#boers

Witwatersrand Gold & the Creation of South Africa

The colonial authorities responded to the news of the gold find at Witwatersrand by sending surveyors to choose a suitable nearby site where the inevitable influx of gold prospectors from all over the world could live. The site chosen would eventually become the great city of Johannesburg. Within a decade, the young town boasted 100,000 inhabitants, and by 1900, this figure had risen to 166,000. Johannesburg became the largest African city south of the Sahara. It was a wild place in the early days where the spending was as loose as the morals. One contemporary described Johannesburg as “Monte Carlo imposed on Sodom and Gomorrah” (Jackson, 14).

Read More

Did Apartheid in South Africa Really End? A Deep Garveyite Analysis

When the world watched Nelson Mandela walk free in 1990 and saw the South African flag change in 1994, many proclaimed the end of apartheid. Statues were erected, awards were handed out, and the so-called “Rainbow Nation” was born. But from a Garveyite lens—rooted in Black self-determination, economic sovereignty, and African redemption—the question must be asked: Did apartheid truly end, or was it simply rebranded?

This blog will break down that question with no sentimentality, no romanticism—just truth rooted in the legacy of Marcus Garvey, and the demands of African liberation.

1. Political Inclusion vs. Power Transfer

Yes, apartheid as a legal system was dismantled. Black South Africans gained the right to vote. A Black president was elected. Yet Garvey warned: “Political power without economic power is a shadow.”

In post-1994 South Africa, the state allowed symbolic political inclusion while leaving economic power—land, banks, mines, media, and manufacturing—firmly in the hands of the white minority. The ruling class didn’t lose power; they merely adjusted their strategy. That is not liberation. That is managed containment.

2. Economic Apartheid: The Real Beast

Marcus Garvey emphasized ownership: of land, industry, and institutions. But nearly three decades post-apartheid, the numbers remain stark:

Over 70% of arable land is still white-owned.

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange remains white and foreign-dominated.

Entire Black townships remain economically dependent, underdeveloped, and over-policed—modern-day bantustans.

Apartheid was never just about laws—it was about wealth concentration. And that wealth never changed hands.

3. The Myth of the “Rainbow Nation”

Garvey never trusted the fantasy of racial integration under white terms. He believed in unity among Black people first, before any alliance with those who historically oppressed us.

The “Rainbow Nation” idea sold Black South Africans a myth: that justice could come without restitution. That forgiveness could substitute for land. That sharing space with white capitalists—while still being workers and renters—was freedom. It’s a false peace. A pacified people. That is not Garveyism.

4. The Role of the ANC: A Neo-Colonial Management Class

While Mandela is globally hailed, a Garveyite lens must critique the role of the African National Congress (ANC). They accepted the terms of the oppressor: no land reform, no nationalization of mines, no dismantling of white economic monopoly.

Instead, they were granted token power to manage the masses—while international capital and white South African elites maintained ownership. The ANC became a Black face guarding white interests. That is neo-colonialism.

Garvey would call it what it is: a betrayal of the revolutionary mission.

5. The Psychological Chains Remain

One of apartheid’s most vicious legacies is psychological: the devaluation of Blackness, the idolization of whiteness, the inferiority complex ingrained in media, education, and religious systems.

Garvey warned that no people could be free until they loved themselves and saw divinity in their Blackness. Today, skin bleaching, English accents, and Western consumerism dominate the youth, while African languages, history, and spirituality are treated as primitive or irrelevant.

Apartheid may have fallen on paper, but its mental scaffolding still grips the nation.

6. Resistance Never Died

But the spirit of Garvey lives in the youth movements rising. From the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) demanding land expropriation, to student protests like #FeesMustFall, there is a generation waking up to the unfinished business of revolution.

The question is not whether apartheid ended—but whether Black South Africans will finish what was never truly started: complete control of their land, labor, culture, and destiny.

Conclusion: Garvey Would Say It’s Not Over

From a Garveyite perspective, South Africa's transition was not a revolution—it was a handover of management duties. White supremacy adapted; it did not die. The only true end to apartheid will come when Black South Africans have full economic, cultural, political, and spiritual sovereignty—on their terms, in their image.

The struggle continues. The flag may have changed—but freedom still waits.

“Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad.” – Marcus Garvey

“Liberty.”

Untangling Ancestries, Tamary Kudita’s Remarkable Portraits Illuminate African Identities

Born in Zimbabwe, photographer Tamary Kudita traces her ancestry to the historical Orange Free State, a Dutch colonial region and home to the Boers in Southern Africa that was incorporated into the British Empire in the early 19th century. Kudita is fascinated by how “our unchosen histories” have shaped our identities and society today.

All images © Tamary Kudita

“Lotus”

“Roots II”

Because outside of a single Ha'Aretz article there's no information on this. The article is behind a paywall, but you can find people talking about it on social media. It includes a lot of conjectures and unsourced quotes, such as a prominent family's oldest son saying he "loved the Apartheid system of Israel" before dying in a tractor accident. Despite that a Rabbi quoted in the article said he has no idea why "so many" Afrikaners were converting to Judaism, but suspected it was spiritual, not political.

Well if you look up statistics, there are only about 11,000 Jews of South African descent in Israel, mostly living in Tel Aviv and Ra'anana and Savyon... nowhere near the West Bank. So are these Afrikaners not counted among ex-South African Jews? Where are they? Do they truly exist? We may never know.

I do know that converting to Orthodox Judaism, when you belong to a historically white supremacist radical Calvinist Christian group that literally has this as a "resistance" flag

Is a... choice. Most orthodox congregations will make you study and practice for a year or more before you're considered a Jew. It's a big commitment especially for families. So I just don't think the kind of people who had a big affinity for the Nazis would choose to become Jews just so they could live in a political system that isn't actually like Apartheid South Africa, and we know this because South Africans have been to Israel and said "Where are the whites only toilets?"

And to steal the argument of a Redditor, if you do the math "about 5 families a year" converting to Judaism from South Africa over the past 30 odd years, only amounts to a few hundred people. That is both enough people that Israeli records would probably make note of it, but not enough people to be at all a significant amount of Boers. South Africa already has about 50,000 Jews, many of them are leaving for other countries.

Sekhukhune I[a] [b](Matsebe; circa 1814 – 13 August 1882) was the paramount King of the Marota, more commonly known as the Bapedi, from 21 September 1861 until his assassination on 13 August 1882 by his rival and half-brother, Mampuru II. As the Pedi paramount leader he was faced with political challenges from boer settlers, the independent South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek), the British Empire, and considerable social change caused by Christian missionaries.

Sekhukhune was the son of Sekwati I, and succeeded him upon his death in 20 September 1861 after forcibly taking the throne from his half-brother and the heir apparent Mampuru II. His other known siblings were; Legolwana, Johannes Dinkwanyane, and Kgoloko. Sekhukhune married Legoadi IV in 1862, and lived at a mountain, now known as Thaba Leolo or Leolo Mountains which he fortified. To strengthen his kingdom and to guard against European colonisation, he had his young subjects work in white mines and on farms so that their salaries could be used to buy guns from the Portuguese in Delagoa Bay, as well as livestock.

Sekhukhune fought two notable wars. The first war was successfully fought in 1876, against the ZAR and their Swazi allies. The second war, against the British and Swazi in 1879 in what became known as the Sekhukhune Wars, was less successful.

Sekhukhune was detained in Pretoria until 1881. After a return to his kingdom, he was fatally stabbed by an assassin in 1882, at Manoge. The assassins are presumed to have been sent by his brother and competitor, Mampuru II.

The Pedi /pɛdi/ or Bapedi /bæˈpɛdi/ (also known as the Northern Sotho or Basotho ba Leboa and the Marota or Bamaroteng) – are a southern African ethnic group that speak Pedi or Sepedi, a dialect belonging to the Sotho-Tswana enthnolinguistic group. Northern Sotho is a term used to refer to one of South Africa's 11 official languages. Northern Sotho or Sesotho sa Leboa consist of 30 dialects, of which Pedi is one of them.

Some clans in tribes that speak variations of Northern Sotho can be traced back to the Kalanga-Tswana-Sotho group originating from earlier states such as Great Zimbabwe and Butua

The Pedi were the first of Sotho-Tswana peoples to be called Basotho, the name is derived from Swazi word uku shunta which referred to their clothing style, the Pedi took the name with pride and other similar groups began to refer to themselves as Sothos

Proto-Sotho people migrated south from the great lake region in east Africa making their way along with modern-day western Zimbabwe through successive waves spanning 5 centuries with the last group of Sotho speakers, the Hurutse, settling in the region west of Gauteng around 16th century. It is from this group that the Pedi/Maroteng originated from the Tswana speaking Kgatla offshoot. In about 1650 they settled in the area to the south of the Steelpoort River where over several generations, linguistic and cultural homogeneity developed to a certain degree. Only in the last half of the 18th century did they broaden their influence over the region, establishing the Pedi paramountcy by bringing smaller neighboring chiefdoms under their control.

During migrations in and around this area, groups of people from diverse origins began to concentrate around dikgoro or ruling nuclear groups. They identified themselves through symbolic allegiances to totemic animals such as tau (lion), kolobe (pig) and kwena (crocodile).

The Marota Empire/ Pedi Kingdom[edit]

The Pedi polity under King Thulare (c. 1780-1820) was made up of land that stretched from present-day Rustenburg to the lowveld in the west and as far south as the Vaal river.[9] Pedi power was undermined during the Mfecane, by Ndwandwe invaders from the south-east. A period of dislocation followed, after which the polity was re-stabilized under Thulare's son Sekwati.

Sekwati succeeded Thulare as paramount chief of the Pedi in the northern Transvaal (Limpopo) and was frequently in conflict with the Matabele under Mzilikazi, and plundered by the Zulu and the Swazi. Sekwati has also engaged in numerous negotiations and struggles for control over land and labor with the Afrikaans-speaking farmers (Boers) who had since settled in the region.

Milestone Monday

On this date, October 11 in 1899, the Second Boer War began in South Africa between the British-ruled Cape Colony, and the Boer-ruled Orange Free State and the South African Republic (the Transvaal). By the end of 1900 the war was essentially concluded, with a victory for the British and their official annexation of the two formerly Boer-controlled countries. The Boers, however, would continue a guerilla campaign against the British for two more years until Boer leadership finally surrendered and accepted British terms with the Treaty of Vereeniging in May 1902. Eight years later, the British-ruled colonies of South Africa would merge to form the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, in 1910. It became the independent Republic of South Africa in 1961.

To mark the beginning of this portentous conflict we are showing the color-stamped cloth covers from two books, History of South Africa and the Boer-British War by Henry Houghton Beck, published in Philadelphia by the Globe Bible Publishing Co., ca. 1900, and War in South Africa and the Dark Continent by William Harding, published in Chicago by The Dominion Company in 1899 (with significant racist overtones).

There was this gifset of a documentary scene set in South Africa. There, an old man talked about his time under Apartheid. He actually spoke a bit abou the vocabulary of his native language, bu the Boers, who were in charge under Apartheid, performed physical violence on him whenever he used his native language instead of the Boer-sponsored Afrikaans. The post was jus that gifset of that interview.

Update: @mononykus77 found the post!

Martin Puryear at Matthew Marks Gallery