Oppression sucks man

I finally finished reading the history section of my tour book last night. It seems that much of the roots of what happened here with Apartheid can be traced back to the Anglo-boer war (boer is the word they use here to refer to Europeans) when the British used scorched earth tactics and concentration camps to subjugate the colonials in SA and reassert their dominance in the country. This shock led to the Afrikaner broederbond (brotherhood) movement in which Afrikaners (originally poor white working class) began to imagine an independent, all Afrikaner country. This sort of paranoid nationalism emerges and later becomes fully devoloped in part due to the influence fascist ideas from Germany during the 1940s. Perhaps in some way, the paranoia of the white governing class during apartheid can be traced back to this struggle?

Its interesting that the same cycle of colonial history repeats itself everywhere. Group A by force of arms subjugates Group B and divides it into Group B and C by class/race. Group B is allowed to become better off both to create a buffer between A and C as well as to justify that Group A’s colonial policies are “helping the people”. Eventually, it becomes economically and militarily possible for Group B to replace Group A at the top and they buy Group C’s allegiance with the promise of a better life. Group B replaces Group A under a banner of independence. Meanwhile Group C finds out that their new leaders are no better than the old leaders but they are unable to do anything about it.