scholarly journals ‘Great and lasting service to this country’: Sir Leander Starr Jameson, conciliation and the Unionist Party, 1910-1912

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
F A Mouton
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
African Nation ◽  
African Identity ◽  
South African War ◽  
Political Studies

The Jameson Raid of December 1895 estranged the two white groups in South Africa and contributed to the outbreak of the South African War of 1899-1902. With the rise of Afrikaner nationalism in the twentieth century the perception that L.S. Jameson (1853-1917) was the cause of all tension and rivalry between the two white groups became entrenched. And yet, Jameson as leader of the Unionist Party between 1910 and 1912 did his utmost to atone for the damage done by his reckless Raid. He publicly lauded Botha’s ability and integrity and this played a crucial role in diluting the anti-Afrikaner attitude of many English-speakers, convincing them to accept an Afrikaner dominated government. In addition his encouragement of a South African identity within the Empire, and his restraint on the anger and opposition to bilingualism by English-speakers supported Botha’s conciliation and nation building policies. Jameson helped to lay the foundation of a South African nation within the British Empire.Keywords: L.S. Jameson (1853-1917), Unionist Party, Jameson Raid, conciliation. Union of South Africa, South African War, British Empire, South AfricanismDisciplines: History, Political Studies

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Boje
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War

This book concludes with a discussion of three critical variables that determine the success of any military occupation and whether they were all met in the case of Winsburg after the end of the South African War: the total devastation of a country that compels it to acknowledge its need for help in reconstruction; the perception of a common threat to both parties; and credible guarantees of the occupying power’s intention to withdraw. If an occupying power adds an ideological element to its primary concern of establishing a dispensation that poses no threat to its interests, occupation is prolonged and nationalism is stimulated. This conclusion also shows that blacks continued to suffer after the war, with the Boers and British both blocking any suggestion of advance. Finally, it considers the evolution of a system of racial oppression in South Africa that was to bedevil the country for much of the twentieth century, lending credence to the notion that Britain’s occupation of Winsburg was an imperfect one.

Injustice at Both Ends: Pre- and Post-apartheid Literary Approaches to Injustice, Sentiment and Humanism in the Work of C. Louis Leipoldt, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and the Film Invictus

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riaan Oppelt
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Perceived Injustice ◽  
The South ◽  
South African War ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The One

This chapter offers an historical reading of injustices in South Africa. Drawing on South African fiction as well as the medium of film, it documents the injustice of the sociohistorical constellation after the South African War on to the one during apartheid. The chapter analyses C. Louis Leipoldt's novel The Mask, a depiction of perceived injustice on the part of early twentieth-century Afrikaners in South Africa, along with the book A Human Being Died That Night by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and the film Invictus for their contributions to the concept of African humanism. The chapter also discusses the legacy of Nelson Mandela's humanism, with its emphasis on the communal effort against mass injustice.

THE CHANGING POLITICS OF SLAVE HERITAGE IN THE WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

2009 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
NIGEL WORDEN
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
African Identity ◽  
Concepts Of Knowledge ◽  
Insight Into

ABSTRACTChanges that have taken place in the ways in which the slave past has been remembered and commemorated in the Western Cape region of South Africa provide insight into the politics of identity in this locality. During most of the twentieth century, public awareness of slave heritage was well buried, but the ending of apartheid provided a new impetus to acknowledge and memorialize the slave past. This engagement in public history has been a vexed process, reflecting contested concepts of knowledge and the use of heritage as both a resource and a weapon in contemporary South African identity struggles.

scholarly journals Chiefs or Modern Bureaucrats? Managing Black Police in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa

2012 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Shear
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Gold Deposits ◽  
White Population ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
South African War ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Black Police

Early twentieth-century South Africa was a composite society—“part settler state and part African colony … includ[ing] diverse recently conquered African polities as well as a divided white population.” Mining industrialization and British imperialism, particularly after the discovery of substantial gold deposits and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886, put pressure on southern African peoples and states to function as an integrated labor market, and on their leaders to submit to an overarching political authority. These developmental and administrative rationalizing forces were given greater scope in the years following the South African War of 1899 to 1902, especially in the defeated Boer republics of the interior. Renamed the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, these territories were initially under the direct rule of British High Commissioner Alfred Milner. They took the lead in a process of state-building that continued well beyond their political amalgamation with the coastal colonies of the Cape and Natal to form the Union of South Africa in 1910. It has been argued that this institutional reconstruction left South Africa with “a modern civil service, with controls and an information-gathering capacity sophisticated enough to … make the competence, helpfulness, and honesty of individual state officials relatively less crucial.”

South African War, Union, Segregation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Goolam Vahed
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
The South ◽  
South Africans ◽  
South African War ◽  
Black South Africans ◽  
Black Resistance ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter examines the politics of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century South Africa. It considers the South African War and itsrole in shaping modern South Africa through the postwar program of reconstruction under the watch of Milner’s kindergarten, in the context of the British imperial project. Factors that led to the war are outlined, including the role of Randlords, followed by a discussion of the reconciliation between the British and the Boers at the expense of black South Africans, the standoff between Smuts and Gandhi, reconstruction, segregation, the marginalization of black South Africans, and the genesis of organized black resistance to white minority rule under which union was forged.

scholarly journals Challenges to Political Cosmopolitanism: The Impact of Racialised Discourses in Post-Apartheid South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Hana Horáková
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
African Nation ◽  
Racial Inequalities ◽  
African Renaissance ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Civic Nationalism ◽  
The Impact

One of the key challenges of post-apartheid South Africa has been the need to create a South African “nation.” The efforts of the leading African National Congress started with Nelson Mandela’s reconciliatory discourse of a “rainbow nation,” via Thabo Mbeki’s concept of the African Renaissance, to the current stream of racial nationalism articulated as “Africanisation.” The present article attempts to examine the dilemma which the ANC as the major custodian of nation-building has been facing since the 1990s: how to reach a balance between a civic nationalism based on cosmopolitan values and the need to redress the legacy of apartheid and persisting racial inequalities. It is argued that the current culturalist discourse of Africanisation is not only contentious but also dangerous for the cohesion of the fragile democratic society of post-apartheid South Africa.

The Mental and Moral Effects of the South African War, 1899—1902, on the British People

1904 ◽  
Vol 50 (208) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. S. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
National Character ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
South African War ◽  
The People ◽  
Abundant Evidence ◽  
British People

How wide-spread and how varied the impression was that was created by the late war between the British Empire and the Boers of South Africa, is a matter of common knowledge. There is no means of arriving at an exact idea of the influence it exerted upon one of the belligerent parties, but, so far as the people of the British Isles are concerned, there is abundant evidence to show that it produced an immediate and very profound, though unlasting, modification of national character and conduct.

scholarly journals Spirituality and the memorialisation of the dead of the Durban Concentration Camps during the South African War (1899-1902) – a micro history

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Wassermann
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
New South ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
The South ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
South African War ◽  
The Dead

In this article, the spirituality and the memorialisation of the dead of the Durban Concentration Camps during the South African War (1899-1902) are analysed diachronically. As a study in micro-history, primary and secondary sources were used. Four clear memorialisation events were recognised: external British Imperial memorisation by means of obelisks that spiritually honoured Empire; Afrikaner Christian Nationalist memorisation that celebrated symbolic victory over the British Empire; rededication of the memorials in the inclusive spirit of the ‘new’ South Africa; and the partial abandonment of physical memorisation for remembering and honouring the dead in a virtual world. Each of these events offered its own seen and unseen forms of spirituality and understanding.

W. T. Stead

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Social Reformer ◽  
Child Prostitution ◽  
South African War ◽  
Public Figures ◽  
Participatory Journalism ◽  
Newspaper Editor ◽  
English Speaking

W. T. Stead (1849–1912), newspaper editor, author, social reformer, advocate for women’s rights, peace campaigner, spiritualist, was one of the best-known public figures in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. This a religious biography of Stead, giving particular attention to Stead’s conception of journalism, in an age of growing mass literacy, as a means to communicate religious truth and morality, and his view of the editor’s desk as a modern pulpit from which the editor could preach to a congregation of tens of thousands. The book explores how his Nonconformist Conscience and sense of divine calling infused his newspaper crusades, most famously his ‘Maiden Tribute’ campaign against child prostitution, and it considers his efforts, through forms of participatory journalism, to create a ‘union of all who love in the service of all who suffer’ and a ‘Civic Church’. The book considers his growing interest in spiritualism and the occult as he searched for the evidence of an afterlife that might draw people of an increasingly secular age back to faith. It discusses his imperialism and his belief in the English-speaking peoples of the British Empire and American Republic as God’s new chosen people for the spread of civilization, and it considers how his growing understanding of other faiths and cultures, but more especially his moral revulsion over the South African War of 1899–1902, brought him to question those beliefs. Finally, it assesses the influence of religious faith on his campaigns for world peace and the arbitration of international disputes.

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