摘要：Like all nationalisms, Afrikaner nationalism was
invented: before the mobilization of Afrikaner
ethnic consciousness in the early twentiethcentury,
Afrikaners were a disparate group of
people with no real common sense of national
identity. The invention of Afrikaner identity was
historically contingent and needs to be seen
against the background of British imperialist
policies and economic and social changes of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The memories of the South African war
(1899±1902), with Kitchener's scorched earth
policy and the brutality of the concentration
camps, left strong anti-British feelings amongst
the Boers, emotions which were fuelled by
Milner's imperialist education policies during
the years after the war. Increasing industrialization
began to effect changes both in the
ties of the family unit as well as in the influence
of the church. When families looked for ways
to supplement their income it was mostly the
teenagers, particularly the young women,
who were sent to the towns as they stood a
better chance of employment than the older
generation. This splitting of families contributed
to the weakening of the familial authority
which had usually exercised control over both
social activities and religious practice. Once
the young people came to the towns many
began to break familial religious traditions by
leaving the Dutch Reformed Churches to join
apostolic sects (Hofmeyr 1987:100). The erosion
of these `traditional links which held the Boer
community together' (Hofmeyr 1987:102), was
increased by the widening economic division
between wealthy landowners and a poorer
class of `bywoners' which undermined the
sense of a close-knit community. After Union
in 1910, the cultural aspirations of the Dutch-
Afrikaner were downplayed as, amongst other
factors, the desire to attract investors with
foreign capital meant strengthening economic
and cultural ties with Britain. This threat of
anglicization affected the educated members
of Afrikaner society, such as teachers,clergymen and journalists, and it was this
sector that first joined the Nationalist party
when it was formed in 1913 (Giliomee 1989:48).
Although initially the workers and the poor
farmers did not support Hertzog, the 1914
Rebellion in protest against South Africa's
decision to invade German South West Africa,
attracted the poorer classes to rally around a
party which seemed to challenge both imperialist
and capitalist tendencies (Giliomee
1989:49). However, as Giliomee (1989:49)
points out: `building an Afrikaner ethnic consciousness
that could assert itself as a decisive
political force remained a long-term project
requiring hard ideological work by politicians
and cultural entrepreneurs'.
