Thoughts on South Africa

by Olive Schreiner

To-day, England has made the realization of that dream an impossibility.

The first deadly blow was struck at its attainment when, by the instalment of the Chartered Company and the lending of her flag and her sword to a handful of wealthy or aristocratic speculators, she, by condoning their actions towards the African native in Matabeleland and more especially in Mashonaland, made it clear to the intelligent native all over South Africa that from England, under the capitalist control, and under the flag of England, when held aloft by speculators there is nothing to be looked for: that tenderer were the mercies to be hoped for from the roughest Boer or African-English Colonist than from the foreign speculators who acted in England's name.

A little later, by countenancing the Raid made upon a European South African state by the same corporation, England, through condonation of their conduct by princelings and politicians, made it clear to the bulk of the white Africans also that, however true to nobler and older traditions might be the hearts of a large section of the English people, the Union Jack was now fallen into the hands of those who had made it dangerous to the peace of Africa; that the flag we had loved as the flag of freedom was become a "Commercial Asset" and waved over the heads of marauders.

I think this struck the death-blow to the noblest possibilities of the English Empire over the hearts of South Africans; but there was even then hope left.

To-day (writing in the last months of the year 1900), guided by the hands of the same men, England is attempting to crush the independence of our two Republican states. Whether for a time she will succeed or not is still a matter of doubt. But that she has committed suicide in South Africa is a matter for no doubt.

Should she succeed in carrying out the speculators' dream of breaking down all the interstatal lines which have stood out as so many small ramparts behind which freedom could hide and which broke into parts the wave of capitalist aggression as it swept on; should England by forcible means, succeed, violently and against their will, in combining to-day all South African states under one central foreign government and forcing them prematurely into a national union, she may indeed form the United States of South Africa forty years sooner than they would spontaneously have been formed—but it will not be for herself.

England should clearly understand: It is not for herself that she is to-day attempting violently and by force to push open the rose of the South Africa national existence before its time. She will never wear it.

We have not desired it should be forced thus. A flower pushed artificially open by coarse fingers always has something ragged in its appearance; its bloom is never so fair and harmonious as one that has opened spontaneously under the influence of sun and air. We regret the premature and violent opening of our South African rose. But, let England mark this well; it is not for herself that she has torn and forced it: it will never bloom on her bosom.

Among all the elements connected with our complex South African world, England has had most to gain by its division into separate states. She has had more influence in South Africa than in Australia or New Zealand or Canada, simply because of its strongly politically divided structure. Once break up these parts and cement them thoroughly with human blood, shed on the battlefield and the scaffold, into one solid whole, and South Africa can stand alone: it will have passed suddenly amid the heat and anguish of battle and martyrdom through adolescence on to manhood.

Should England succeed for a time in crushing the two Republics, and, by means of keeping a hundred thousand armed men always on the soil, and, through blood and fire, succeed in holding them down for a moment, or should she not succeed—she has equally brought half a century nearer the time when she will have in South Africa not the hoof of one war horse, not the foot of one of her soldiers shall she be able to land on South Africa's shores. Fate has allowed England to make her choice between forming a fostering and sheltering element to our national germ, to remain for ever bound by ties of affection and gratitude to the great nation which in the future must rise from our blended peoples, or being the dominator and oppressor of an hour: then to depart for ever.