Afrikaner

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Afrikaners are an ethnically distinct group of descendants of European settlers, arriving in modern day South Africa on and after 16 April 1652. Their mother tongue is Afrikaans, their predominant religion is Afrikaner Calvinism and they identify with the Afrikaner culture.

Contents

History

Origins of ethnic group

Afrikaners are descended from northwestern European settlers and religious refugees who lived in the Cape of Good Hope during the period of administration (1652-1795) by the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) and the subsequent period of British rule, including primarily Dutch Calvinists and Flemish as well as German Protestants, French Huguenots, Frisians, and Walloons.

The original colony at the Cape, which was started as a refreshment station for the VOC, was first settled by the Dutch in 1652. The arrival in 1688 of a small group of French Huguenots who were fleeing religious persecution in France infused new blood and swelled the settlers' numbers. Some settlers from other parts of Europe (e.g. Scandinavia and the British Isles) also joined the ranks of the Afrikaners.

The first person to refer to himself as an Afrikaner was Hendrik Biebouw who, in March of 1707, stated that he was an Afrikaner and did not want to leave Africa, after his expulsion from the Cape Colony was ordered by the magistrate of Stellenbosch.

Non-Europeans (including Malay, Malagasy, South Indian, Khoi and Bantu) make up around 5-7% of Afrikaner ancestry, however the endemic Afrikaaner identity does not include members with phenotypes that overtly show their non-european origins to the casual observer. Mixed Afrikaaner/non-Europeans with observable or prevalent non-European phenotypes are considered a part of the "colored" group, even if their Afrikaaner ancestry predominates their background.

Boere-Jode (Comprising Jews mainly of East-European origin who were assimilated into the Afrikaner group, and Afrikaans-speaking Christians who either converted to Judaism or who associated themselves with the Hebrew tribes of Israel. A well-known Boere-Jood (Boer Jew) is the singer, song-writer and playwrite David Kramer.

Migrations

Great Trek

In the 1830s and 1840s an estimated 12,000 Voortrekkers started penetrating the future Northern Cape, Natal and Orange Free State provinces, putting themselves beyond the reach of British authority in order to escape relentless border wars with the Xhosa tribe, British colonialism, including its Anglicization policies, as well as to ease pressure on an overcrowding frontier where land was becoming scarce. This event caused a marked split in the Afrikaner population, with the Trekboer descended Afrikaners participating in the exodus referring to themselves as Boers or Voortrekkers, while the Afrikaners centered mainly in the western Cape who did not participate were referred to as the Cape Dutch.

While some historians claim that these series of mass migrations, later known as the Great Trek, were partly caused because the Boers did not agree with the British restrictions on slavery, the fact of the matter is most Trekboers did not own slaves, unlike the Cape Dutch, their more affluent cousins in the western Cape who did not participate in the Great Trek. The vast majority of Voortrekkers were Trekboers from the Eastern Cape who engaged in pastoralism. Nevertheless, the British promulgation of Ordinance 50 in 1828, which guaranteed equal rights before the law to all "free persons of colour", was indeed a factor in Boer discontent, as is well documented by numerous contemporary sources; the various republics founded by the Voortrekkers prohibited slavery itself, but they would all enshrine inequality by race into their constitutions, as enforced by the British in all their colonies.

During the Great Trek they fought against the Zulus, with war erupting when Voortrekker leaders Piet Retief and Gerhard Maritz, along with their delegation, were lured under the pretence of a land treaty and massacred by King Dingane and his warriors or Impi, who occupied the best land in some of the areas the Boers were attempting to trek into. Retief and the local Voortrekkers had performed several deeds for Dingane, including returning stolen cattle taken by a rival chief named Sekonyela, and came to finalise the treaty in which the Voortrekkers were granted lands in Dingane's kingdom before Dingane changed his mind. After the massacre of Piet Retief’s delegation, the Zulu Impis also attacked Boer settlements at Blaauwkrans and Weenen, killing all women and children, amounting to half of the Natal contingent of Voortrekkers.

These attacks on the Trekboers evoked retaliation, with the forces of Andries Pretorius killing about 3000 armed Zulus, who attacked their prepared positions at the Battle of Blood River in a classic mismatch between guns and assegais.

Boer republics

After the defeat of the Zulu forces and the recovery of the treaty between Dingane and Retief, the Voortrekkers proclaimed the Natalia Republic. This Boer state was annexed by British forces in 1843.

Due to the return of British rule, emphasis moved from occupying lands in Natal, east of the Drakensberg mountains, to the west of them and onto the high veld of the Transvaal and Transorangia, which were lightly occupied due to the devastation of the Mfecane. Some were known to have ventured far beyond the present day borders of South Africa, north as far as present day Zambia and Angola, also reaching the Portuguese colony of Algoa Bay, modern-day Maputo, capital of Mozambique.

The Boers created independent states in what is now South Africa: the Transvaal Republic (the South African Republic) and the Orange Free State. The British also annexed these territories, which led to the two Boer Wars: The First Boer War (1880-1881) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902)- now called the South-African War, which ended with the inclusion of the Boer areas in the British colonies. The Boers won the first war, but lost the second, mainly due to the British employing their Scorched earth tactics, and the extensive use of Concentration camps, which led to the deaths of an estimated twenty seven thousand Boer civilians (mainly children under sixteen), who died in the concentration camps marking the deaths of about 15 percent of the local Boer population. About 15,000 Bantu civilians died in separate concentration camps, erected by the British forces.

Following the British annexation of the Boer republics, the creation of the Union of South Africa (1910) went some way towards blurring the division between the British settlers and the Afrikaners.

Boer Diaspora

After the second Anglo-Boer War three main Boer diasporas occurred. Starting in 1903 the largest group emigrated to the Patagonia region of Argentina. Another group emigrated to modern day Kenya, from where most returned to South Africa during the 1930s, while a third group under the leadership of General Ben Viljoen emigrated to Mexico as well as the American southwest of New Mexico and Texas.

South West Africa

With the onset of the First World War, the Union of South Africa was requested by the Allied forces to attack the German territory of South West Africa. Armed forces under the leadership of General Louis Botha defeated the German forces, who were unable to put up much resistance to the overwhelming South African forces.

Many Afrikaners objected to the use of the “Children from the Concentration camps” to attack the Afrikaner-friendly Germans, resulting in the Rebellion of 1916, which was quickly quelled by the government forces.

Many Afrikaners subsequently moved to South West Africa, which was administrated by South Africa, until its independence in 1990, after which the country was named Namibia.

Afrikaner diaspora

After the first all-inclusive democratic elections in 1994, numbers of well-qualified Afrikaners started emigrating from South Africa and Namibia to traditionally "first world" countries. The majority of these settle in traditionally English-speaking countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.

Better wages, affirmative action and high crime rates are often cited as reasons for this new migration, sometimes also referred to as the "brain drain", although this term is generally also used for the emigration of well-qualified South Africans from all linguistic and cultural groups.

Volkstaat

A small group of Afrikaners has settled in the town of Orania, with the goal of ultimately gaining a Volkstaat as the result of a process of Afrikaner demographic consolidation. Some Afrikaners feel that they are currently (in the post-1994 South Africa) facing a serious threat to their continued existence as a people, due to the relatively small population of Afrikaners, the dominance of the English language and the lack of any real political power. They also fear a repeat of the events in Zimbabwe, especially from the more "radical" elements within the African National Congress.

Modern history

Apartheid era

The black majority, was excluded from equal participation in the affairs of the State and country, except for the states which were self governed (Qwaqwa, Zululand, Ciskei, Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana) until 1994, owing first to the British colonial policies and then later to an Afrikaner-led political party's policy of apartheid, (the Afrikaans word for "apartness" or "separation"), particularly under the National Party from 1948.

Post-Apartheid era

In recent years there has been a movement by some Afrikaners to support the mixed race ("coloured") population of South Africa, most of whom speak Afrikaans as their first language, to consider themselves Afrikaanses, and part of the same linguistic family. The Afrikaans-speaking people who aren't Caucasian or who are Coloured people of South Africa, Namibia, and other Afrikaans-speaking locations, go by many names. These names include, "kleurlinge", "basters", "griqua", "namaqua", or "khoikhoi". They are sometimes called "bruinmense" (meaning brown people). This has seen some success despite the history of exclusion during the colonial and apartheid eras. However, many Afrikaans-speaking coloureds feel they have developed a separate identity from white Afrikaans speakers due to the strict racial segregation policies of the apartheid years. Some Afrikaans-speaking coloureds also practice the Islamic religion, due to their Malay roots.

Recently, some liberal Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and Namibians have started rejecting the label 'Afrikaner', because of its negative connotations of racial and religious intolerance. Some use the racially neutral term "Afrikaanses" to refer to themselves as persons whose mother tongue is Afrikaans, disregarding racial identity or apartheid-era categorisation.

Conservative Afrikaners still cherish the nametag of Boer.

Efforts are being made by Afrikaners to obtain minority rights. These efforts include the Volkstaat movement.

Geography

Republic of South Africa

Namibia

Global presence

Culture

Religion

Many Afrikaners are members of the Dutch Reformed Church, a Protestant denomination with primarily Calvinist influences. Throughout its colonial history, the Dutch Reformed Church (or DRC) weighed heavily in favor of the apartheid policies promoted by the Afrikaner-dominated government. This theology was rooted in a white supremacist interpretation of the bible, labeling the Bantu-speaking blacks as the undeserving decendents of Ham, and the White Afrikaners as the divinely appointed overlords of South Africa. More recently there have been attempts by Afrikaners of different faiths to gain recognition, either as Afrikaners or Afrikansers, and especially for the long history of Afrikaner-Jews or Boer-Jode to be included in the definition of Afrikanerdom. For further information, see Afrikaner Calvinism.

Language

The Afrikaans language changed over time from the Dutch spoken by the first white settlers at the Cape. From the late 17th century, the form of Dutch spoken at the Cape developed differences in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from that of the Netherlands, although the languages are still similar enough to be mutually intelligible (with some effort). Settlers who arrived speaking German and French soon shifted to using Dutch and later Afrikaans. The process of language change was influenced by the languages spoken by slaves, Khoikhoi and people of mixed descent, as well as by Cape Malay and Portuguese. While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch, "Kitchen Dutch," or Taal developed into a separate language by the 19th century. In 1925 this new language replaced standard Dutch as one of the two official languages of the Union of South Africa.

Literature

Afrikaners have a long literary tradition, and have produced a number of notable novelists and poets, including Uys Krige and Elisabeth Eybers.

Arts

Music is probably the most popular artform among Afrikaners. While the traditional Boeremusiek (Boer Music) and Volkspele (literally, People Games) folk dancing enjoyed popularity in the past, most Afrikaners today favour light popular Afrikaans music and some also enjoy a social dance event called a sokkie.

Sport

Rugby, cricket and golf are generally considered to be the most popular sports among Afrikaners.

Institutions

Cultural

The Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereniging (ATKV) (Afrikaans Language and Culture Society) is responsible for promoting the Afrikaans language and culture.

Freedom Front

The Freedom Front is an Afrikaner ethnic political party in the Republican tradition, which lobbies for minority rights to be granted to all of the South African ethnic minorities. The Freedom Front is also leading the Volkstaat initiative and is closely associated to the small town of Orania. However, this party has only minority support among Afrikaners, with most supporting the Democratic Party.

Classification

As the Afrikaners are not the sole ethnic group to speak the Afrikaans language, some classify the Afrikaners into a larger linguistic supergroup with the Cape Coloureds, Cape Malay and Griquas, called the Afrikaanses.

As a relatively young people with almost no history of the extended geographical isolation of subgroups, the Afrikaners are a remarkably homogenous group with only a limited divergence in linguistic and cultural characteristics. However, mainly due to historical factors, some claim the existence of two subgroups. It should be noted, however, that due to internal migration and intermarriage, the continued existence of these two subgroups as distinct entities are an issue on which there is an ongoing debate.

Cape \"Dutch\"

The descendants of the Afrikaners who did not take part in the Great Trek centered mainly in the Western Cape. Even though this group is reputed to be more liberal and also speak a slightly different form of Afrikaans, many of them showed solidarity with the Republican Boers, by joining their forces as rebels during the South African War.

Boers

This group comprises the descendants of those who had established themselves in the eastern Cape frontier and the Republican Afrikaners who trekked inland during the Great Trek.

References

¹ [South African Census 2001]
Hermann Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, University of Virginia Press, 2003

External links

Ethnic Groups of South Africa	[Edit]
Afrikaner \| Anglo-African \| Asians \| Bushmen \| Cape Malay \| Coloured \| Griqua \| Ndebele \| Sotho \| Tsonga \| Swazi \| Tswana \| Venda \| Xhosa \| Zulu

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