I'm back after a wonderful three week sabattical! And I'm right back to the serious stuff.
Here in South Africa, December 16 (today), has a major historical significance, where each culture has their own connotations or ideas around it. It is a holiday that has evolved in our country's history and is itself rich in various emotions. I'll start from the very beginning of this day's complicated history.
It all started with a bunch of colonialists, who were tired of living under British rule in The Cape (or Cape Town for you outlanders :P). So these "Afrikaners", or "Trekkers" as they are also known, packed up their stuff and left, exploring up into the north of the strange and wild land (South Africa). This is what is known as "Die Groot Trek" literally meaning the big exodus (the big "movement"). The first settlers to leave The Cape, left in 1833. This continued up (North) into the mainland, but also West towards the other coast of South Africa.
Many companies of travelers would break off to form their own tiny settlements (one of which is the Pretoria we know today!). But for others the urge of discovery (and the determination to never again be ruled by the British) that they kept on their North-Western course.
At this stage the local Zulu tribes (yes, call them blacks, or natives, or whatever, either way they were here first and they won't let you forget it) were rather angered by the presence of these "Trekkers", I personally would be a little pissed off myself if someone just showed up and built cities on my land, so they retaliated fighting for their land. This fighting happened on and off until a Trekker named Piet Retief, decided it was time to send an envoy to the Zulu king, Dingaan. He himself accompanied this envoy. The Trekker envoy was received with exceptional hospitality and dancing. Everything went well and a peace agreement was signed. But Dingaan was not about to let his people be ruled by "The White Man" and betrayed Retief's trust, forcing him and his men off a cliff to their deaths. There were no survivors.
Following these deaths, raiding parties were sent out that plundered and attacked small Trekker communities, slaughtering them in revenge of other tribes killed by the Trekkers. With Retief gone there was no definite leader to gather or organise the Trekkers who fell before the ferocious onslaught, with countless men, women and children losing their lives. It was so much devastation that hey begged for someone from Transvaal (Pretoria) to come save them. This man was Andries Pretorius.
He gathered the remaining Trekkers for a final stand at a river. They pulled their oxwagon together in a crescent with their backs to the Buffalo River. They were about 470 men and women against an estimated 10'000-15'000 Zulu warriors (granted the Trekkers had guns, but those odds still don't seem exactly fair do they?). Miraculously the Trekkers won with minimal losses against impossible odds. The fighting was so bad thought that it is said that the river ran with blood. the battle was named Blood River for this reason. They declared it as an act of God in having saved them and swore to make this day a Sabbath, a holy day until the end of time.
This was the battle to break the Zulu armies that eventually led to the death and dethronement of King Dingaan and the slavery of the Zulus - and thus can hold a rather negative connotation for this culture. That is also where the original name of the Holiday came from. Dingaan Day, the day that broke Dingaan.
But the Trekkers themselves were uncomfortable with this statement, perhaps a manifest of guilt concerning their treatment of the natives and changed the name to "Gelofte Dag" or "Day of Promise" remembering their promise to God that they honour the day and build a church for him (that church still stands in Petermaritzburg).
Unfortunately this name became another symbol for Black Oppression during Apartheid, with politicians saying that God protected them and gave them the upper-hand over the natives for a reason and that he would continue to do o as it is his will. Naturally this symbol of oppression could not remain so and had to be changed, but how? When Apartheid ended the Government renamed the day Reconciliation Day. This name remembers the losses of both sides leading to the Battle of Blood River and also the wrongs committed during Apartheid and leading to people's Reconciliation.
No matter what your ethnicity or relation to this story, it holds a certain amount of pain for most people (even "Outsiders"). We can argue about who is to blame for these happenings until the end of time. Or we can listen to the true message behind this day. We can accept our own pain and the pain of others and become a single stronger nation.
Peace out.
Here in South Africa, December 16 (today), has a major historical significance, where each culture has their own connotations or ideas around it. It is a holiday that has evolved in our country's history and is itself rich in various emotions. I'll start from the very beginning of this day's complicated history.
It all started with a bunch of colonialists, who were tired of living under British rule in The Cape (or Cape Town for you outlanders :P). So these "Afrikaners", or "Trekkers" as they are also known, packed up their stuff and left, exploring up into the north of the strange and wild land (South Africa). This is what is known as "Die Groot Trek" literally meaning the big exodus (the big "movement"). The first settlers to leave The Cape, left in 1833. This continued up (North) into the mainland, but also West towards the other coast of South Africa.
 |
| The Great Trek |
Many companies of travelers would break off to form their own tiny settlements (one of which is the Pretoria we know today!). But for others the urge of discovery (and the determination to never again be ruled by the British) that they kept on their North-Western course.
At this stage the local Zulu tribes (yes, call them blacks, or natives, or whatever, either way they were here first and they won't let you forget it) were rather angered by the presence of these "Trekkers", I personally would be a little pissed off myself if someone just showed up and built cities on my land, so they retaliated fighting for their land. This fighting happened on and off until a Trekker named Piet Retief, decided it was time to send an envoy to the Zulu king, Dingaan. He himself accompanied this envoy. The Trekker envoy was received with exceptional hospitality and dancing. Everything went well and a peace agreement was signed. But Dingaan was not about to let his people be ruled by "The White Man" and betrayed Retief's trust, forcing him and his men off a cliff to their deaths. There were no survivors.
 |
| Piet Retief |
 |
| Dingaan and his warriors |
 |
| The legendary agreement |
He gathered the remaining Trekkers for a final stand at a river. They pulled their oxwagon together in a crescent with their backs to the Buffalo River. They were about 470 men and women against an estimated 10'000-15'000 Zulu warriors (granted the Trekkers had guns, but those odds still don't seem exactly fair do they?). Miraculously the Trekkers won with minimal losses against impossible odds. The fighting was so bad thought that it is said that the river ran with blood. the battle was named Blood River for this reason. They declared it as an act of God in having saved them and swore to make this day a Sabbath, a holy day until the end of time.
This was the battle to break the Zulu armies that eventually led to the death and dethronement of King Dingaan and the slavery of the Zulus - and thus can hold a rather negative connotation for this culture. That is also where the original name of the Holiday came from. Dingaan Day, the day that broke Dingaan.
But the Trekkers themselves were uncomfortable with this statement, perhaps a manifest of guilt concerning their treatment of the natives and changed the name to "Gelofte Dag" or "Day of Promise" remembering their promise to God that they honour the day and build a church for him (that church still stands in Petermaritzburg).
Unfortunately this name became another symbol for Black Oppression during Apartheid, with politicians saying that God protected them and gave them the upper-hand over the natives for a reason and that he would continue to do o as it is his will. Naturally this symbol of oppression could not remain so and had to be changed, but how? When Apartheid ended the Government renamed the day Reconciliation Day. This name remembers the losses of both sides leading to the Battle of Blood River and also the wrongs committed during Apartheid and leading to people's Reconciliation.
No matter what your ethnicity or relation to this story, it holds a certain amount of pain for most people (even "Outsiders"). We can argue about who is to blame for these happenings until the end of time. Or we can listen to the true message behind this day. We can accept our own pain and the pain of others and become a single stronger nation.
Peace out.
No comments:
Post a Comment