Descendants of the Dutch colonizers of Africa can move to the Stavropol Territory and other regions of Southern Russia and the North Caucasus. We are talking about the white population of the country - the Boers. Assistant Commissioner for Human Rights in the Stavropol Territory Vladimir Poluboyarenko told the details on the program “EXTRANS” on Radio “Komsomolskaya Pravda” (105.7 FM in Stavropol and 88.8 FM in the KVM region).
Representatives of the Boers turned to me themselves after they learned that last year the Martens family from Germany moved to Stavropol. They have been terrorized there in South Africa for many years. They move to different countries of the world. But many Boers want to come to us - they believe in the future of Russia and Christian morality. Why in the Stavropol region? It’s hot there; they won’t genetically survive in eastern Russia,” says Poluboyarenko. - At the beginning of July, several representatives of this people will come to negotiations. They will be attended by the regional authorities, Cossacks, and clergy.
According to Vladimir Poluboyarenko, the delegation, which will arrive in a week, paid for its own flight and hotel accommodation.
They don't ask for anything at all! Moreover, each family will bring with them up to half a million dollars. They only want to be given a residence permit with subsequent acquisition of citizenship, as well as land for long-term lease or the right to buy it. 30 families are ready to travel to the Stavropol region at any time.
15 thousand refugees from South Africa are planning to move to the Stavropol region. But do we need them? [discussion]
DECENT WORKERS
Journalist and public figure Maxim Shevchenko expressed his opinion about the possible move of the Boers to the Stavropol region on Radio Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The Boers are people with a lot of money, and not poor migrant workers. They are decent, conservative and hardworking. Russia would be glad to see them. Our country has always been an ally of the Boers during the Boer War. Even Russian politicians fought on their side as volunteers. These people always knew that Russia would protect them from British expansion. But if they flee their country, it means something really serious is happening there,” Shevchenko believes. - Another question: why Stavropol region and not other regions? There are problems with the land here. I can't even imagine where they could be housed.
However, not all residents of the region are happy. First of all, Stavropol residents are concerned about competition in the labor market: there are not many jobs in the region anyway. For others, it’s the land issue. Be that as it may, the Stavropol authorities have not yet commented on the possible influx of refugees.
Actress Charlize Theron is one of the most famous representatives of the Boer people. Photo: "KP" Archive
OVERHEARD ON RADIO “KP”:
Valentina:- When the Nekrasov Cossacks moved to us, I was very happy! But there is another experience. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, refugees rushed to buy factories and land from us. And the indigenous population practically turned into slaves. So that history does not repeat itself, and everything that we earned with sweat and blood does not later go to the Boers.
Sergey:- I am definitely in favor! I myself am a migrant from the Lugansk region. I was received very well here. The Stavropol Territory accepts everyone and everyone gets along. There are many faiths in the region, different cultures, nationalities, living together. And we can get along with the Boers!
Elena:- I'm against. In our villages there is no work for our people. It’s not like helping your own people! And we want to shelter refugees here. Well, Christianity is different. Orthodoxy and Protestantism are very different. First of all, in lifestyle. Well, it remains to be seen what diseases they will bring to us.
Anatoly:- Hard-working people are always needed! The Boers are good and decent people! Let them come and work for us. And at the same time they boost the economy of Stavropol!
WHO ARE THE BOERS
The Boers are descendants of the Dutch colonialists in Africa. These were the first white settlers to settle in the south of the continent in the mid-17th century. During the Dutch East India Campaign, ships stopped here to resupply. The Boers are excellent farmers, many of them well educated. They are Christians and profess Protestantism. In recent years, Boers have increasingly become victims of various nationalist gangs. According to foreign media reports, in 2015 alone there were more than 200 attacks on Boer farms. Several dozen people were killed.
IMPORTANT!
Listen to radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda" on the frequency 105.7 FM in Stavropol, 88.8 FM in the KMS region, on our website or in the Radio KP mobile applications for and.
boeren - "peasants") - a subcultural group of Afrikaners in South Africa and Namibia. In other words, Boers are Afrikaner farmers, white rural residents, as well as poor whites (a similar concept to rednecks in the USA). Afrikaners never called themselves Boers. First of all, the name “Boers” was applied to rural settlers who lived in the east of the Cape Colony, at the very border of the Xhosa possessions (now the Eastern Cape Province), as well as to those who, after the annexation of the Cape Colony to Great Britain, went on the so-called Great Trek, during inland regions of the country (these latter are also called track drills), protesting against the British policy of assimilation. In the mid-19th century, Boer settlers founded the Orange Free State, the Transvaal and the Natal Colony. After the Anglo-Boer Wars, the Boer republics were re-annexed to Great Britain, and then became part of the Union of South Africa.They defined their social status as burghers, a tradition that has been preserved since the reign of the Dutch East India Company. Therefore, the name “Boers” may currently have an offensive character (in the sense of “uneducated, limited people”, “hillbillies”). Like Afrikaners in general, Boers are descendants of Dutch, French and German colonists in South Africa. They are distinguished by a conservative way of life. By religion - Protestants. Mother tongue is Afrikaans. They are dispersed throughout the country in hamlets and farms and do not form a majority anywhere. Both terms (Boers and Afrikaners) imply European origin. But since Afrikaans is also the mother tongue of a significant number of non-white residents, the name Afrikaans is used to describe all Afrikaans-speaking people.
Brief summary of the plot.
A representative of white farmers says the government is forcing them to donate 30% of their land.
blacks. But black farmers don't produce anything and don't want to produce anything.
And Georgia offers white farmers a way out. The Minister of Diaspora Affairs and a local farmers' organization signed a memorandum.
The memorandum contains general words, but they allow you to move in any direction. And the main point is the proposal to Transvaal farmers to move their business to Georgia.
The head of the Transvaal farmers' organization says:
“Every farmer must decide for himself whether or not he will go to Georgia. Our main problem here is security. Since the black majority came to power, more than 3,000 farmers have been killed. The police are often involved in attacks. We don’t know whether they will leave us any land at all or not. We have a lot of experience and we are known on the international market"
William De Klerk, the first South African to receive Georgian citizenship. He says the idea of bringing farmers here is a very good one.
They can bring a lot to Georgia. The situation in South Africa is getting worse every day. If their personal safety and property are protected in Georgia, this matter will be a great success.
After the signing of the memorandum, only a month and a half passed and a delegation of Transvaal farmers arrived in Georgia.
They came on behalf of 41,000 families in South Africa who will see and hear what they film here and think
Vano Merabishvili personally told and showed them the effectiveness of the police. In 10 minutes they issued a Georgian license to drive a car of international standard and received personalized license plates from the minister as a gift. This process in South Africa takes 3 months.
They played a rugby match with Georgian officials.
We took part in Rtveli in Kakheti.
We were delighted with Saperavi.
Who are the modern Boers and what do they want? Let’s try to figure it out.
Afrikaners and Boers.
To begin with, let us understand that the Boers are a people of European origin, but do not have European identification; moreover, the Boer population does not consider themselves to be part of the Afrikaner community, recognizing only linguistic similarities. Also, the Boers cannot be classified as descendants of the Dutch, because, in addition to the Dutch, the French, Germans and other Europeans took part in the creation of the Boer people, but they were formed as a nation during the development of the central and northern territories of modern South Africa.
The Boers are farmers and pastoralists, they are not descendants of colonialists, like Afrikaners (mostly), they live on their own land, which was empty before their resettlement from the South African coast, and if it was occupied, it was by newcomer tribes from central Africa. The Boers did not want gold and diamonds, which were found in huge quantities in the mid-19th century; on the contrary, the gold rush became their curse: the Outlanders who arrived in search of gold filled everything, but the most unpleasant thing was that they brought with them their own customs, their attitude towards religion, your way of life. The bulk of those who came were from Great Britain + a small number of financiers, mostly of Jewish origin. Those who came in large numbers began to demand political rights, and as a result, all this resulted in a series of conflicts that ended with the annexation of the Boer states, and in this war the white population of the Cape Colony sided with Great Britain, not the Boers. A number of Boer military leaders did come from the Cape Colony, such as Jan Smuts, but all of them became loyal supporters of the British crown and the expansion of the capitalist world-system.
Thus, in its purest form, the confrontation that went down in history as the war between the north and south on US territory is being repeated. The usurious-industrial north versus the predominantly agrarian south, with the only difference being that in southern Africa they switched places. The south is moneylenders, the north is freedom-loving farmers.
I think that for a more complete description of the Boers and their worldview, it would be appropriate to quote from an interview of Texas Senator Lewis Wigfall with an English journalist, shortly before the outbreak of the American Civil War.
“We are an agricultural people: we are primitive, but civilized people. We don’t have cities - why do we need them? We don’t have literature - but what use is it to us now? We don’t have a press - and this is our happiness. (... ) We do not have a merchant fleet, we do not have a military fleet - we do not see any need for either of them. You yourself will take out our products on your ships, and you will protect them yourself. We do not want to have industry, trade and produce industrial workers. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco and our cotton, we will be able in exchange for them to buy ourselves everything we need from friendly nations, and we will still have money left over."
What do the Boers want?
Restoring their statehood. Before the end of the Boer War, there were 2 large Boer states: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic (flags in the photo). After the war they were annexed by Great Britain and subsequently became part of the Union of South Africa, in which they played a major roleCape Dutchand the descendants of the British, they launched Apartheid, for which the Boer people are also blamed, but that’s another story.
Are the Boers racists, worshipers of Israel and bearers of the white man's mission?
The Boers are not racists in the British understanding of this phenomenon, they do not consider other races worse or better than themselves, they simply consider them different and do not want to live together with them. Afrikaner nationalists maintained and maintain ties with the Zionists; the Boers have, if not a negative, then extremely wary attitude towards both Israel and modern Jews. If we talk about missions, then the Boer ideal is the monotheists of the Old Testament era, living among the pagans, but at the same time strictly following monotheism. The Boers are a patriarchal, hard-working people, shunning what can be called -modern way of life .
to be continued...
How labor migration led to loss of independence
The world's first war for democracy, in which “violation of human rights” and “infringement of democratic freedoms” was used as a pretext for the occupation of an independent state and the seizure of its natural resources - this is not the war in Iraq in 2003, as many probably thought. No, this is a completely different war that took place a century earlier - the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.
Moreover, as a pretext for this war, the infringement of the rights not even of citizens, but of foreigners who came to work and settled in the country, was used. That is, a violation of the rights of migrant workers.
At the end of the article there is a list of very good books about the Boer War, but for now let us recall the history of the issue. There is probably no need to explain who the British are, but a little should be said about the Boers.
The Boers (Afrikaners) are a people formed by the mixing of Dutch peasants who emigrated to South Africa in the 17th century (“Boer” translated from Old Dutch means “peasant”) and French Huguenots (Protestant-Calvinists), among whom there were many nobles and townspeople. And although much more Dutch came to South Africa than the French, the French element was very strong, and therefore do not be surprised by the abundance of French names among the famous Boer generals who opposed the British - Joubert, Cronje, Delray, Devet.
Both the Dutch and the Huguenots professed the same religion (Calvinist Protestantism), and this brought the two peoples so close that they even created their own language - “Afrikaans”, based on Dutch grammar, but with more French words. A common language, religion and territory, a common type of thinking and the same self-awareness - all this led to the creation of a new people, that is, the Boers (after the Anglo-Boer War, this people, for the purpose of political correctness inexplicable for a normal person, began to be called Afrikaners, that is, “Africans” in Afrikaans, but they prefer to call themselves Boers).
The main distinguishing feature of the Boers was religious fanaticism, a willingness not only to suffer for their faith, but also to fight for it with arms in hand.
Remember how their ancestors, the Dutch partisans (“Geuze”) fought for 13 years (1566-1579) with the gigantic Spanish Empire, “on which the Sun never set,” and won!
Remember the French religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots that lasted more than 100 years (1562-1685), during which the ancestors of the Boers, the Huguenots, had to endure both genocide (“Bartholomew’s Night”) and famine (the siege of La Rochelle so cheerfully described by Alexandre Dumas with the participation of d'Artagnan, when half of the townspeople simply died of hunger), and the "dragonade" (mass murders and rapes of Huguenot women and children by royal dragoons - if you like fiction, read the novel by Anne and Serge Golon "Angelique in Rebellion" on this topic , the morals of the punishers are described there historically accurately), and although the Huguenots lost the religious war, they still did not submit, and chose to emigrate, but preserve their faith.
As their opponent Arthur Conan Doyle (yes, the same one who invented Sherlock Holmes) wrote about the Boers, it was "one of the most resilient, courageous and indomitable peoples that ever lived on earth".
However, misfortune befell the Boers in their new African homeland. If they had emigrated to a poor country with nothing, many problems could have been avoided. However, the Boers, without knowing it, settled on one of the richest territories of our planet. Later, deposits of very valuable minerals were discovered in South Africa. South African mineral resources were filled with gold and diamonds, as well as 75% of the world's platinum reserves, and many other non-ferrous and precious metals. The two largest natural reserves in the world are Siberia and South Africa.
If there is wealth, there will be someone who wants to take it away. The British tackled this issue with purely English methodicality and tenacity.
Having captured the coastal part of South Africa (Cape Colony) in 1806, the British immediately began to displace the Boers from there, creating unbearable conditions for their usual way of life, and the Boers were forced to endure oppression for some time, but then their patience ran out, and in 1835-1843 years, a significant part of the Boers migrated to the interior of South Africa. The Boer migration, when an entire people on horses and oxcarts left the land where people had lived for many generations, was called the “Great Trek”.
Later, the Boers founded their two republics in the new place - Transvaal (South African Republic) and the Orange Free State (Orange Republic). In 1877-1881. The British tried several times to conquer these republics (the First Anglo-Boer War), but nothing worked out for them - the British army of conquest was defeated by the Boers.
Then the proud Britons took a different path - they were the first in the world to figure out that it was possible to fight for democracy, and for this it was necessary to create an appropriate reason, which is what they did.
The British government began to massively send English settlers to the Boer republics, where these “migrant workers”, after arriving to work in the mines and gold mines, began to be called “Uitlanders” (in Afrikaans - “foreigners”).
As soon as British subjects appeared on the territory of the Boer republics, there was a very good reason to fight for their rights. “They’re beating our people!” We need help, don't we?
Someone may not understand why the British abandoned everything in their homeland and went to work in South Africa, and not by the “white gentlemen” who commanded the blacks on the plantations, but by the most ordinary miners living in barracks. It seems that Great Britain is a civilized, rich country. Indeed, the country was rich, only the population was poor. Carefully read Friedrich Engels's book The Condition of the Working Class in England. It tells how British workers lived in the 19th century in gruesome detail. The book, I warn you right away, is not for the faint of heart. From such a life, not only will you go to Africa, but you will organize a revolution (and Marx and Engels, by the way, were sure that the World Revolution would begin in the West, and not in the Russian Empire).
The labor market is subject to the general laws of a market economy, in which the cost of a product is determined by the relationship between supply and demand. The greater the supply of a product, the lower its cost. The smaller the supply of a product, the higher its cost. Labor power is exactly the same commodity, and the fewer workers there are on the labor market, the higher their wages, and the more workers, the lower their wages. If a worker does not want to “plow” for pennies, you can find a whole crowd of people willing to take his place. And the obstinate worker himself, who, you see, wanted a normal salary, may be left without anything at all and die of hunger.
English workers in the 19th century had to choose between living in hell and starving to death. Friedrich Engels gives an example when an English manufacturer told workers who did not agree with deductions from wages: “If you don’t want to fry in my frying pan, you can go straight into the fire.”.
And in order for the workers to be more accommodating and not rebel against slave-like working conditions, the English bourgeoisie found a very good instrument of influence called “Irish immigration” - they began to import labor migrants from Ireland to England, who were ready to work on such conditions as no Englishman would simply agree.
Here are some quotes from Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England:
“The Irishman had nothing to lose in his homeland, but in England he could gain a lot, and since it became known in Ireland that on the other side of the Strait of St. "George's strong hands can certainly find work for good pay; every year crowds of Irish go to England."
“These people, who grew up almost outside of any civilization, accustomed from childhood to all kinds of deprivations, uncouth, prone to drunkenness, living for today, move to England and introduce all their rude habits into that layer of the English population, which already has little inclination for education and strict morals."
“In his rags, the cheerful savage is always ready to do any work that requires only strong arms and a strong back, for a wage that will provide him with potatoes. It needs only salt as seasoning; for an overnight stay, he is content with the first stable or kennel he comes across, settles down in a barn and wears an outfit of rags, which is a most difficult operation to take off and put on, undertaken only on holidays or on especially special occasions. An Englishman who cannot work under such conditions does not find work. The uncultured Irishman, not by his strengths, but by their opposite, displaces the local native, the Englishman, and takes over his place. He lives in filth and carelessness, with his cunning and drunken excesses, being a hotbed of demoralization and disorder. A person who is still trying to swim, somehow staying on the surface, finds here an example of how one can exist, not staying on the surface, but sinking to the bottom... Everyone knows that the standard of living of the lower strata of English workers is getting closer and closer to to the standard of living of Irish workers competing with them in all markets; that any work for which only physical strength is sufficient, for which no special skill is required, is performed not for English wages, but for wages approaching Irish wages, that is, for wages somewhat greater than is required in order to “ half-satisfy your hunger with potatoes of the worst kind only for thirty weeks a year,” - somewhat more, but with the arrival of each new steamer from Ireland approaching this level.
“These Irish workers, who are transported to England for 4 pence (3⅓ silver pennies), crowded together like cattle on the deck of a ship, huddle anywhere. The worst houses seem good enough to them; they care little about clothing as long as it somehow stays on the body; they don't know shoes; Their food consists of potatoes and only potatoes; whatever they earn beyond that, they immediately drink away. Do such people need high wages? The worst quarters in all large cities are inhabited by Irishmen; Wherever some area is especially noticeable for its dirt and destruction, you can be sure in advance that you will meet predominantly Celtic faces, which at first glance can be distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon physiognomies of the local natives, you will hear the melodious, breathy Irish dialect, which a true Irishman never loses. I have heard Irish spoken even in the most densely populated areas of Manchester. Most of those families who live in basements are almost everywhere of Irish origin. In a word, the Irish have discovered, as Dr. Kay says, what the minimum necessities of life amount to, and are now teaching the English workmen to do this. They also brought dirt and drunkenness with them. This untidiness, which has become second nature to the Irish, does not cause such harm in the country, where the population is less crowded; but here, in big cities, with such a large crowded population, it inspires horror and is fraught with many dangers.”
“This is the kind of competitor the English worker has to contend with—a competitor who is at the lowest stage of development possible in a civilized country, and who is therefore ready to work for lower wages than anyone else. Therefore, as Carlyle asserts, in all branches of labor in which the English laborer has to compete with the Irish laborer, wages inevitably fall lower and lower.”
“...the penetration of the Irish contributed greatly to the decline of wages and the deterioration of the condition of the working class. And even if those Irish who penetrated into other branches of labor were forced to adopt a certain degree of culture, they still retain enough of their old habits to have a degrading effect here on their English comrades, who are generally influenced by the Irish environment around them. . Indeed, if we consider that in almost every large city one-fifth or one-fourth of all the workers are Irish or Irish children raised in Irish dirt, then it becomes clear why the life of the entire working class, its morals, intellectual and moral development, its entire character took on a significant part of these Irish traits, it becomes clear why the outrageous position of the English workers caused by modern industry and its immediate consequences could worsen even more.
Thanks to the influx of Irish migrant workers willing to work for food (and for very meager and very bad food), the wages of English workers fell to such an extent, and the number of unemployed English people became so large that it threatened a social explosion. As Friedrich Engels wrote in The Condition of the Working Class in England, “The classes are separating themselves more and more sharply, the spirit of resistance is seizing the workers more and more, bitterness is growing stronger, individual partisan skirmishes are growing into larger battles and demonstrations, and soon a small push will be enough to set the avalanche in motion. Then the battle cry will indeed be heard throughout the country: “War on the palaces, peace on the huts!” But then it will be too late for the rich to take precautions.”.
However, Engels did not take into account all the cunning, resourcefulness and degree of cynicism of the English bourgeoisie: it did not wait for the revolution in its own country, however, it did not begin to get rid of Irish migrants. The English bourgeoisie decided to get rid of the extra English. In other words, get rid of the excess indigenous population.
In the middle and second half of the 19th century, mass immigration of the British was organized to North America, Australia and New Zealand, and at the end of the 19th century to South Africa. In addition, due to the increase in Irish emigration to the United States, Irish migration to Great Britain decreased somewhat, although this did not completely solve the problem. The British still could not stand competition with foreign migrant labor (and no civilized person will ever, under any circumstances, be able to stand competition with people of a primitive culture, accustomed to appalling poverty and savagery), and were ready to go anywhere, even to Africa with its climate “not for the white man.”
It was only after the UK sent excess labor to South Africa, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and immigration from Ireland decreased (everyone who wanted to leave, left), due to which competition in the labor market decreased, and only after Great Britain captured the richest African colonies, thanks to the robbery of which, the demand for domestically produced goods from the rich sections of the British population increased, which increased the demand for labor - only after that they began to pay much more for work, and British workers began to live more -less normal.
And then, it must be said, the social situation in Great Britain has not stabilized for long, and British workers even now do not live very well compared to other Western countries - the British are still migrating en masse to the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and people are coming to take their place now they are no longer Irish, but residents of “non-white” countries. About 40% of modern Englishmen are ready to emigrate from their country due to their difficult financial situation. In the winter of 2002/2003, 22 thousand English pensioners died from the cold - there was not enough money to pay for heating. But this is another, modern story.
Such a detailed account of the reasons for British emigration to the Boer republics is necessary because without it it is impossible to understand the degree of cynicism of the Anglo-Saxon elite, ready to commit any crime in order to obtain additional profit - both against their own people and against the peoples of other states who have the misfortune of possessing rich natural resources .
As the English trade unionist Thomas Downing wrote, quoted by Karl Marx in his Capital, “Provide 10%, and capital agrees to any use, at 20% it becomes animated, at 50% it is positively ready to break its head, at 100% it violates all human laws, at 300% there is no crime that it would not risk , at least under pain of the gallows. If noise and abuse bring profit, capital will contribute to both. Proof: Smuggling and Slave Trade". And the importation of poor migrants is just a type of slave trade.
The English “Uitlander” workers, for the sake of whose rights the British government formally staged the second Boer War, themselves suffered from the unbridled greed of the English bourgeoisie, just like the inhabitants of the Boer republics.
So, the British elite, by sending “Uitlander” migrants to South Africa, simultaneously created a “fifth column” in the Boer republics, and, by “dumping” the excess indigenous population, reduced social tension in their country.
What about the Boers? Why didn’t they put a “locked border”, why did they let British “infiltrators” into their republics? Because they wanted to get as much money as possible (the cheaper the labor, the greater the profit for the business). The Boers not only did not interfere with “labor migrants” from Great Britain and did not forbid them to come, but actually brought them to them.
The process of labor migration is always reciprocal, two-way in nature: people do not go from their country “to nowhere”, with the risk of dying of hunger in a foreign land (it’s bad in your own country, but abroad it can be much worse - here you starve, but there in general “ you will throw off your hooves”; a foreign country is a foreign country). They come solely because they know for sure that after arrival they will be employed.
That is, there must be mutual agreements between large employers in the country of arrival, and those figures who, in the countries of origin of migrants, can organizely gather everyone who wants it and send them to their destination. In this case, there were agreements between the owners of mines and gold mines in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and British figures who could gather fellow guest workers and send them to work in South Africa in an organized manner.
In addition, the authorities of those countries where migrants arrive must also participate in the deal so that the border is not closed and the arrivals are not evicted (in this case, the authorities of the Boer republics). Both the legislative and executive powers in the Boer republics did not create any obstacles for migrants and ensured their legal entry and stay in their countries.
It is interesting that the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle, in his documentary book about the Boer War, repeatedly mentions corruption in the Boer republics - he directly writes about the Boer "officials, the most corrupt in the modern world".
It is possible that it was precisely this property of Boer officials that also contributed to facilitating the importation of British migrants and the creation of a “fifth column” in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that the top officials “take” it - some assistant may well slip a draft decision “with a catch” to his not very far-sighted boss, receiving “baksheesh” from interested businessmen for this. And the boss, who is accustomed to signing everything that is handed to him without looking, will never understand what the catch was and what consequences this could lead to for the country.
For a long time, South Africa was associated in the public consciousness with racism and apartheid. The implication was that the black natives here were enslaved by the white colonizers. The recipe for universal happiness seemed simple. Down with the white oppressors, freedom for the enslaved natives! Hurray, comrades!
Those who knew the history of this country understood that everything was not so simple.
Let's start with the fact that the indigenous population was small here. These tribes, which are known as the Bushmen, were hunter-gatherer tribes. They lived in tribal communities and were at a very low level of development of civilization. The Bushmen were short, about 150 centimeters. As geneticists say, the chromosome set of the Bushmen is one of the most ancient among all representatives of the species Homo Sapiens. A little to the west of the Bushmen lived tribes related to them, who were called “Hottentots”. The Hottentots had a slightly more advanced civilization. They were engaged in hunting and cattle breeding. The Hottentots and Bushmen speak related languages, and their cultures are similar in many ways.
Both “Bushman” and “Hottentot” are not self-names. These are the words that the Europeans who arrived here in 1652 called the local residents. These were the Dutch who, following the Portuguese, mastered the sea route around Africa to India. Not far from the Cape of Storms, later renamed the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch founded an outpost, which they called “Kapstadt” (City on the Cape). Now this city is known as Cape Town. Kapstadt was the gateway through which colonists from the Netherlands and Germany arrived in southern Africa, as well as French Protestant Huguenots who were fleeing religious persecution in their homeland. They developed and settled vast and mostly empty territories in southern Africa. These were the steppes, a great place to cultivate the land and raise livestock. The settlers could and wanted to do both. During the 17th and 18th centuries, they conquered vast areas that became their new homeland. They called themselves “Boers,” which means “peasant” in Dutch.
In those same distant times, the concept of “apartheid” arose. The colonists tried to trade with the Bushmen. But it turned out that the difference in cultures between the Boers and the Hottentot Bushmen was so great that a mutually beneficial exchange did not work out. Roughly speaking, the natives perceived the Boers as deceivers and cunning, and the Boers of the Bushmen and Hottentots as thieves and robbers. Therefore, the Boers decided among themselves: no relationship with the natives. We are here, they are there. Like any social agreement in Protestant society, this rule was strictly observed. The Boers had almost no communication with the indigenous people. Moreover, no sexual intercourse. From our point of view - pure racism, from their point of view - highly moral behavior. Which, however, did not exclude the physical destruction of the Bushmen and pushing them away from “their” lands. The colonists in America did exactly the same with the Indians.
But the white colonists mixed with the black slaves brought to southern Africa from other Dutch possessions without any prejudice. As a result, a layer of mestizos, “coloreds,” was formed, who now make up up to half the population in many provinces of South Africa.
In principle, this behavior of white colonists at least fits into the framework of the traditional picture of the colonization of Africa by Europeans. “The white man eats the ripe pineapple, the black man eats the rotten one, the white man does the white work, the black man does the menial work.” More interesting events happen next. Black colonialists appear on the scene.
In 1770, the Afrikaners (another self-name for the Boers), moving to the northeast, encountered the expansion of the Xhosa tribes (from the Bantu group of peoples). The Xhosa stood at a much higher degree of civilizational development than the indigenous black population of southern Africa. Although they did not have firearms, they prevailed with their remarkable military organization and personal courage. They moved from the central parts of Africa to the south and captured territories, the inhabitants of which, also black, were enslaved or exterminated. That is, according to European definitions, they were colonized in the most brutal way. However, thanks to border wars with the Xhosa tribes, the expansion of white colonists to the north was stopped.
But this is not enough. In 1795, the time had come for white colonizers to quarrel with other white colonizers. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was captured by French troops and became the Batavian Republic. Great Britain, naturally, did not want to increase French influence in such an important region, on the way from Europe to India. In 1805 they began to take over the Cape Colony. Naturally, the Boers did not like this turn of history. They were even more unhappy when Britain began to encourage settlers to come to South Africa. And not only from the mother country, but also from India. So another ethnic group with another skin color and another culture appeared in the country. However, the change of power led to the fact that the expansion of the Xhosa from the north was suspended. The British built military forts along the banks of the Great Fish River.
In 1833, Great Britain banned slavery in its colonies. This was a strong blow to the well-being of the Boers and their last disagreement with the British government. The Boers decided to leave the territories occupied by the British. They called this campaign the Great Trek and, in the style of Protestants, compared it with the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
During the Great Trek, about 15 thousand Boers moved from the Cape Colony to the interior of the continent, to the northwest. Here was the high plateau of the Veldt. Here the Boers encountered the Zulu (Zulus) tribes. The Boers sent their leaders to the Zulu ruler in order to achieve an agreement on settlement in these places. In response, the Zulu massacred the settlers, including women and children.
In response to this, in December 1838, several hundred Boers defeated a ten-thousand-strong Zulu army at the Battle of the Income River, killing about three thousand of them. At the same time, the Boers themselves lost only a few people. As a result, the Zulus abandoned large areas south of the Tugela River. The Republic of Natal was organized here, which in 1843 was annexed to the possessions of Great Britain and became part of the Cape Colony.
Those Boers who did not want to live under British rule moved further to the northwest, where they created two new states. In 1852, the Transvaal Republic appeared with its capital in Pretoria, and in 1854 - the Free Orange State, whose capital was in Bloemfontein. It is clear why the state was called Orange. These are the colors of the Orange dynasty, rulers of the Netherlands.
It is quite possible that the British would have accepted the existence of two independent republics, even under the patronage of the friendly Orange dynasty. But in 1867, a diamond deposit was discovered in the Transvaal, and in 1886, gold. This led to the growth of the economy of the Boer colonies and increased immigration from Europe to the Boer states. In 1877, Great Britain annexed the Transvaal. The capture was carried out by a British detachment of only 25 people. Not a single shot was fired.
In 1880 - 1881 the first Anglo-Boer War broke out. The Boers defended their independence. But not so much because of his heroism, but because at that time a long colonial war was not included in Great Britain’s plans. In addition, the British were dramatically short of colonial troops in South Africa at the time.
The Second Boer War took place from 1899 to 1902. The Boers lost this war. The British were better equipped and better trained. Moreover, this time they had the numerical advantage. In response to the defeat, the Boers began a guerrilla war.
The Second Boer War is considered the first war of the 20th century. As many historians say, she predicted many terrible pages of the two subsequent world wars. The British rounded up Boer women and children into concentration camps. The partisans were hunted by special mobile groups using armored trains to move. The use of explosive bullets and barbed wire began.
The Second Boer War sparked worldwide protests against Britain and sympathy for the Boers. The Boers were considered victims of forced British colonization. This depiction of events takes place in the novels by Louis Boussenard “Captain Rip-off” and “The Diamond Thieves.” However, sympathy for the Boers was limited mainly to emotions. According to W. Churchill, “no people have received so many expressions of sympathy in words and so little practical support in practice as the Boers.”
In turn, the British "engineers of human souls" contributed to the struggle of ideas, presenting the Boers as stupid and uncouth hillbillies, and also exploiting poor blacks. A. Conan Doyle has a book “The War in South Africa”, and R. Kipling has several heroic poems.
The song “Transval, Transval, my country, you are all burning in fire” has entered the Russian tradition. The song can be considered a Russian folk song, although it was based on a poem by Galina Galina (Glafira Mamoshina). This song became especially popular during the Civil War. Organ grinders walked around the yards singing this song. It fit well with the monotonous and “loop” melody of the music box.
Another memory of the Anglo-Boer War is the male superstition: three people do not light a cigarette with one match. They say that this rule was taught to the British by the Boers, excellent shooters. You light a match, light a cigarette - the drill raises the gun, lights a second one - the drill takes aim, lights a third - the drill shoots. And, without a doubt, it hits.