Word: boer
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South Africa's Afrikaners lost the Boer War of 1899-1902 but won the country. Even so, they remain suspicious of the English-speaking white minority, and in moments of political stress, the Afrikaners-whose native tongue is related to Dutch-trot out their sacred tribal memories of the bloody fighting between Boer and Briton. Thus last week, in the midst of a parliamentary debate, Defense Minister Piet Botha declared that there were elements of the predominantly English United Party "who hate the Afrikaner." An opposition member replied, "You're a scandalous liar," and walked...
...Edwardians by J.B. Priestley. Illustrated. 302 pages. Harper & Row. $ 15. The lower classes were wretched and the Boer War was a scandal, but in the main the Edwardians were as self-possessed as their older brothers, the late Victorians, and a good deal gayer. The Empire was at its apogee; surveying his South African fortune and keeping his subjunctives firmly in place, Cecil Rhodes said, "If there be a God I think he would like me to paint as much of Africa British-Red as possible." Yet great social reforms at home permitted the top authors-Kipling, Shaw and Wells...
...with their covered wagons to defend themselves against attacks by native tribes. To their present-day descendants, it means turning increasingly to the repressive strictures of apartheid to protect themselves against the nonwhite majority. Five times since 1948, the electorate has gone into laager by returning the white-supremacist, Boer-dominated Nationalist government to power, each time with increased majorities. Last week, for the first time in 22 years, South Africa's voters took a short step back toward the moderate center...
Political pressure based on ethnic loyalty is a part of American democracy; it is hardly a recent phenomenon, or one unique to the Jews. In 1794, Irish immigrants protested the Jay treaty that improved relations with Britain. During the Boer War, Dutch-Americans tried to get the U.S. into war on the Boer side. German-Americans during the 1930s agitated on Berlin's behalf. The cold war produced anti-Soviet demonstrations by Americans of Slavic descent...
...published it under his own name. Marais shot himself in 1936. Shortly after, his complete study of white ants, i.e., termites, and a slim, chatty book of reminiscences about baboons were published in Europe. Marais had studied baboons in the Transvaal for three years just after the Boer War, when the absence of farmers with guns made the beasts approachable. He began, but never completed, a serious text based on his scientific observations of them. Now that text has been rediscovered...