The Boer War

As I read The Power of One I was carried into the life of a small, teased Anglo African boy.  Set in South Africa in the 1930s the book follows Peekay, the protagonist during his transitional years till the 1950s.  I was transported to a small Afrikaans boarding school, where I was a character myself through the eyes of Peekay. His suffering due to his ethnicity in post war South Africa made me realise the lasting impacts on individuals that the greed of nations can have. Peekay was teased extensively by his Boer peers solely because of his ability to speak English and his colouring, his status as a son of a rooinek, the derogatory name for the British soldiers who came to fight the Second Boer War (Courtenay, 1989).  

The First Boer War was a result of two nations the Dutch and the English fighting in foreign lands for the diamonds and gold that the Cape Colony held. This extensive wealth deep in the bowels of South Africa meant more to the Dutch and English who were seeking to provide financial support to their ever-growing empires and status as world powers, than the lives of those who inhabited the land.  It also saw the land inhabited with both English and Dutch colonists and soldiers, and yet it was very hard for the 250,000 British troops occupying the huge area to effectively control it. The Boer forces had a lot of freedom and developed a type of offense previously unheard of: guerrilla warfare. This method of fighting allows the relatively small Boer force to maximise their advantage of knowing the terrain and being able to mobilise quickly.  This method worked for a short while, but the constant supply of British troops being imported from the various colonised frontiers proved to be too much. In 1901, over fifty thousand British troops marched against Boer capitals, as the British abandoned their own methods of fighting, by burning down the farms and homes of their opponents. It is estimated that 26,000 Boer women and their children, were placed in concentration camps with estimates of another 14,000 of varying ethnicity. These vulnerable members of society were to die in inhumane and appalling conditions.  The devastating blow to the Boers saw them surrender to the British only seven months after the co-ordinated attack. In May 1902 the war ended with a singing of a peace treaty in Pretoria. But as the Power of One indicates individual battles are still being fought. Peekay is still suffering the effects of the greed between two waring nations with conflicting interests.