As the clashing in 1906 arose apparently out of a general attempt to impose Western Civilization, we venture to say that, so far from the Rebellion having come to an end, its essential spirit is still abroad. This is not because Natal or the Union Government have not made numerous and special endeavours to remove the contributory causes of the unrest, but because the root-cause, or what a Zulu would call unomtebe, is still existing.[363] Bambata, as many Natives believe, in spite of every proof to the contrary, is still living. For them his spirit, i.e. dissatisfaction with European rule, or, to put the same thing positively, a desire to control their own affairs, not on European lines, but on those sanctioned by the collective wisdom of their own race, is certainly alive, though he may be dead. It lives, not in Natal alone, but throughout South Africa, and is fostered by the various Ethiopian or Separatist churches. Then, again, attempts are being made throughout the Union to impose Western Civilization on all the other Native tribes, be they in the Cape, Transvaal, or Orange Free State, Provinces. And so, unless radical change be effected in our State policy, it seems we may expect to witness periodical recrudescences of rebellion and on a far greater scale than in 1906. The moral is that the aborigines resent the manifold restrictions they are perpetually and systematically subjected to; these and the rigid application to their affairs of the principles of Western Civilization, by means of legislation or otherwise, as well as the thousands of opportunities afforded unscrupulous Europeans and semi-educated Natives of exploiting the people, tend to fill up their cup of bitterness. They yearn for practical sympathy and that friendly recognition of their deeper needs which ends not in mere perception. "They are not the best that might have been framed," said Solon of his laws, "but they are the best the Athenians are capable of bearing"—there is the type of statesman they would adore. The Zulus are a noble race of savages, but none the less deserving of our consideration because they are savages. The headlong collapse of such a people is a tragedy of the first magnitude. That it should be taking place before our very eyes, without reasonably adequate steps being taken by the State to resist it by providing the most natural and effective machinery for controlling it, is a crime. If this mischief be permitted to go on, it requires no prophet to predict heavy retribution, and in the near future, on those responsible. Such will probably be, not only in the forms of rebellion and civil strife, which can be quelled, but in miscegenation (unthinkable though this be at the present), complete effacement of the two races, and general degradation of the whole.
If the principal conclusion come to in these pages be correct, the Rebellion stands revealed as nothing less than a protest, and about the plainest that could have been made, against the methods employed, not only by members of the British race, but by all pioneers of Western Civilization among barbarians. The methods followed in Natal and in the rest of South Africa are but characteristic of those adopted towards lower races in other parts of the globe. The British Government is naturally most affected by this indictment, but the Governments of France and Germany, the United States, Belgium, Portugal, etc., are implicated as well. Each of them will one day have to answer for the havoc they have created and are still creating, and this primarily because of their rush after material benefit. In Mr. Benjamin Kidd's well-known work, Social Evolution, occur the words: "The lower races disappear before the higher through the effects of mere contact." In this history an attempt has been made to furnish some of the reasons why a typical 'lower race' is tending to become disintegrated. These serve to explain why and how dissolution, the antecedent of 'disappearance,' in smaller areas than South Africa, occurs, and prove that the phenomenon results not from "mere contact," as Mr. Kidd supposed, but from the restrictions, conditions and opportunities above mentioned which have invariably accompanied the inauguration of so-called civilized government among the people of lower, and especially coloured, races. The reasons, as a matter of fact, are laws; and we venture to think they will be found operating wherever, in the past, Western Civilization has been imposed on lower races, and wherever this may take place in the future.
And so this minor Rebellion turns out to be a fact charged with the highest possible significance, inasmuch as it is a concrete, analysable illustration of that strange, destructive and inexorable contact between races hitherto insufficiently studied, and, therefore, insufficiently appreciated.
FOOTNOTES:
[345] J.A.H. Murray & others, A New English Dictionary on historical principles. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[346] Ibid.
[347] Those concerned were charged and convicted of public violence, murder and "being in arms against the Government and actively resisting constituted authority, and aiding and abetting rebels against the Government."
[348] They would, however, probably not have objected to being controlled by Dinuzulu as Paramount Chief, provided that he had been appointed by the Government, and became answerable to, and was effectively controlled by, such superior authority.
[349] Sangreid was murdered and Robbins wounded, in direct contravention of the orders issued by the Chief (Ndhlovu), who was in command of the impi. Ndhlovu was only a mile or two away when the incidents occurred.
[350] Cd. 3888, pp. 79, 80.