11.

3.1. The Historical Setting for South African Colonization, 1400 to 1652.

    Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, was the European centre in which all the ingenious map-makers, shipbuilders, seamen and merchants concentrated in their common interest in "discovery" and exploration. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks had captured Constantinople closing the overland trade routes to the East. Prince Henry the Navigator had already organized several voyages of "discovery" around West Africa by 1485, and many African colonies were founded for the glory of God and the profit of Portugal. After Prince Henry's death, Bartholomew Diaz was sent southward to discover a seaway to India. He went as far as the east coast of Africa, but his sailors rebelled and he was forced to return home; on his way back in 1488, he discovered the Cape, the "Cabo de Boa Esperanca", as King John II later called it. In 1495, three years after another "heroic" sailor, Christopher Columbus, had "discovered" America again, Vasco da Gama left Europe, sailed around the Cape and reached India in 1498.

    Whatever information had survived from the diaries or note-books of these navigators is in agreement concerning the "friendly" African people whom they met. Da Gama, for instance enjoyed himself so much in East Africa, in the "land of the good folk", that he stayed with them for five full days. (21) 

    The native women thronged to see the white women, entertaining them
    with dances and songs .... the chief provided poultry, goats, fish and a
    paste of millet flour . ... It was Palm Sunday, Couto tells us. Father Nicolas
    Rosario must have read to them the Mass, prayers and the Bible lessons
    of the Catholic Church . ... Then they entered the territory of Chief Inyaka .
    ... They were welcomed by a Kafir who spoke fluently Portuguese . ... the
    whole of the neighbouring kraal streamed out to meet them. The
    Portuguese women were a source of great wonder; and the Kafir women
    showed every sign of welcome, even caressing them. (22)

    All these facts are now eradicated from official South African history, and African students are just taught about the ferocious Zulu chiefs, Dingaan or Cetewayo, or about the bloodthirsty Xhosa chiefs, Hintsa or Kreli. (23) In 1602 the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) was founded in Amsterdam, and in 1621, the Dutch-States-General agreed to found a Dutch West India Company (DWIC) as well. After the fall of the Spanish empire, the Dutch, with bigger and efficiently equipped ships, began to dominate the oceans.

Both trading companies were interested in a monopoly of trade, profits and spices. Unlike the Spanish colonists, they were not fanatic about spreading Catholicism or Christianity among the "noble savages"; patriotism, settlement, philanthropy or "saving souls for God" were only auxiliary activities. Another important event for future "race relations" occurred in South Africa in 1647/48. The Dutch ship, Haarlem, was stranded near present Cape Town. The captain and the crew of 60 men salvaged the cargo and stayed there until April, 1648, when a homeward bound Dutch fleet picked them up. The 1649 report of the ships' officers, Janz and Proot, can be regarded as the first "state document" of colonized South Africa:

    "Others will say, that the natives are savages and cannibals, and that no
    good is to be expected from them... this is, however, only a popular
    error.... We firmly believe, that the farmers in this country, were we to
    shoot their cattle or take them without payment, if they had no justice to
    fear, would not be one hair better than these natives . ... The chief mate,
    carpenter and corporal of the said ship Haarlem, having once also gone so
    far as to the houses of the natives ... were received and treated in a
    friendly manner by the said natives, who could easily have beaten them to
    death, had they been inclined (as is maintained by some) to cannibalism."
    (24)

    Commander Jan van Riebeeck, who will be responsible for massacring these same natives between 1652 and 1662, added his own comments. Among other things, he stated that "the natives are by no means to be trusted, but are a savage set living without conscience." (25) On the basis of this report, the DEIC decided to establish a refreshment station at the Cape in 1652, when the colonization of South Africa began.

3.2. Social Relations during Dutch Colonization, 1652-1806

    It is very clear that although cultural differences had come into play at the Cape, giving rise to "group antipathy", nevertheless there were no traces of "racial discrimination" being practised before 1652. On April 6, 1652, three Dutch ships, having about 100 people (and only 4 women) aboard, landed in Table Bay. To reduce company's costs and increase production, the DEIC decided in 1657 to establish a colony; since then various servants and soldiers were set free from service as "Free Burghers", the forefathers of the future "Afrikaner" (Boor) nation. Two problems immediately arose: lack of farm labourers and a scarcity of European women. The solution of these major problems laid the foundation stone for the future "race problems" and "native policy" in South Africa; it is also the root of "racism".

    The DEIC decided to introduce slavery into the Cape, changing it from a Dutch settlement to a Dutch slave colony. In 1657 the first 12 slaves arrived from Java. In the years that followed slaves were brought from Guinea and Angola, (soon abandoned, because they fled) and from Java, Bengal, Madagascar, Mozambique, the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India.

     "By 1662 they (the Free Burghers) already had 180 slaves and by 1687
    these numbered 310, young and old . . . . in 1713 there were more
    slaves than the Free Burghers . ....In 1820, the total population of the Colony
    numbered 112,000. Of these, 30,000 were Hottentots, 35,000 slaves, 4,000
    English and 43,000 were Afrikaners." (26)

    The Dutch treated these slaves with the cruelty and brutality which is well-known throughout the slave epoch. However, partially to solve the "woman question", some of them were Christianized and they became the house-wives of the Free Burghers, giving birth to "Coloured" children.  Another group to be "civilized", after some of them had been decimated by the "Hottentot Wars" (1657-77), were the Khoikhoi peoples. They were employed as house-servants and farm labourers; once the women became "Christians" and were "cultured" they became highly prized brides for the "Whites".

    It is important to note the religious fanaticism that existed at the Cape, which had inspired the "trek-boers", (1675 - 1835) and later the "voortrekkers" who fled from British colonialism into the interior (1835 - 1845). In Europe. the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches, in defence of their respective dogmas, had set loose a reign of terror, hatred, and intolerance which is unique in the history of religion. Calvinism excelled in establishing a new religious tyranny in Europe. This was the creed which the first Dutch settlers brought to the Cape of Good Hope. (27) And while Calvin had divided the human species broadly into the "elect" and the "rest", the Boers at the Cape gave this religious interpretation a new dimension, applying it not only to individuals, but also to peoples and nations. (28)

    Trekking through the "wilderness" of South Africa, these Dutch colonists more and more lost their "European culture" and degenerated into "white tribal pastoralists". Over the decades, they developed a doctrine intended to differentiate them religiously from the native "heathens", and also to establish a "racial identity". As an "elect" people, the "chosen people of God", they identified themselves with the Israelites of the Old Testament, just as it was forbidden for the ancient Israelites to intermingle with the non-Jewish heathens, and even in the New Testament, so Christians were not allowed to associate closely with heathen "infidels". Thus the first differentiation took place on religious grounds. The "trekboers", and later the "voortrekkers", had difficulties in extending this on "racial" lines, because they themselves, in the majority of cases, were already "mixed" or "Coloured" peoples. (29)

3.3. British Colonialism and Dutch Republicanism, 1806-1910

 The American War of Independence, the first colonial revolution, and the conflicts which resulted in Europe, had their effects on the Dutch colonies. France invaded Holland in 1794, and the British occupied Guiana and the Cape in 1795, and definitively in 1803 and 1806, respectively. In both cases, an anglicizing policy was introduced, as well as the British monetary system, new language laws, and above

all British legal institutions. However, it was not the British liberal capitalists who laid the legal basis for "racism" in South Africa. Between 1678 and 1685 the Dutch government at the Cape had already taken legal measures to institutionalize the growing "racial" reality. By a decree of 1678, marriages between Dutch men and "heathen" women were prohibited. This had caused many Dutch farmers to cross the boundaries of the colonies and marry their women in "Kaffirland". In 1685, Commissioner General Hendrik A. Van Rheede even forbid "marriage between the Dutch and liberated slave-women". (30)

    With the Second British Occupation in 1806, the Dutch were cut off from their motherland, and declared British subjects. In the "race question" a new policy was adopted, which deeply affected the lives of the 30,000 "Afrikaner" British citizens. "Racism", as an ideology of liberal capitalism, was reaching maturity, but the philanthropic and slave emancipation movements still gave it a "liberal" face. Meanwhile, the "trek-boers" on the eastern front were already engaged in serious "Kaffir Wars" with the African peoples: Thus, a new "race" dimension entered the problem of "native policy".

    In 1609 Lord Caledon abolished the "Pass Laws", introduced by the Dutch to restrict the movements of the "Hottentots", "Bushmen" and slaves within the Colony. Dr. John Philip, of the London Missionary Society, placed the British colonial government under pressure, and introduced philanthropic and

"negrophilistic" ideas, which eventually led to the passing of the famous Ordinance 50, promulgated in 1928. It defined the "Coloureds" within the Colony as a new "ethnic group", a new "race". All the "civilized and Christianized" Khoisan peoples within the colony became free "Coloureds" and were recognized together with the Dutch "Afrikaners" as British subjects, equal under the British laws. An ordinance of 1852 even allowed these "Coloureds" to exercise the franchise, under certain restrictions, together with British and Dutch citizens. (31)

    These regulations aggravated the Dutch, who moved from "religious differentiation" to "race hatred". The greatest blow was the abolition of slavery, at a time when "free" wage-labour was urgently needed for the unfolding of liberal capitalism. In 1833, the Dutch colonists suddenly found themselves "equal" with their former slaves, not only in a legal, but also a social sense. This was enough for the die-hard "Afrikaners". They again took their "Bible and Rifle", and fled from British rule deep into the interior. It is not possible here to describe the "Great Trek", repressive measures taken by the British colonial government, or the "Kaffir wars", the Wars of Dispossession, which broke the military and economic power of the Black peoples. (33)

    The British eventually recognized the Boer republics of the "Orange Free State" and the "South

    Britain's development from liberal to monopoly capitalism after 1870, and the local discovery of diamonds and gold, completely changed British policy.  In the Boer Wars of 1899 - 1902, British imperialism destroyed the Boer republics. The war itself is a brilliant demonstration of the fact that capital itself knows no colour; for the sake of exploitation and super-profits, especially when diamonds and gold are concerned, it does not stop before "races", whether a "chosen people" or a "master race". There is no difference between the brutality exercised today in South Africa by the Boers against the Africans, and the terror which the Britons had set loose against the Boers during that war. And basically the same atrocities were committed by the British and Dutch colonists alike against the "native" peoples of Southern Africa for over three centuries, and until today. This is the price which peoples of any colour have to pay, whenever capitalism is marching in, or imperialism is expanding - we need not mention the genocide during the various Vietnam wars.

   After the war, the Boer Republics gained "Crown Colony"status, and on May 31, 1910, the Union of South Africa became a reality. What is important is that although the "non-Whites" outnumbered the "Whites" by about 6 to 1, the non-white" franchise was sacrificed on the altar of Anglo-Boer reconciliation. The Boer "race hatred" towards the Britons was much reduced when they received more political power than they actually represented in economic terms. This did not, however, kill "Afrikaner republicanism"; pro-German movements surfaced during both the First and Second World Wars, and eventually the Boer Nationalist Party, under Malan, won the elections in 1948. This party led South Africa to a Republic in 1961, and up to today the "Afrikaners" are ruling in apartheid South Africa.

3.4. "Racism" and apartheid, 1910 till today

3.4.1. From Neo-Calvinism to "Baasskap" (master-rule)

    As we have seen before, during Dutch colonialism the distinction between "Christian" and "heathen" gradually had changed to a differentiation between "civilization" and "higher culture", and "uncivilized" and "uncultured". During British colonialism, especially after Ordinance 50 and emancipation, a development of colour consciousness and colour prejudice occurred. At the time of the Boer Wars, "race prejudice" and "race hatred" between the various population groups were on the order of the day. After 1910 both Boers and Britons began to equate "race" with colour, and with specific social stereotypes.