that the Boers were "former Boers" by the 1910s - it exposed the fact that he arbitrarily with the stroke of a pen / keyboard removed & shelved the identity of the Boer people long before any alleged "assimilation" could have occurred. The Cape Dutch have no interest in Boer history nor do they see any merit in a struggle for self determination along the lines that the Boers have historically expressed & pursued it: therefore the pursuit of Boer self determination neither hurts the Boers nor the Cape Dutch. Neither does it "divide" Afrikaners [ which is an amorphous term claimed by numerous other Afrikaans speakers ] since there is nothing to divide as it was based on a political mythology which lumped two different Caucasian Afrikaans speaking ethnic groups under the same umbrella & single designation. The fact of the matter is that all it does is free the Boer Nation.
Hope you will keep on blogging , some fantastic information on this site
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