Events

I had time this morning while working on a research project on the coal mines of the Northern Cape and how the increased development of the region has provided for the local citizens of the state and destroyed the Savannah environment at the same time to speak with our Chief Editor Wessel Ollewagen.  He seemed especially stirred up as the Cape Town Express had put out an article going into detail about the Minister of National Affairs', Alfred Courtenay, thoughts on Boer protests going around across the country.  

They were implied as being sparse and "not the average Boer opinion".

When I asked Chief Editor Ollewagen about it, he stated, "Minister Courtenay acting as mere lip service for the Home Government is a surprise to no one.  But for this to be the position of the British on the minorities within her colonies, is quite disappointing.  They are colonial descendants of fellow white Europeans such as the Afrikaaners.  To think, they should just 'learn English', which is practically what Ollewagen is implying is downright rude, dismissive and arrogant for government to hold as a policy to their own citizens."

Ollewagen would go on to say, "[The Cape Colony] cannot be a sole English Afrikaan ethno-state as Southern Africa had seen intense colonization from other European ethnicities, let alone the millions of native Africans that live in the rural parts of the Cape Colony under our care and guidance.  To demean them all as lesser and lump the Boers together with the Grique and African tribes is downright racist.  Truly disappointing."

Racial and ethnic tensions continue to persist down here in the Cape as cultures and races mesh together in a multi-cultural society that is staunchly English nativist.  Many yearn for recognition, but it is uncertain if the colonial government or even the Home Government in London will ever support a fully equal society within the Commonwealth.