The History of the Voortrekker Monument Part 1

[Pinard7]

The United Nations will not protect them because they are aligned with the goal of chasing off as per their long held Malthusian population reduction dialectic. What is happening there is the GOAL in order to precipitate a famine. Folks must get streetwise as to what is going on & realize that the global fascists at the United Nations & elsewhere are not going to step in to stop a problem the helped to create in the first place to usher in global government.

[Rico8458]

where is the west? the UN? to protect the whites? they now let the anc run wild and ruin the nation. the blacks anc are trying to destroy all the boer heritage and history by naming all towns, streets, parks from boer names to black names. boers built that nation, zulu never invented any gold mines, nor railways, these negros will ruin the country. boers had a right to that land, it is their land, God gave that land to them. SA will become another zimbabwe one day. boers need their home.

[Rico8458]

afrikaaner boers the originals own that land, that nation is theirs and their descendants .

[Pinard7]

I agree: Pretoria is Pretoria. Tswane is based on nothing but fiction.

[m4brgn001]

Dis Pretoria en NIE tswane nie! Demmit!

[Pinard7]

The Boers have historically been separate from the Cape Afrikaners & had opposing outlooks. The Boers wanted their independence while the Afrikaners were happy with the colonial powers. There was only ever a superficial political merger between the two during the 20th cent as it was direct by the Cape Afrikaners who wanted to negate Boers secession (which was attempted in 1914) & to "legitimize" the hegemony on the region.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore you contradict yourself by asserting that the Boers "turned into a vile nation" (which they could not have as they were overshadowed by the NON-BOER descended Cape based Afrikaners) then later claiming that the Boers ARE NOT a nation. Can't have it both ways. What you a refer to as the "vile nation" was in fact a POLITICAL REGIME: the Broederbond propped up N P - not an entire ethnic or cultural group.

[Pinard7]

This little trick of projecting the colonial characteristics of the Afrikaners onto the anti-colonial Boers holds no currency whatsoever as the republican anti colonial outlook of the Boers was cast aside in favour of the British supported & European influenced Cape based Afrikaners who have always been anti-Boer & pro colonial.

[Pinard7]

I see your little trick. Hendrik Verwoerd was not a Boer. He was from Holland & raised as an Afrikaner.

[monk3yboy69]

Hero of the battle of Blood River! More like the butcher of Zulus to be more precise!

[Pinard7]

What should the Boers have done then: just sat back & allowed themselves to be massacred? As they did during the Bloukrans Massacre. I seem to recall the Zulus being butchers of the region during this era.

[monk3yboy69]

Please note that I am fully aware of the history of the region and your people, having grown up in South Africa and being fed the propoganda you call history!

The Voortrekkers should never have been in the region in the first place, the belonging to the Zulus.

The so called reconcilliation you speak of must have been forgotten very quickly, because the Boer sure turned into a vile nation in a very short space of time!

[Pinard7]

First of all I am not a Boer nor even a South African. I am a Canadian. I notice you prattle the same anti-Boer bullshit about how the Boers "should never have been in the region" while completely overlooking the fact that the British & the Xhosas drove them into the region in the first place. The land in question that Retief was granted was a vacant part that was not even being used by the Zulus so your demagoguery of it being Zulu simply does not wash.

[monk3yboy69]

Pinard, I am intrigued to say the least, that you are not South African nor a Boer, but Canadian! So tell me, how is it then that you can tell me the Boer did not turn into a vile nation? You seem to have no experience of living in the country but feel you can inform the rest of that the boer is not facist. I have experienced first hand the torture they put Black people through.

[Pinard7]

Well I was born in South Africa & am of partial Boer decent -but have been in Canada for most of my entire life. While you sit there & have the disgusting audacity to erroneously assert that the Boers "turned into a vile nation" when the fact of the matter is that the Boers were marginalized after the Cape based Afrikaners rose to power.

[Pinard7]

The Boers have had freedom struggles against the Afrikaners as well not just against the British. The first freedom struggle the Boers had against the Afrikaners was in 1795 at Swellendam & Graaff-Reinet. Then later in 1914 during the Maritz Rebellion when General de Wet & others attempted by force of arms to restore the Boer Republics.

[Pinard7]

The Boers did not "turn into a vile nation" at all! More ant-Boer propaganda. After half of their children were killed in the concentration camps by the British during the second Anglo-Boer War: the Boers were outnumbered & overshadowed by the Cape based Afrikaners: the older & original enemies of the Boer nation.

[monk3yboy69]

I served 2 years in the then SA Defence Force, stationed on the border at Mocambique. I have been witness to beatings, and awful Human Rights abuse. I know the pain and hurt caused to millions because of Apartheid system which was put on the statute books by Verwoed. And you want to tell me the Boer are not facist!

You sadly lack the credentials to tell me what the Boer are like!

[Pinard7]

Verwoerd is no more a Boer than you are. You are employing a disgusting little trick of insinuating that the madness of the Afrikaners had anything to do with the conquered Boers when Verwoerd / Malan & most Afrikaners had no Boer ancestors. The Boers were the small humble nation that developed on the eastern frontier when the Afrikaners developed in the Western Cape.

[monk3yboy69]

The Boers were not a nation on their own. They come from Holland, France and Germany. Also a from a few other countries. The Afrikaner (as they are refered to these days) are all descendents of people hailing from those countries. Just because the Boer decided to Trek away from the original group, does not make them less an Afrikaner. The word Boer means farmer in Dutch, as you know, and that is simply what these people were. I am afraid I do not see the Boer as a nation on it's own.

[Pinard7]

Well then you have just exposed your bigoted views for the whole world to see. The Boers are a nation since they developed their own culture customs & language all on African soil. While many Boers are unfortunately referred to as Afrikaners IT IS ONLY BECAUSE THE AFRIKANERS INSISTED that the Boers be called by this designation as it allowed the Afrikaner to subjugate the Boers.

[Pinard7]

One could also state that the English are not a nation as well since they originally came from Germany / Holland & Denmark. The French also originally came from Celtic / Latin & Germanic people who forged a new nation. The English & French are considered nations. But for some odd (or telling) reason the Boers are not considered a nation by you. Well the historian wold differ with you & ultimately it does not matter what you think. It is the facts in the ground which count.

[Pinard7]

The fact that the Boers are a rather homogeneous mixture of the original groups / developed their own culture / customs & language which is now centuries old is empirical evidence of the existence of the Boer nation.

[monk3yboy69]

Please explain their culture, customs and language to me. Having lived in South Africa for 27 years, I would like to know the difference between an Afrikaner and Boer. It is important to note at this point that I spent 10 years living in a right wing AWB(Boer) stronghold mining town. I am fluent in the ways of the Afrikaner, their language and their culture. So please explain the difference.

[Pinard7]

The Boers speak a language which historians have classified as Eastern Border Afrikaans. The Boers themselves called & still do often call their language "die taal" (the language) while the Cape Dutch began calling the dialect of their language Afrikaans & calling themselves Afrikaners in 1875. The Afrikaner systematically imposed Afrikaans onto the Boers in the name of "cleaning up" the language of the Boers.

[Pinard7]

The difference between the Afrikaner & the Boer is an clear one. The Boers are those people who developed on the northern & eastern frontier & began to trek out of colonial society in the Western Cape in the 1600s & into the 1700s. When they did this it was often due to their poorer economic status where they lived as nomadic pastoralists trekking inland & were known as the Trekboers.

[Pinard7]

While those who remained in the Western Cape were more affluent & pro colonial powers would later be known as the Afrikaners. The Afrikaners would later insist that the Boers also be called Afrikaner after the Anglo-Boer War as a means of perpetuating their hegemony & of preventing Boers from breaking up the British created macro-state.

[Pinard7]

Once again I notice that you erroneously equate the AWB as being somehow representative of the whole Boer nation when in reality most have rejected them. The only people who promote the AWB as being representative of the Boer people are though whose aim it is to subvert the movement for Boer independence &

self determination.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore the Boer nationalist Dr Tobias Louw of the Cultural Justice Foundation has categorically stated in an open letter to the ISS in September 2003 that he rejects the notion that Boer nationalists are part of the so called right wing since many are critical of Capitalism & are not a political faction but are simply an cultural expression of an established ethnic group.

[monk3yboy69]

If the Boer is not right wing, then what are their policies on integration with black and other ethnic groups? As far as I know, they would prefer a seperate "Homeland" to call their own and they would decide who is allowed to live there. Regarding the language spoken by the Boer and the Afrikaner, it is one and the same language - Afrikaans. There is no seperate language called "die taal"

[Pinard7]

The Boers are a people with varied opinions & therefore do not have "policies" on matters. The Boers who want there own homeland are only asking for what they had during the 19th centuries when there two main republics were recognized by Europe & America. Remember: the British took their republics from them after killing half of the Boer child population.

[Pinard7]

There is & was most certainly a separate dialect called "die taal" which historians have classified as Eastern Border Afrikaans developed among the Boers of the frontier.

[monk3yboy69]

I am certainly contradicting myself, but having taken some time to investigate, I can see where you are coming from. But you need to further investigate the attitude of the Boers currently. They are extremely racist. They do not want to share with anyone. That is a worry. Please note that my ignorance of the Boer is down to the fact that I was schooled in a system which had an agenda..i.e. the National Party Govt of SA.

[Pinard7]

To sate that the Boers "are extremely racist" is a blanket statement. While there are racist Boers many are not. The prominent Ficksburg farmer Eddie von Maltitz who was once involved in Boer separatist movements -speaks Sesotho & works to improve the conditions of the local Sotho community where he lives near the Lesotho border.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore: the most racist Boer pales in comparison to the virulent racism practiced north of the Limpopo whose Shona President (Mugabe) killed 30 000 Ndebles (a rival tribe) during the early to mid 1980s. The nature of those Boers who are racist has always been paternalistic & does not come close to the genocidal / violent racism of many other ethnic groups in Africa.

[Pinard7]

I do not think that most Boer separatists "do not want to share" as they are not opposed to Black independence but the Boers do have a legitimate claim to self determination within their former Boer republics.

[Pinard7]

The die taal dialect of the Boers was removed from the public sphere after the Boer Republics were conquered & the Cape based Afrikaner began to ascend in the region.

[monk3yboy69]

I am sorry Pinard, but I can find no Boer or Afrikaner to tell me the difference between "taal" and Afrikaans. PLease use examples of the two languages. Also, when asking close friends who are Afrikaners, they will refer to themselves as Boers as well. So it does seem like the Boer has been absorbed into the Afrikaner nation, if you will, for reasons political. As you have said.

[Pinard7]

There are those who do note the difference which is how I even found out about it in the first place. The following is from the ant-Apartheid journalist Adriana Stuijt: "He & other Boers still proudly spoke the Taal, the language of their forebears -the language which is now being wiped off the map of South Africa". From: Boer, Afrikaner or White - Which Are You? Found at: stopboergenocideDOTcom/29301/i­ndexDOThtml Just replace the DOT with the actual "."

[monk3yboy69]

I will have to read that before I comment, but It does seem to me that you have got two ends of a stick here. Afrikaans is definately being spoken less in South Africa, but that is understandable, since SA is now part of the global scene. English takes presidence, which makes sense. The Boer is upset that the taal is spoken less, this being as I see it, the same language. It is what they call it, but it is still Afrikaans.

[Pinard7]

The problem is not that Afrikaans is being "spoken less" - after all: Afrikaans is the lingua franca of Southern Africa & is spoken as the home language of not just the Boers & Afrikaners but by the Cape Coloureds / the Griquas / the Basters / a small Tswana population & the aboriginal Khoisan population in the northern Cape.

[Pinard7]

The problem is that the government is attempting to stamp Afrikaans out by removing it in educational institutions & the public sphere & are forcing English onto the entire diverse multi cultural population.

[monk3yboy69]

This is understandable and commendable. They would like the modern South African to be able to compete globally. This needs to be achieved by educating in a language they would be able to use. Afrikaans is just not used internationally!

[Pinard7]

Well it looks like you are defending the inexcusable position of marginalizing the Afrikaans language for nothing more than for the artificial British created macro-state to be able to "compete globally" re: in order to better steal its resources. There is nothing commendable about this since English is only being promoted to better facilitate the continued plundering of the region.

[Pinard7]

The Griquas & Khoisan people also speak Afrikaans -but a different dialect of it. Just as the Boers speak a different dialect to the one spoken by the Cape based Afrikaner.

[monk3yboy69]

A Boer and Afrikaner both speak Afrikaans! Prove otherwise with examples, Please!

[Pinard7]

The following is from: Afrikaner Nationalism Captures the State. From: South African History Online. Quote: " Afrikaans was not a systematic language. Dialects differed widely — at the beginning of the century, for example, six dialects existed in the Cape province alone."

[Pinard7]

Continued Quote: " Generally, the poorer the community, the more its Afrikaans differed from the 'purer' version spoken in the Western Cape. For example, the language spoken by the poorer peasants in Namaqualand caused concern".

[Pinard7]

Continued quote: " In (this area) one finds the weakest Afrikaans. Ignored by Church and State, these people have been in constant contact with Griquas and Hottentots, who speak a low semi-barbaric form of Afrikaans. We must make a distinction between civilized Afrikaans and the language of the street, playground and servants."

[Pinard7]

Continued quote: "Afrikaner intellectuals worked very hard to 'clean up' Afrikaans —they appropriated the language developed by the 'coloured' lower classes and claimed it as their own, 'white' language."

[Pinard7]

Continued quote: " They removed black and Malay as well as English influences; for example, many southern Nguni words, which had entered the dialect in the Eastern Cape (re: the Boer dialect), were replaced by Dutch words in the new dictionaries devised by teachers and academics, to reinforce the idea that Afrikaans was respectable and 'white'."

[Pinard7]

Those Afrikaners who refer to themselves as Boers are obviously of Boer descent, but the Afrikaners from the Western Cape (which is where the term originated) or those who moved into the Transvaal during & after the gold rush will not consider themselves Boers. The Boers have indeed to a certain extent been "absorbed" by the Afrikaners but it is mainly political & not cultural.

[monk3yboy69]

I do not agree with you, Pinard. I lived in the Transvaal, like I said for 27 Years. The Afrikaners that I mixed with most definately called themselves Boers. And were very proud of the fact! I feel you are trying to make a point of very little significance. Afrikaners and Boers are not seperate as much as you would like to believe or the historians have you believe. Try living in South Africa and you will see what I mean.

[Pinard7]

This is a useless "appeal to authority" which hold no currency with me whatsoever as I know what I am talking about in this regard. The only reason the Boers have tended not to feel as separate from the Afrikaners in the 20th cent was entirely due to the Cape based Afrikaners propaganda which aimed at co-opting the Boers for political purposes.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore: the Taal is not a separate language from Afrikaans. It is a separate dialect from the one used by those who initially promoted Afrikaans -just as the Griqua (mixed race of Boer / Khoisan & Tswana origins) & some Khoisan people speak a separate dialect of Afrikaans as well. The point is that the Boers' dialect of Afrikaans -which they often called the Taal- was replaced in the public sphere by the Cape Afrikaners dialect.

[monk3yboy69]

Again, I ask you to use examples of where "Taal" differs from Afrikaans. As a dialect, the structure of the use should differ. There should be different words for the same things, etc. Please give me some examples.

If the present govt is attempting to stamp out the use of Afrikaans in education, is it so bad? After all, Afrikaans cannot be used internationally, so to be educated in Afrikaans would disadvantage future generations. Yes?

[Pinard7]

The dialect of the Boers had / has numerous different words particularly of Malay / Khoi & English origin - but as the article I quoted to pointed out- the Cape Afrikaners attempted to remove them form the standardized form. It is ridiculous to suggest that being educated in Afrikaans would "disadvantage" future generations when in fact the imposing of English is aimed at disadvantaging everyone by empowering an English elite who confiscate the resources of the region.

[Pinard7]

I have much more credentials than you concerning the facts & history of the Boer nation as I have spent the past 15 years of my life researching this topic virtually non stop on a continuous basis interviewing people & I have read every book I could find on the Boers: hence I know what the hell I am talking about whereas you certainly & definitely do not know the first thing about the Boers.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore you liar: Apartheid was put on the statute books by Cecil Rhodes & the British long before Verwoerd -who was not a Boer- arrived on the scene. His disastrous Grand Apartheid or Separate Development phase was an attempt at offsetting the oppressive horizontal features of Apartheid put in place by the British imperialists. The British created the macro state for the quasi fascism of their Cape Dutch lackeys in the first place. The humble Boers were marginalized.

[Pinard7]

This disgusting little trick of projecting the abuses of the Cape based Afrikaners onto the Boers hold no currency whatsoever. The Boers fought two wars of independence against the creation of South Africa. Joseph Stromberg notes how the bureaucratic based nightmare of Apartheid replaced the paternalistic style management of the Boers who as humble simple pastoralists could never have devised such a teleocratic centralized apparatus.

[Pinard7]

No the reconciliation was not short lived. The Zulu King Dinizulu gave a portion of the northern Natal to some local Boers as payment for their services in helping him restore order in an area the British fomented problems in. The Vryheid Republic dates from this era. The Boers & the Zulus are still today allies & some Boers even attend Zulu ceremonies.

[Pinard7]

Shaka killed about one & a half million people yet he is lionized. While these humble Boers simply defend themselves against an attack & are disgustingly labeled "butchers" by a person who is part of the group who have been the traditional enemies of the Boer nation.

[monk3yboy69]

I wonder why I am classed as a Boer enemy? Because I do not hold the facist views of the Boer nation? Because I embrace freedom and equality for all? Because I see black people as being equal to me (a white man). Am I hitting the right buttons yet, Pinard?

[Pinard7]

You are noted as an enemy of the Boers precisely because of your fascist views. It was your people who committed genocide against the Boers people simply because they stood in the way of your fascist / imperialist plans in the region. It was you British Imperial antecedents that imposed the macro-state of South Africa & initiated Apartheid in the first place. The Boer people also embrace freedom & equality but I notice that you do not hold these values for the Boer nation.

[Pinard7]

I notice that you are erroneously presuming that I do not see Black people as being equal. That speaks volumes to the level of vitriolic demagoguery that you employ in order to castigate an entire people your people have historically defamed. I am well aware of the vicious anti-Boer propaganda you British imperialists released onto the whole world of which they have never recovered from.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore: the Boer people have been an historically anti-fascist people. The Canadian professor Wallace Mills notes that Boer political notions on the frontier bordered on anarchism & the libertarian author Joseph Stromberg has noted that the Boers lived out a frontier anarchism & have been historically opposed to centralized government.

[Pinard7]

Pure anti Boer propaganda. It appears that you do not know the history of the region & what lead up to the famous battle. After Dingaan killed Piet Retief & his delegation the Zulu King went on to kill 500 innocent Boer civilians -in the most barbaric manner including the brutal killing of children- in Natal in what was later called the Bloukrans Massacre on Feb 16 & 17 1838. The remaining & surviving Boers debated whether to go back to the Cape or not.

[Pinard7]

When Andries Pretorius came to fill the leadership vacuum of the surviving Boers there were apparent attempts at avenging the Bloukrans Massacre but to no avail. Pretorius then decided that perhaps the best thing was to sue for peace with Dingaan.

[Pinard7]

Pretorius sent back captured Zulus & offered to enter into negotiations for peace if Dingaan were to restore the land he had initialy offered Retief.[1] Dingaan sent his reply in the form of an attack on the Boer contigent on December 16 1838: this battle would later be known as the Battle of Blood River. As the Nacome River ran red with the blood of attacking Zulu impis. Hence the Boers were in fact not fighting for revenge but for their survival.

[Pinard7]

Notes.

1. The Great Boer Trek. Stephen Crane.

Published in 1900.

[monk3yboy69]

Notes published in 1900! MMM. Says it all. Could you not find something more up to date to research a subject which I am pretty sure has the Zulu side of the argument too.

[Pinard7]

This is the equivalent of arguing that the killers "side of the argument" has equal merit to the victims. Surely you are not defending the brutal actions of Dingaan? Who has been extensively documented as being a cruel tyrant (does the Matiwane execution hill ring any bells?) by authors such as Oliver Ransford.

[Pinard7]

Furthermore: it should be noted that the Boers entered into an alliance with the new Zulu King Mapande shortly after this battle & after a combination of Pretorius & Mpande's forces overthrew Dingaan. The Natalia Republic sates from this period. The Boers & the Zulus would later exchange rocks of peace in 1840 & would later stack rocks at the site in 1866 as a symbol of reconciliation.

[monk3yboy69]

Not too blessed these days, are they!!!