Modern African Wars (3) : South-West Africa (Men-At-Arms Series, 242)

Rating:
Summary: Compact and Complete Overview
Review: I spent almost all of my professional career concerned with the mapping of Africa. And in the course of mapping one scans and extracts a lot of information from various open sources. In the course of this study I became familiar with the social, economic, and military happenings in Southern Africa.
I can say that except for the works of Al J. Venter, a reporter from South Africa, there are very few books with detail on the bush wars conducted by black nationalists in opposition to the minority white rule resulting from colonialism. And often the insurgents had clashed among themselves for ethnic reasons and some blacks remained loyal to the minority governments.
In other cases, when the white rulers gave up and went home as did the Portuguese in Angola and Moçambique the remaining contenders began civil wars backed by the west and by the Communists respectively. In 1976, the Portuguese Army had revolted in protest to the endless bush wars in Africa and overthrew the government. The army had been especially disgusted with the conflict in defense of Portuguese Guinea-(now Guinea-Bissau) located on the shoulder of West Africa, a hot and worthless swamp land which had no economic value and a land where there were few white settlers.
In contrast, the Portuguese ruled lands in Southern Africa had a large settler class, intermarriage was common,for there was no color line there, as there was in English speaking colonies. But still the post independence unrest was such that most of the settlers migrated back to Portugal and some to Brazil. A civil war ensued which is still going on.
Immediately to the south of Angola lies the land of SW Africa, now Namibia, whose international status was not that of a colony but that of a UN mandate gone bad. After WW I the League of Nations had assigned the governing of the former German colony of South West Africa to the Union of South Africa recently formed from the former British colonies of Cape Province and Natal and the two former Boer Republics, conquered in the Boer War at the turn of the century. At that time world opinion backed the poor pitiful (sic) Boers against the big bad British Empire. The black inhabitants of the area had had no say in the matter. They were just there.
The unique thing about the Boers or Afrikaaners, as we now call them is that, first, they had been settled originally some 400 years ago. The cape was a natural stopping point for ships sailing to India before the Suez Canal was buit and the magnificent harbor of Capetown was a busy place. So busy that the English started to settle there, finally took over and the Boers moved inland to get away and enjoy self rule.
This is part of the national legend of the Voortrekkers. Oxcarts across the prairies to the promised land. Does this sound like our western movement in the US? Especially that of the Mormons. The anology certainly rang a bell with American public opinion in the days of the Boer War.
The Boers were a hard people in a hard land. When they moved northeast in their great migration, they ran into another great migration coming southwest from the area of present day Zimbabwe. These were the ancestors of the Zulus who were quite a contrast to the meek Bushmen that the Afrikaners had first encountered. Another hard people. Well the Boers won the first round and subjugated the African tribes. The African majority finally achieved political freedom under the leadership of Nelson Mandela after fifty years of struggle. Now we can hope they get it all sorted out and enforce the social peace which is lacking and spread the economic bounty to a wider participation. The majority is composed of pure blooded Africans.
Now we know why the Afrikaners were so stubborn in clinging to their rule. Even though they were descended from Dutch settlers, so many years ago, their language is now a distinct one. Afrikaans is even the mother tongue of the Colored peoples, the term used for people of mixed white and black ancestry. What this means is that, contrasted to the British descended South African whites and those from India, the fourth major racial group in SA, they are a tribe and think of themselves as such. They are not transplanted Englishmen who, if displaced, could fly back to Blighty; the Afrikaaners cannot go back, they are home. Thus their stubborn efforts to resist assimilation for all the 200 years since the British came to Cape Colony.
For many years the Afrikaaners saw the tides of black nationalism and liberation wash up far away from their borders; so long as Portugal held out in southern Africa and the white Rhodesian regime remained in power there was precious little that armed opposition could do. International sanctions imposed by the UN in response to the refusal to give Namibia its freedom, meant little with such a huge barrier area. Although Namibia had been long ruled as the "Fifth Province", its economic system integrated into that of SA, it is still rich enough in resources and has a population that can go it alone.
Finally, the South African forces which had operated in Namibia and in southern Angola after its independence came home.