I'm not sure that it's reasonable to lump all of the "African" South Africans into one "ethnic group" -- FCS Discussion Forum

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, [8], 9, 10 ]

Subject: I'm not sure that it's reasonable to lump all of the "African" South Africans into one "ethnic group"
Author: Ian (Australia)	[ Next Thread \| Previous Thread \| Next Message \| Previous Message ] Date Posted: 12:55:56 11/14/04 Sun In reply to: Ed Harris (London) 's message, "Choices" on 23:54:58 11/13/04 Sat Try telling a Zulu that he is of the same "ethnic group" as a Xhosa and you'll see how sharp his spear is. [ Next Thread \| Previous Thread \| Next Message \| Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> [> [> [> Subject: Quite so.

Author:
Ed Harris (London)
[ Edit | View ]

Date Posted: 17:12:39 11/14/04 Sun

But the Apartheid years united the black South Africans by presenting them with a common enemy... or at least a common cause for resentment. And now the successor to the Afrikaaners is the Marxist ANC, and Marxists are not known for distinguishing between ancient cultural distinctions.

How long black South Africans will continue to live harmoniously, Zulu, Xhosa, Bantu, Lemba, west African immigrants et al., remains to be seen. Although, frankly, I doubt that you'll see anything like the Hutu vs. Tutsi situation which exploded in Rwanda.

And, more pertinently to this forum, I doubt that any of them, whatever their differences between themselves, would see a return to royal dominion status as a desirable move! Okay, so we treated the black South Africans better than the Boers did, but that is not saying much and they have a right to be sceptical as to just how liberal we are... especially as we agreed not to enfranchise more black people at the time of the Union, just to keep the Dutch on side and not cause ourselves political problems. Frankly, if I were a black South African, I would conclude that British good intentions do not always prevail over British pragmatism.

[ Post a Reply to This Message ]