Talk:History of South Africa

Arrival of the Dutch

Most survivors were left with no option but to work for the Europeans in an exploitative arrangement that differed little from slavery.

Does "exploitative arrangement that differed little from slavery" mean "indentured servitude"? It's not very clear what the arrangement was, exactly. 74.74.221.4 03:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC) Jason

POV

The anonymous editor 193.254.155.48 has made fairly large changes to this article, carefully inserting pro-Boer bias wherever possible, and removing anything remotely critical. There are also good-looking factual changes included as well, so I don't just want to revert everything. However, it does need some more work to remove the bias. For convenience, here's a link to the changes made by this editor: [1] Greenman 16:02, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Seems like quite a lot of work went into this. Do we know this editor ? They have only done this page from this IP, but perhaps someone recognises the style ? Wizzy…☎ 14:51, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes. As I see it, the problems with this batch of edits were as follows: (1) lots and lots of spelling, grammar, and formatting problems; (2) strong pro-Boer POV; (3) too much done all at once; (4) too many controversial edits done without consultation on the the talk page. It's quite possible that the article had somewhat of a pro-British/anti-Boer slant before, but these edits simply dripped pro-Boer POV. If 193.254.155.48 wants come back and work on this in a more consultative way, that would be great.--Bcrowell 15:16, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Need a good image for lead; or continue process of spinning off sub-articles?

This article really looks bare without an image next to the lead. Any ideas? Looking through the images in this article, and in History of South Africa in the apartheid era, I'm not finding much that seems appropriate. Another possibility would be to do it sort of like History of the United States, where you have one main article that starts with a table of contents, and does little more than point to the sub-articles. To me, the current state of the article seems a little strange and asymmetric, since the apartheid-era stuff has been spun off, but the colonial and post-apartheid stuff hasn't. Maybe the difficulty of finding a properly iconic image is really a symptom of the fact that the article is in this strange state. If people agree with the idea of continuing the spinning-off process, what would be a good periodization, and good titles?--Bcrowell 15:30, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Improvement drive

A related topic, spice trade, is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Support or comment on the nomination there if you are interested.--Fenice 09:37, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

South Africa's missing history

"Although many important events occurred during this period, apartheid was the central fact around which most of the historical issues of this period revolved."

Sure, apartheid happened. But alot more happened in South Africa! The weapons trade with Israel? The nuclear bomb development? The differing governments and their policies?

Just because apartheid is what the rest of the world focuses on does not mean it was the sole event in this period of South Africa's history. I'd hope that this article does not get featured article status before this issue is addressed - Political Correctness should not coax the editors of this article into swaying away from an integral part of the country's history.

- G 13:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

British and Dutch version of this Article

The British and Dutch version of this article concerning the British colonization of South Africa do not match. --Martin253 22:11, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The French Revolution and its effect on the History of South Africa

I need to verify this and shore up the facts, but... The arrival of the English at the Cape was not simply to 'fill a vacuum'! What I believe happened is this. After the French Revolution, the possibilty of a revolution spreading through Europe placed the position of European royalty and nobility in jeopardy. The surrounding Monarchies rallied behind what was left of the deposed French nobility and under threat of war attempted to sway the revolutionaries to reinstate the monarchy. The revolutionaries retailated by threatening to take the revolution to these countries. The Dutch Prince of Orange approached the English Monarchy for help, and the Cape of Good hope was traded for the protection of the Dutch royalty. Though no revolution occurred in the Netherlands, Napoleon's army invaded. The British sent a warship to the Cape, and when they landed on the shores of False Bay and presented to the Dutch settlers the news that the Cape was now English sovereign territory, the settlers did not believe them and the Battle of Muizenberg ensued. The British were victorious. When, some months later, the news arrived from the Netherlands that the English had indeed been given the Cape, Gordon - the commander of the Dutch force at the Cape - after whom Gordon's Bay is named, committed suicide. Potion 21:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Transition Period Missing

South Africa didn't simply go from the Apartheid era to Post-Apartheid. There was a wonderful transition that seems to have gotten lost, beginning 1990 when the ANC was unbanned and Mandela was released, and ending in 1994 with the first democratic election. Does anybody want to write a main article on the transition period? Please lets not forget our heritage Ethnopunk 11:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

re: Main articles - these are usually spun out when they get too big for the original (this ..) article. Can you try (as you are doing) expanding it here, and if size warrants, then doing a separate article ?

Also, do check 1990 in South Africa, 1991 in South Africa, 1992 in South Africa, 1993 in South Africa, etc.., but, you are right, it needs expansion here. Wizzy…☎ 11:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Initial Colonization

I remember hearing that when the Dutch first colonized South Africa, the boers colonized in areas that were completely uninhabited, and it wasn't until the English arrived that there was any contact between Europeans and Africans in the region. Can anyone confirm this? R'son-W 06:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Simply not true, although the fiction of an empty land colonised by Europeans suited successive white governments. Early colonisation was characterised by continous contact between Europeans and Khoikhoi in the frontier zone - ships had been bartering with Khoikhoi inhabitants of Table Bay for 60 years before the Dutch founded a settlement at Cape Town - and there was contact between Europeans and Bantu-speaking African people from the early 1700s. Humansdorpie 20:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Into the Future

I think that ending this article with comment on emigration and gated communities is POV. In fact, though gated communities may be fairly prevalent in Johannesburg's northern suburbs, that's really only of concern to wealthy people who reside in Johannesburg, a fraction of the country's population.

I propose (me or someone else) rewriting the end to be more NPOV. I'll park that thought for now - any ideas are appreciated. Caroline Greenway 09:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

kingdom to republic

when did south africa become a republic and how? I can't see it mentioned in the article 82.110.109.208 14:42, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The move from Union - not Kingdom :) - gets a brief mention at History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_era#International_relations, a sub-article of this one. Could do with a mention here though, and a more complete writeup. Greenman 23:00, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a lot about the move to republic in the article on H.F. Verwoerd, the NP prime minister who got the referendum through. The Union was a Dominion of the British Empire previously and the British monarch was also monarch of the Dominions, including South Africa. Wikipedia has an article on King of South Africa. Under Union, the head of state was the British high commissioner; with republic, S.A. got an independent state president -- mostly ceremonial until the 1983 constitutional revision which abolished the Westminster style parliament & established a strong executive presidency, comparable to de Gaulle's changes in France. Chris Lowe 05:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

From 1910 to 1931, the Dominion was just a semi-autonomous region of the British Empire. From 1931 onwards, under the terms of the Statute of Westminster, the old Dominions became independent kingdoms, or, as they are normally called today, Commonwealth realms. The 6 realms at the time (Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa) recognized the same physical person, i.e. the British monarch, as their "King", but the Crowns of Australia, Canada, South Africa, etc. were split from the UK Crown and became therefore a separate legal entity, both in domestic and international law. The British monarch would be no longer the Sovereign of South Africa in his capacity as "King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", but rather as the legally separate "King of South Africa". The name "Kingdom" used by the OP in his/her question is therefore technically correct to refer to South Africa post-1931.

South Africa ceased to be a kingdom though in 1961 when it became a republic and withdrew from the Commonwealth.161.24.19.112 (talk) 17:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Article should be delisted as Good Article

This article fails to meet at least three major Good Article criteria: quality of writing, logical structure, and breadth of coverage. There are some factual accuracy issues as well although sometimes they may derive from writing problems or lack of breadth problems.

The most fundamental problem is the lack of breadth which also is a POV problem. The article greatly overemphasizes the history of white South Africans and narrow political & military history at the expense of the majority of the people and of economic and social history in which the sources of much of the political history are to be found.

The logical flow problems are related to this content bias. It has an intro, then an overview of "modern South African history" i.e. the period of white colonization and settlement down to the present, then a very cursory and factually problematic discussion of the history prior to white arrival, reflecting virtually none of the archaeological, historical linguistic and historical scholarship of the last 50 years on precolonial history. Then we launch into "modern" i.e. mostly white history again, repetitiously, with more political-military detail, Africans appearing mainly as military enemies. In the 20th century there is a tremendous imbalance in the stress on participation in the World Wars.

The person who complained about overemphasis on apartheid is sort of right although partly for the wrong reasons -- it is not that the emphasis is p.c., but that it doesn't deal with the social and cultural transformations that shaped 20th century South Africa, created by the mineral and industrial revolutions. Those forces drew or forced first a majority of Afrikaner boers (farmers) off the land, often in conditions of considerable poverty, along with many Coloured and Indian South Africans, and did the same to Africans at a lagging rate proportionally, though because of the African demographic majority even an urban-oriented minority rivalled the urban white population.

Without that context, the creation of Afrikaner nationalism as a populist movement, the rise of National Party dominance, and the appeal of apartheid to S.A. whites cannot be understood. Even more significantly, the tremendous social and cultural changes in African life are almost completely invisible (to give just one example, the first S.A. Union census shows about 10% of Africans as Christian; by 1990 the figure would be about 90% self-reported, although maybe half of those belonged to "independent" churches some of which were not recognized by many orthodox denominations, esp. the more conservative). Likewise neither the sources nor the effects of the bantustan policies, whether in population removals or efforts to de-nationalize Africans and deny them S.A. citizenship, can be understood without grasping the history of land and its use, and the forms of segregation and economic domination created prior to 1948, by both Afrikaans-speaking and English-speaking whites.

To a very large extent this reads like a high school or maybe basic university textbook written for English-speaking white South Africans from about the 1970s.

I would simply move to delist the article as "Good" except that a) I need to figure out how to do the technical stuff and b) it appears that good etiquette requires raising the issues here first. Those who may be concerned should consider (some of, by no means all in detail) the issues raised.

Chris Lowe 06:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

fair comment,chris. --Severino 17:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Mandela: The Authorised Biography

I am trying to expand this article, mainly focusing on the differences between this book and other accounts (books and otherwise) of South Africa throughout this period. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated on the peer review page: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Mandela:_The_Authorised_Biography" BillMasen 17:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

President

quote: "This was the first time that there was a South African president in sixty years, since the days of the old Transvaal South African Republic when President Paul Kruger was exiled by the British in 1900. "

unlike swart, kruger wasnt president of south africa, only of transvaal("south african republic"). you cant compare the one with the other. --Severino 22:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral article?

Some of the sources given for the crime section are erroneous. Sarcastic Sid 02:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Some very dodgy contributions in the crime section on here. I've made some changes which I hope give the article a bit more credible clout.

Regards. Sarcastic Sid 04:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Failed-GA

Neutrality is disputed and almost none of this content has been attributed. Perspicacite 05:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

nelson mandela

        nelson mandela was a freedom fighter and was a symbol of freedom.

by:shadae graham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.190.67.197 (talk)

Wheat?

"The Bantu-speakers not only had domestic animals, but also practiced agriculture, farming wheat and other crops."

I have a feeling that should be sorghum, the drought resistant grass imported from Northern Africa, and the dominate staple crop until it was replaced by (the less healthy and famine inducing) maize 500 years ago.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 10:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorghum is still popular and very much part of entrenched culture (beer, sour porridge, etc). Was maize introduced to the area all that long ago? --Zalatunzi (talk) 02:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

gained international respect

"Most significantly, the new Union of South Africa gained international respect with British Dominion status putting it on par with three other important British dominions and allies: Canada, Australia, and New Zealand."
At this point in the article those different once-sovereign nations were recently conquered by a hostile alien invader in a series of brutal and terrible wars. They had lost children, men, freedom, kings, land, rights, heritage, etc. It may be POV to state that the newly grouped-together bunch of defeated nations gained a new respect because of dominion - as if it was a favour the aggressor bestowed on them.
The article has a number of these POV slants that may just be insensitive.
--Zalatunzi (talk) 02:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

South African "indegenous population" debate

The San people are the original native South Africans and anything saying otherwise is a filthy politically motivated lie! The original natives are a completely different race to the Xhosa and Zulu, and their hunter-gatherer way of life has almost been driven to extinction by the brutal waves of migration by European settlers and other African tribes. The Xhosa and Zulu are just as guilty or more than the Boer for destroying the indigenous population of this country. Why are the San never mentioned and only the Xhosa and Zulu who are so prominent in the modern day are constantly praised and supported? This indicates populism and racist bigotry. Clearly this article assumes a position of political and racist bias to strengthen a violent racist political cause which asserts that only the Xhosa and Zulu majorities have heritage there.

This the same lie responsible for the current crisis of racial attacks in South Africa, where the Boer and San are both faced with a genocidal bloodbath at the hands of a violent vengeful negro population with a presumtous belief that the land all belongs to them.

It is really shocking to see the level of blindness, naiveness and pig ignorance from Western scholarship that allows puke like this to be passed off as credible factual material.

Wow. You sure are a stupid one, aren't you? Have you read this article?

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 01:04, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

British segregationist legislation ?

I disagree with the reference to certain examples of segregationist legislation mentioned in the last two paragraphs of Section 6 as being specifically "British" in origin. In my opinion, that qualification would apply to legislation introduced in the Natal colony prior to the dominion era, but does not apply directly for example to the Native Land Act, the Urban Areas Act or other similar major pieces of legislation of the 1910-1948 period.

My point is that the aforementioned acts were actually acts of the Union parliament, as opposed to British colonial assemblies. Even though English-speaking whites were represented in parliament and even in government, the Union parliament was nonetheless from its inception dominated by Afrikaners. In fact, the two major parties of the 1910-1934 period, namely the South African Party and the National Party, had Afrikaner roots and all South African prime ministers of that era (Botha, Smuts, and Hertzog) were of ethnic Afrikaner descent.

Please note that I do not deny the complacency with or even collusion of English-speaking South Africans in the increasing body of discriminatory legislation enacted by the Union parliament in the pre-apartheid period. However, given the composition and correlation of forces in the national legislature, I stand by my point of view mentioned above that it is misleading to refer to that series of parliament acts simply as "British segregationist legislation" as the Wikipedia article literally does.

On a more controversial note, I would also object to the inclusion of the pre-Union Franchise and Ballot Act (1892) enacted by the Cape colonial legislature in the list of examples of "segregationist legislation". I say so because, even though the net effect of the said act was effectively to restrict black franchise on grounds of income and education, the legislation per se was not racially oriented, as it was the case BTW of most "British" legislation in the Cape colony following the 1828 ordinance that established equality before the Law between whites and non-whites, see Cape liberalism.

Finally, it must also be added that even the post-Union Native Land Act 1913 excluded in particular the Cape territory and the Urban Areas Act (1923) was largely not enforced in the Cape due to resistance of local authorities and black/coloured franchise and property rights. 200.168.20.65 (talk) 11:56, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

new sub-section: extra-parliamentary activities

New subsection started (death squads, JMC;s etc) Communicat (talk) 23:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I have checked the first reference, correcting the author's name. It's a bit hard to tell, since Del Boca's work is only in snippet view, but there are several things the source does not support. Bergh is not mentioned at all.[2] It's unclear if Vorster is mentioned.[3] The Ossewa Brandwag did not evolve into the Broederbund, it joined the National Party.[4]. The Broederbond was founded long before that.[5] The sentence about "the fundamental precepts of fascism became firmly enshrined in South African law" appears to have no basis in the work.[6] I'll check the other references for this section later to to see if the statements added are similarly unsupported. I've also removed Winer, as his website shows, he's a fringe theorist. Edward321 (talk) 14:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree with what you've claimed above, but I'll check my sources againg when I have time, and make corrections if warranted. Thanks for pointing out suspected errors. However, You certainly don't know what you're talking about re Ossewa Brandwag / Broederbond and a few other things. What's your problem? Why are you stalking me? Never mind. Rhetorical question. Communicat (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Better still, why don't YOU do some hard work here and make some meaningful contribution to this rather neglected article yourself? (Instead of going out of your way to find alleged faults with my contributions) Communicat (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

If you follow the links I provided they will show that you errors are not "suspected" or "alleged". The source you list either does not support the claims you made or at times completely contradicts your claims. Personally attacking me, as you have done, does not change that and is not the wisest course when you are fresh off of a block for personal attacks. Edward321 (talk) 23:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if both of you avoided personal attacks in discussing this.

With that said - There seems to be a credible case that the source cited does not support the statements made in the article. That is a very serious issue on Wikipedia - falsification of sources.

Communicat - please as soon as possible clarify the situation, what sections of the source you were relying on and what they specifically said that led you to put those items in the article. If there is a reasonable explanation or something was legitimately misinterpreted then there's no problem here, you just need to be more careful. If there are sections that Edward321 didn't find in his search that support your specific claims, then that's a valid refutation of the concerns. But we need to see what you were operating off of.

Thank you. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:31, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

There is an article on Hendrik van den Bergh (police official). I do not know if any of you have ever read it, but it seems to collaborate what Communicat has introduced into this article. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 04:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Georgewilliamherbert asked me to comment here. The dispute seems to be about this content, now reintroduced by Petri Krohn. This seems to be materially different from the first version originally introduced by Communicat. If I understand correctly, Georgewilliamherbert's concern is that, among others, the sentences "the fundamental precepts of fascism became firmly enshrined in South African law" and "the Ossewa Brandwag evolved into the Broederbond" in Communicat's version are not supported by the source, "Angelo de Boca & Mario Giovana, Fascism Today: A world survey, New York: Random, 1969, pp. 381-3". The full text of the book is not online, so we can't easily check. I agree that Communicat should provide the exact quote of the source text that he believes supports these statements, and I also note that Communicat's attitude ([7], [8]) is unnecessarily aggressive and uncollaborative. I am looking forward to see Communicat address these concerns; otherwise administrative action may be warranted.  Sandstein  05:30, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The material differences (exept the additional references I have added) are best visible in this diff. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 09:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

P.S. – Now, if any of you want to deal with editors who willfully misrepresent sources to distort Wikipedia to fit their POV, I suggest that you look into this incident: Talk:Mass killings under Communist regimes#According to professor Michael Ellman... -- Petri Krohn (talk) 09:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

I have revised the sources according to Fascism Today hardcopy book which is right here beside me, and I've added a couple of others. As for the rest of above, I'm not going to be drawn into all this mudslinging (yet again), except to say I'm not "willfuly" misrepresenting sources to fit "my" POV. You will have noticed that this article requires a great deal of work. Why don't some of you knuckle down and do it, instead of going out of your way to stalk me from one project to another and find fault with my work in progress. Nobody's perfect, not even these countless critics of mine. My contributions to this article will be tweaked and improved as and when I have time, and in line with whatever arises from sensible discussion.

Re Petri's sensible comment above, van den Bergh was (incidentally) not just a "police official", he was head of the Bureau of State Security or BOSS, viz., security police intelligence / counter-intelligence. Just a small point. He failed to present himself at the TRC, so there's nothing on record about him there, but I have other reliable sources concerning this very big wheel in the apartheid killing machine, as currently conspicously absent from the article.

Edward, please don't revert my stuff again without first discussing in accordance with WP:CONS . Georgewilliamherbert I trust you will endorse this procedure. Thank you.

Distractions and disruptions aside, the CIA graphic next to Apartheid section looks pretty but is difficult / too small to read. I suggest, if it is to be retained, that it be moved up to the Union sections, where there's a big block of text without illustration. I have a good pic of Vorster which can go righthand of Extra-parliamentary activities section, to fill space left by CIA graphic if it's moved. Any objections to this? Communicat (talk) 15:41, 4 September 2010 (UTC)