Thoughts on South Africa

by Olive Schreiner

When we are ripe and ready we will wed state with state, people with people; and not before. The attempt to wed us sooner by force or fraud will result in possible loss to the match-makers, and in certain loss to us.

Once already we have been interfered with, and the result has sent union back twenty years; and if to-morrow it were effected by external force, the blow at our internal and vital unity would be almost irrecoverable. If the external union comes without the internal, it will be to the irreparable loss of South Africa. If at any time in any of our states the people themselves change in their composition, and those who were in the minority should become the majority, let them do justice to themselves in their own state and demand their own independence; and not only will they succeed, but they will succeed backed by the conviction of even their opponents that they are in the right.

"Wag 'n bietje, als zal reg kom" ("Wait a bit, all will come right").

Time is on our side in this South African difficulty. What to-day might be effected with blood and tears will come with little trouble in five years' time, and be inevitable in ten. "Wag 'n bietje, als zal wel reg kom." Let us remember that the oak that grows the slowest outlives the most centuries; and that peoples are not made but grow.

We as English have above all least to lose by waiting. Every hour that passes, the descendants of a thousand Boers are learning the English speech, are adopting the English dress, are absorbing through literature and social intercourse our nineteenth-century ideals; every month that passes is landing on our shores scores or hundreds of Englishmen to inhabit the land and mingle their blood with the great South African people of the future. "Wait a little," and in this matter "everything will come right." When that time comes, when common ideals animate us, and common blood runs through us, we will be absolutely one folk, but not before; and time is labouring for it.

But it may be said: "If we cannot by force, or by that subtle series of deceptions which in public matters we call policy, bring about this external union, at least we are bound to labour vigorously for internal union between the races if that will help forward our designs. At all costs and at all prices we must keep the Boer pleased with us, that we may carry out our plans with his consent."

Now, to this we would reply: "Union is a very beautiful thing whether between races or persons—but the most ideal marriage that ever was conceived may be bought too dearly; there is a price too high even for union, the price of the integrity of the parties composing it. As in the world of individuals, the union between a man and woman otherwise most desirable, may become a crying evil and a living death when, to attain to it, it is necessary for either or both to sacrifice that which is of more value than any union—their own integrity. If union be not possible while each holds to what he or she believes to be best, if it be purchased at the price of whatever is highest in either character, then, however desirable such a union would on other terms have been, it becomes an unmixed evil, a prostitution and not a marriage. Only those souls united by what is greatest in each, not what is weakest and lowest, and reserving their integrity and independence, can form an enduring and noble union. Where this cannot be, it is better to wait, so by chance the day will come when both will see eye to eye; even if, as the lives of individuals are short and growth slow, the waiting for them should be eternal."

It is sometimes said: "We must pander to the Boer. We don't, of course, agree with his views on this and that matter, but union, you know, we are working for that! We don't believe that the quickest way to raise natives, and the best way, is to flog them; it's an antiquated idea; but the Boer likes it and we must vote for it for the sake of union. The Boer likes us so much if he thinks we share his little follies."

The native tribes have trusted us, have given themselves up to us; we pass them over to the Boer, for the sake of union. And so we barter point after point on a matter infinitely more important to the ultimate destiny of the country, for the sake of settling the difficulties of the hour. We barter our birthright of free, open speech and the frank defence of the lines which we rightly or wrongly believe to be those of justice and mercy at the shrine of a political chimera.

It is not by watering down our civilization and robbing it of its most developed attributes, it is not by affecting to sink to his level in the matters in which he is behind us, that we shall draw him into a great and ennobling union or that we shall in the end win his trust and confidence.