As school has not been held in person for almost a month, I have taken it upon myself to continue learning and further my knowledge of history. While I.B. exams have been cancelled I still desire to learn about the topics which would have been on my test. I am fortunate enough to have a textbook at my disposal and I have taken it upon myself to read, what would have been, our final units in history class. Immediately upon opening the book, I was transported to a world completely foreign to me.
Before diving into the details, it is important to get a general overview and context of the situation. The topic of study, Apartheid South Africa, is unique for its location but the plot of one group of people oppressing another has sadly been experienced all over the world. My first question was, “what does Apartheid even mean?” well in Afrikaans it means apartness. Naturally, one question leads to another and my answer left me wondering what Afrikaans is. Turns out, it is the official language of South Africa and is a West Germanic language. So why would a European language be the official language spoken in a country on the opposite end of the globe? Well this is where the story begins.
When the Dutch began colonizing South Africa, those that lived on the colonial ‘frontier’ were called Trekboers. Isolated from Europe and its modern intellectual currents, slavery was a part of their everyday life and thus racial inequality was taken for granted. When the British decided to abolish slavery in 1833 it led some Boers to undertake the Great Trek to the “promise land” where they’d be free to oppress other humans in whatever way they felt. This reminded me of last year, in history class, when we were learning about the U.S. Civil War. The United States had divided views over whether it was right to own people as slaves, the north wanting them to be free and the south wanting to continue to profit off of their “property”. With the Dutch, once again, it was the country in the north ending slavery and those colonizing in the south that wanted to continue it. I find this interesting. While the American Civil War took place almost 30 years after Britain outlawed slavery, the same responses arose to the same action on three different continents. The difference is, in the case of the Dutch, rather than fighting within the country over the decision to abolish slavery, those that wished to continue mistreating people simply fled to a place they knew they could get away with it.
20th Century History 