Word: englishness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...1830s the Afrikaners decided to escape English rule by setting forth on their Great Trek, which over the years has acquired the epic aura of a Long March or a Valley Forge. Packing their women and children into ox-drawn wagons, some 6,000 Afrikaners departed from the British settlements on the coast and tramped hundreds of miles to the northeast, to the uninhabited wilderness along the Vaal River...
...Afrikaners organized a fierce resistance to the British in the Boer (farmer) War (1899-1902). Outnumbered and outgunned, they took to the bush and engaged in guerrilla attacks (the word commando is one of their contributions to the English language). Britain's commander, Lord Horatio Kitchener, was no less fierce; he sent troops to burn down the Boer commandos' villages. Women and children were rounded up and confined in a new kind of establishment: concentration camps. Of the estimated 60,000 prisoners, some 26,000 women and children succumbed to famine and disease. When it was all over, the British...
...essence of capitalist exploitation.) Sasha says that in an average month he earns about 800 rubles ($1,200), far more than his 150- ruble ($225) monthly salary as a lawyer. "I am a biznesmen," he says with a grin, using a word Russian has borrowed from English...
...Africa by force of arms, established its parliamentary tradition and civil service, dug out its gold and diamonds and built its roads and factories. Yet for years these onetime conquerors have been little more than a permanent opposition. With a population of 1.5 million compared with 3 million Afrikaners, English-speaking South Africans are a prosperous minority, controlling perhaps 80% of the economy. Why are they so politically powerless...
...English didn't realize that government was the biggest business in the country," says Helen Suzman, with a touch of exaggeration and a touch of bitterness. Now entering her 34th year as an opposition M.P. (for some of that time the only one), she is among the leaders of the English-speaking minority. Other well-known members tend to pursue different lines of work: Golfer Gary Player, Novelist Nadine Gordimer, Dancer Juliet Prowse, Tennis Player Kevin Curren. "And then the English were just outnumbered by the Afrikaners," Suzman adds, "especially in the civil service...