The English South African, His History, Culture and Achievements
There are those who wonder: is there such a thing as a distinct English South African nation? If so, what is it? Where is it? The Afrikaners are a distinct nation; the Indian South Africans are a distinct nation; so are the Zulus, the Xhosas, etc. But the English South African nation? Does such a nation exist?
It most certainly does. It is a myth that has been perpetuated by other South Africans, even by some Afrikaners, that the English South African has no distinctive identity of his own, and thus no sense of nationhood. When the Afrikaners governed South Africa, there were some who claimed that the English South Africans did not really belong here, but to Britain; that they were not a distinct nation and not true South Africans. Such Afrikaners prided themselves (and still do) on being the only true “white tribe” in South Africa. But this is incorrect, for in truth there are two “white tribes”, the Afrikaners and the English. And now, in the Marxist-governed “New South Africa”, where only “black” Africans are made to feel really welcome, English South Africans are again hearing that they are not really South Africans, and should not be here. There are two differences this time around, however: the Afrikaners are now in the very same boat as the English – both are unwelcome in South Africa today; and the dislike, hatred in fact, of many blacks for the whites translates into violence against both “white tribes.”
This idea that the English South African is somehow less of a South African than his Afrikaner or Zulu or Xhosa fellow-citizens is an outright lie. The English South African is as much a true South African as anyone else born and bred here.
Why then has this myth been propagated?
There are historical reasons. The Dutch (from whom the Afrikaners are primarily though not exclusively descended) arrived in this country long before the English did, for Jan van Riebeeck arrived in 1652, whereas the real beginnings of large-scale English emigration to South Africa began in 1820, although there were English South Africans long before this date. This is one reason for the myth. A second reason is that many Englishmen who came to South Africa during the time when the British Empire ruled the country had no intention of staying, and did not stay in fact. They regarded themselves as British, South Africa was a mere British colony, and once their term of office expired they either returned home or were sent on to other assignments in other parts of the far-flung empire. And a third reason is that there were British people who emigrated to South Africa and never left – this became their only home – and yet who always regarded themselves as British, and spoke of Britain as “home”.
But let us look at these three historical realities one by one.
It is true that the Dutch arrived long before the English did, at least in large numbers; but is this really a reason for claiming that the English South African is somehow less of a true South African than his Afrikaner neighbours? Certainly not! Whether one’s ancestors arrived three and a half centuries ago, or almost two centuries ago, makes absolutely no difference: generations have come and gone since then, and the descendants of both nations are equally South Africans today. The Zulu nation only came into existence in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries, but it is one of the nations of South Africa today, no less than the Afrikaner nation. And the Indians arrived in South Africa only in the nineteenth century; yet their descendants are South African today as much as anyone else. In the stirring words of Sir James Rose Innes, the founder of what used to be (before the present Marxist-dominated government destroyed it) the marvellous educational system in South Africa that was equal with any other in the western world, and superior to many of them: “I have neither Voortrekker nor Huguenot blood in my veins…. But I am proud to be a South African and I claim to stand on the same national footing as if my forbears had landed with van Riebeeck or followed Piet Retief over the Drakensberg.”[2]
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Filed under: History without the humbug