Читать книгу Boer Politics - Yves Guyot Guyot - Страница 12

Between the Dutchman of Amsterdam, Haarlem, the Hague, or Rotterdam, installed in his comfortable dwelling, cultivating his tulips, priding himself upon his pictures, and drinking his beer, and the Boer, pure and simple, there is not the slightest analogy.

This Dr. Kuyper acknowledges. The Boer population is a compound of Dutchmen, Frenchmen, Hugenots, Germans and Scotchmen. Krüger and Reitz are of German, Joubert and Cronje, of French origin. Here is what Dr. Kuyper, himself, says of the Boers:—

"The word Boer signifies 'peasant,' but it would be a mistake to compare Boers with French peasants, English farmers, or even the settlers of America. They are rather a conquering race, who established themselves among the Hottentots and Basutos, in the same manner that the Normans, in the XIth Century, established themselves among the Anglo-Saxons. Abstaining from all manual labour, they devote themselves to their properties, sometimes as much as 5,000 to 6,000 acres in extent, and to the breeding of cattle and horses. Beyond this, their object in life is hunting lion and big game. The Boer is essentially a man of war and politics."

Here we have the true Boer, and not the idyllic "small farmer" pictured to us by a contributor to Le Temps. He is essentially the "man of war and politics," the counterpart of an Arab chief, the sole difference being that the Boer is not a polygamist and has no tribe under him; on the contrary, the Boers swarm off in isolated groups or families. Their conception of life is, however, the same. I quote here from my treatise on The Evolution of Property (p. 46) on the subject of Pastoral Tribes:—

"It was at one time the fashion to hold up pastoral tribes and the patriarchs with their long flowing beards, as subjects of admiration. Long-bearded patriarchs were objects of veneration. Despite the quarrels of Esau and Jacob, and the story of Joseph sold by his brethren, pastoral life was pictured to us as mild as milk, as innocent as that of sheep in the fold, until Renan pointed out its qualities and defects. At the same time we were told of the Bedouins "with saddle, bridle, and life on the Islam," always mounted, always armed, always engaged in war or razzias and mutual pillage; of the Turkomans and their motto: 'Thy soul is in thy sword'; and those who thus celebrated the amenities of pastoral life, and the heroic adventures of the Arabs of the desert, never perceived the contradictions they had fallen into."

At the end of that Chapter I spoke of the Boers, according to Levaillant, "the most carniverous of men," as having turned out of their possessions the nomadic Hottentot and Kaffir shepherds. The Boers represent that form of warlike and political civilisation in which production is indirect, and obtained by utilising the labour of others. It is a type of that ancient pillaging civilisation which we call war-like, when its methods have been reduced to rules. In this stage politics mean the organisation of pillage. Mr. Kuyper is right. "The Boer is essentially a man of war and politics." He has employed his talents at the expense of Hottentots and Kaffirs; he has continued to employ them to the detriment of the Uitlanders; and he thought the time had come to realise his programme of February 17th, 1881, formulated by Dr. Reitz at the end of his official pamphlet,[4] "Africa for the Africanders from the Zambesi to Simon's Bay." We have seen what view, according to his apologist, "the man of war and politics" takes of his relations with the natives; we shall now see how he regards his relations with the whites.