decades before I did thereby further validating the viewpoint. 

Chapter 13.

Boere and 'Afrikaners'.

Millions of Boere today refer to themselves as Afrikaners. This is understandable because since the advent of the Union of South Africa the title 'Afrikaner' has been used consistently by the politicians.

13.1 The historical sequence of events.

Originally the word 'Afrikaner', or 'Africaander' in its original spelling, meant simply 'African'. But with the advent of the Afrikaner Bond, a Cape political organization, it became politicized and referred to a specific group of people.

“The Afrikaner Bond was formed on the initiative of Rev. S. J. du Toit in June 1880 - the same year in which the Boere of Transvaal took up arms to rid themselves of British rule - and its aim was to look after the interests of the Dutch speaking colonials. Two years later in 1882 “Onze Jan” Hendrik Hofmeyer formed a Bond branch and the organization moved away from the idea of an exclusive Afrikaner movement and accepted the Queen's Sovereignty and membership of the British Empire. The Bond had great power in the Cape political affairs, especially because they could, by giving or withdrawing support, keep a certain ministry in office or initiate its downfall. From 1890 to 1895 even Cecil John Rhodes was in alliance with the Bond. During the Anglo-Boer War they held their members in check and consequently no large-scale Boer rebellion took place. In December 1911 the Bond amalgamated with Het Volk, Orangia-Unie and Volksvereeniging to form the South African Party with Louis Botha.[28]”

The Afrikaners of the Cape also supported the British war effort logistically by allowing them the use of their railways to transport troops and equipment to the north. Eventually they volunteered and fought on the British side against the Boere in the colony.

The Afrikaners of the Cape Colony formed a far more vital element in the British decision to enter into a war against the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek than most people realize. “The Raid (Jameson's) had made him (Chamberlain) keener than ever to have a go at the Transvaal. By alienating the Cape Afrikaners, however, it had also deprived him of the means.[29]” During Milner's visit to Chamberlain on November 22nd 1898 he was told the following: “If war had to come, Kruger must be the aggressor and the Afrikaners at the Cape - or at least a large part of them - on the side of the Empire.[30]”

13.2 The historical interpretation.

After 1910, in an attempt to unite the whites in South Africa into one nation - an action which directly inspired the founding of the A.N.C. in 1912 - politicians coined the terminology of English-speaking and Dutch-speaking Afrikaners. By 1925 it was decided that the written version of the Taal had become sophisticated enough to replace Dutch as an official language. It was then officially dubbed 'Afrikaans'. The whites were subsequently referred to as English-speaking and 'Afrikaans'-speaking Afrikaners. In general usage this was soon simplified to 'English' and 'Afrikaners”.

Now although these Afrikaners speak the same language as the Boere and although thousands of men from the northern and eastern Cape Colony fought along with the Boere forces in the great English War of 1899 - 1902 a large number of them were and are of British Imperialist orientation as regards their sentiments and traditions. [  Volkstaat.net edit: Boeretaal and 'Afrikaans', are not the same thing. The Boer language (“Taal” or “Boeretaal”) has been classified as 'Eastern Border Afrikaans', the region where the Boers and the Boer language were formed. The Cape Rebels, the inhabitants of the British Cape Colony who fought on the side of the Boer Republics, were in the vast majority Boers of the Cape frontier and not Cape Dutch / Cape Afrikaners. ]

In 'The Boer War' Thomas Pakenham has the following to say about Jan Smuts and his appointment as State Attorney by Paul Kruger: “Yet how incongruous the partnership appeared. Smuts was an Afrikaner from the Cape; his first language, for the purpose of writing, was English, his favourite poets were Shelley, Shakespeare and Walt Whitman... The keystone of his political faith, like that of other Afrikaners at the Cape, had been the idea of South African unity under the British flag [31]. During the peace talks at Vereeniging in 1902, Smuts would again demonstrate how adept he was at expressing sentiments he was very far from sharing.”

The naivete of politicians is astounding. During the last decade of the 19th century the governor of the Cape complained to the Colonial Secretary in London about the problems caused by the irreconcilability between the English, Afrikaners and Boers in the Cape Colony. The English were loyal to the Crown. The Afrikaners were also loyal to the Crown but they persisted in demanding that there 'primitive form of Dutch' be recognized as a language. The Boers were pointedly antagonistic towards the Crown. And this was after ninety years of British rule. On the other hand, until the advent of the mine magnates, the British immigrants to the Z.A.R. and the Free State were quite happy to be assimilated in the local population.

After the successful completion of Milner's plans to subjugate the Boere of Transvaal and Free State he had a draft constitution drawn up by the Milner-kindergarten for his dream of a Union of South Africa. This job was completed in 1905. In the nick of time as it turned out. Milner, as Governor of South Africa, agreed with the mine magnates that the best solution to the shortage of Africans willing to work at sufficiently low wages was the importation of indentured Chinese labour. The British Cabinet agreed on condition that “they not be flogged as though they were Africans” [32]. However Milner allowed the Chinese to be flogged and when the British Cabinet found out they passed a note of censure on him. Milner resigned and left the country. On his way out he passed the draft constitution over to the Governor at the Cape. This astute gentleman wrote an introduction to it and passed it on to the 'National Convention' of 1908 as his brain-child.

The Convention, which met to discuss the union of the four colonies and draw up a constitution, was attended by 36 delegates, sent by the governors who ruled the four colonies. Only 7 of the delegates represented the Boere faulk. The rest were British War Criminals, Cape 'Afrikaners', Jingoes, British subjects and a few Boere traitors. The only patriotic Boere that attended the Convention were pres. M T Steyn, genl Hertzog and genl. De Wet. They were completely unable to affect the course of events.

Here the new Union of South Africa was born.

Transvaal, our strongest Boere Republic, for instance, was represented by four British War Criminals, Messrs. Farrar, Fitzpatrick, H. C. Hull and H. Lindsay, along with the Boere traitors, Botha and Smuts and their two politically naïve bosom friends, Schalk Burger and Koos de la Rey. Genl. De la Rey's Boere heart got the better of him in 1914 when he rebelled against the British machinations and decided to wage a civil war to reinstate the Boere Republics. He was 'accidentally' shot by the police who had 'put out a road-block for the Foster gang'. His rebellion is to his credit.

In the same manner the Cape, Natal and Free State delegations were loaded with British War Criminals and their fellow-travelers.

In spite of the language problems that had already been experienced in the Cape and the fact that the Boere faulk was still in the majority in spite of the devastation of the War and British immigration, the Convention now insisted that English be the official language for the whole country. Dutch was only retained through the insistence of the Boere delegates of the Free State to the profound embarrassment of the traitors from the Transvaal. Hertzog's persistent campaigning for equal rights for Dutch, and later 'Afrikaans', earned him the label of 'racist'.

In the process they did every white person in the country, but especially the English, a tremendous disservice. Dutch was eventually, after only 13 years, replaced by the Taal which was duly dubbed 'Afrikaans' in the process. The retention of English has attached to the white population of Southern Africa the stigma of being colonials. It is also a well known fact that it is an awful bother for most adults to learn a new language. The result is that most English immigrants never assimilate into the population and they never become part of Africa but cling to their 'English Heritage' to the detriment of their cultural development in a new country. The same applies to immigrants from European countries who have a smattering of English learned at school and find themselves in an environment where they can get along quite well in English.

After the founding of the Union our Boere faulk found itself in a devil of a spot. The political dispensation forced us to co-operate with the 'Afrikaans'-speakers of the Cape and Natal in order to gain political control. That is when the word 'Afrikaner' was coined as a name for the entire 'White nation'. It had the naïve purpose of uniting both English-speaking and Dutch-speaking whites who 'put South Africa first' into one nation. The word 'Afrikaner' was at this time used with the connotation 'a white citizen of the Union of S.A. be he English- or Dutch-speaking'. That then was the advent of political racism in this country. When Dutch was replaced by 'Afrikaans' on the statute books the terms English-speaking and 'Afrikaans'-speaking Afrikaners were naturally simplified to English and Afrikaners. It eventually resulted in the 'Afrikaners' drawing together in one party and gaining the majority white vote. In the process the word 'Afrikaner' which before 1902 had been the name of a member of an 'underground' political group in the Cape, the Afrikaner Bond always worked behind the scenes, now became the name of a 'faulk'. The upcoming generations grew up under the illusion that their nationality is that of 'Afrikaner'. The activities of the secret Afrikaner Broederbond did nothing to lend clarity to the situation. In their efforts towards 'purity' they caused a rift between Boere of European descent and Boere of British descent and a false sense of union between Boere and Cape Afrikaners.

Before Union our faulk was world renowned as the Boere faulk, the Cape Colonists were generally referred to as Cape Dutch and members of the Afrikaner Bond singled out as Afrikaners.

After 1910 in the Union of South Africa we could no longer vote for our own faulk representatives in our own state. Even if we won all the seats in Transvaal and Free State it would have been to no avail because the Cape and Natal also had to be won in an election in order to gain the political edge. Now in the word 'Afrikaner' with its new meaning of an 'Afrikaans-speaking white citizen of South Africa' became a useful political tool. It was built up as being the name of the Faulk in order to gain political power by drawing all 'Afrikaans'-speakers together at the ballot-box.

Before this it had never been the name of a faulk. There were people who referred to themselves as Africaanders but it was to indicate that they were not natives of Europe or Batavia but natives of Africa. There was never any reference to the Afrikaner faulk of Transvaal and Free State. No, we were world renowned as Boere and our states were world renowned as the Boere Republics. The 'Kapenaars' were known as 'Colonials' or 'Cape Dutch' and the bunch in Natal as Colonials. The word 'Afrikaner' references all sorts of things belonging to an entire continent but it does not reference a specific faulk. The inhabitants of nearly all 53 countries listed at the start of this book are 'Afrikaners' or Africans. Linguistically that is the only correct meaning of the word 'Afrikaner'.

It is an amusing thought that the Afrikaners of the Afrikaner Bond probably knew nothing about inspanning a team of Afrikaners in front of an ox-wagon.

Furthermore, for us Boere the word 'Afrikaner' has associations of treachery. After 1852 while our Boere faulk enjoyed total political and language autonomy the 'Kapenaars' were still courting the British for protection. However, in 1875 the natives of Paarl started a 'language movement' that very soon ground to a halt. They tried, because a lack of freedom, tradition and culture, to promote the name 'Afrikaner' but as early as 1882 the Afrikaner Bond, under instigation of 'Onze Jan' Hendrik Hofmeyer, swore allegiance to Queen Victoria and the British Empire. This step was aimed at patching things up with the British after our Boere faulk had humiliated them at Majuba in 1881. Clearly an attitude of: “You Boere can go to blazes, we prefer the company of British Royalty.”

The Afrikaner Bond backed the arch-enemy of our Faulk, Cecil Rhodes, and got him elected as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. After the Jameson-Raid the Bond, although they now turned their backs on Rhodes, continued to support the British and kept a pro-British government in power in the Cape that saw to it that British troops were transported by rail through the Karoo to our borders so that we had to fight on two fronts, a task totally beyond the military capacity of our Boere army. During the Vereeniging discussions one of our generals pointed out that we had 'lost the war because the Cape Afrikaners had left us in the lurch by allowing the British troops to be transported by rail through the Karoo'. The Cape rebel leader, the brave Boere Commandant, Japie Neser, wrote in his diary: 'In a heavy battle with the enemy my commando killed twelve men, they were all Afrikaners'. And in his memories genl. Ben Viljoen writes during his internment on St. Helena: 'The bad treatment of us Boere in the camp is due to the advice given to the British by the Cape Afrikaners who have always been enemies of the Boere'.

During the British War the members of the Afrikaner Bond, that still kept the pro-British government in power in the Cape, formed the core of the British Town Guards and they were the forerunners in hunting down the Boere-rebels that fought on our side. The word 'Afrikaner' therefor leaves a foul taste in the mouth of a Boer.

13.3 A Faulk's identity.

The deception of the Boere faulk since 1910 was mainly Cape Dutch inspired. Whit a stroke of the pen and the term 'Afrikaner' they nearly destroyed our Boere identity. What is generally forgotten is that the 'Afrikaans'-speaking Cape Dutch are not part of our Boere faulk!

A Faulk, any Faulk, has certain properties; a Faulk has its own unique history; its own traditions, festival days, political dispensation and political philosophy; own territory (state); own language; own race; own symbols, flags, faulksong [33] and folksongs. We Boere qualify one hundred per cent, but the 'Afrikaans'-speaking 'Kapenaars' that make up the N.P. government have none of these qualities. They had no part in our Boere history; they have never possessed their own territory (state); they never had their own flag and national anthem; own festival days and culture. That is why, to this day, they are so fond of British Royalty. This is clear from the adoration shown British Royalty by their journals: 'Die Huisgenoot', 'Sarie', 'Die Burger', 'Die Volksblad', 'Beeld' and Fair Lady.

Indeed, we are not of the same faulk at all. As a matter of fact, the Cape Dutch have never BEEN a faulk. They are still searching for a culture and a faulk tradition.

It will be of great assistance to them if the new independent Cape state Hexania comes about. The Cape Coloureds have long since deserved a state of their own and such a course of events will remove the thorns of animosity towards the Boere faulk. It is one of the evil results of the Union and Republic of South Africa that the Coloureds started perceiving the Boere, who have never had anything against them, as their enemies. The white 'Afrikaans'-speaking Cape Dutch oppress and politically control them. We Boere do not, but because we had to side with 'Whites' of the Cape to gain political power, we became implicated in their political impotence. Quite undeservedly so because we like they were dragged into the Union by the British against our wishes.

13.4 A referendum for the Boere of the Cape.

But, I repeat, we do not want to be proscriptive. We Boere are, however, going to restart our interrupted faulk development and restart our Republics. We must do it in order to survive! The thinly populated areas in the Northern Cape will probably decide to join the Boere state. That however will be their decision and we Boere will see to it that a referendum for such a decision will be organized for them. As already mentioned, most of the black states were founded on Transvaal and Free State soil. To compensate for the tremendous loss of territory the northern part of Natal, including Kosi bay as well as the harbours of St Lucia bay and Richard's bay must be added to the Boere state. North Natal was a part of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. After the English War it was stolen by the British and attached to Natal.

28. -

29. -

30. 'The Boer War' by Thomas Pakenham p 31.

31. Smuts in a secret memorandum to the Transvaal executive September 4th 1899: … a frightful blood-bath out of which our faulk shall come … either as … hewers of wood and drawers of water for a hated race, or as victors, founders of a United South Africa of one of the greatest empires of the world … an Afrikaner republic in South Africa stretching form Table Bay to the Zambezi'.

32. Thomas Pakenham in 'The Boer War' p 575.

33. -

Contents of “Boerestaat”, by Robert van Tonder.

Found at this link.

I have read other books that explicitly mention that the term Afrikaner was a political term that was used to describe ALL White citizens of South Africa [ who were loyal to South Africa ] & that it was never meant to be used as a descriptor for an ethnic group - thus the fallacy of anyone going around proclaiming or presuming that their ethnicity is that of "Afrikaner" when in reality this designation lumped at least 3 different ethnic / cultural groups together.