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How Things Fell Apart
Category:
History
Publisher: Author House
ISBN-10: 1434306267
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 136
Copyright: August 15, 2007
ISBN-13: 9781434306265
How Things Fell Apart - A Short History of South Africa - 1488 to Present Day, is a journey of the indigenous South Africans from their first contact with European explorers through the formation of their political institutions and beyond. You will experience how the indigenous South Africans combat the many injustices that were perpetrated upon them by the white Europeans invaders. For example, Lord Alfred Milner intention was to establish in South Africa a responsible government under British rule, as long as the white races governed it. Another example, John X. Merriman suggested two ways of managing South Africa's native policy, one way was to consider the natives as a subject of inferior race, giving them no rights, or giving them rights to prescribed that they were worth nothing. The other way was to treat them, once they showed their fitness for such treatment, as equals before the law in every respect. If they were not fit for advancements under the system, they would remain subservient, and he believed they would remain so for some generations. How Things Fell Apart explained how the Europeans established their networks of magistrates, trading and missionary stations. The indirect role of Shaka and his warriors played in assisting the Boers in their "Great Trek" in South Africa. The impact the Kaffir Wars had on the indigenous South Africans and South Africa as a whole. How the Europeans carved up South Africa into their colonies, and the emergence of the indigenous South Africans middle classes, political systems and leaders. How Things Fell Apart give you a comprehensively look into the establishment of the South African Native Congress (SANC), and the organization efforts to establish a non-racial constitution in the unification of the South Africa's Parliamentary government.
Since ca. 20,000 years the Khoi Khoi was living in the area of what is known today as South Africa. They were living as hunter-gatherers and began to settle down for nomad-farming 2,500 years ago in the more fertile areas. On a cool February morning in 1488, the Khoi Khoi woke up and began to hunt, to gather food and to take their livestock out to pasture as they did every morning for generations after generations. As they were taking their livestock out to pasture on this particular morning, they spotted two strange vassels dropping anchors near the beach of Mossel Bay. Unknowingly at the time to the Khoi Khoi, that this strange event will change their lives and the lives of the indigenous peoples of South Africa forever. How Things Fell Apart shows the changes do to this event on the lives of the Khoi Khoi and the other indigenous peoples of South Africa. How Things Fell Apart contains letters written by such European politicians as J. X. Merriman, James Rose-Innes, Sir Alfred Milner, Percy A. Molteno, J. C. Smuts, W. P. Schreiner, and others. There are letters and newspaper articles from such indigenous South Africans politicians as Pixley Ka Isaka Seme, John Tengo Jabavu, Dr. Walter Benson Rubusana, Allan K. Soga, and others. Also, included is the famous newspaper article entitled, "The Rats are at the Corn".
Excerpt
Sir Alfred Milner, British Governor of Cape Colony, who wrote to Rev. James Green on December 12, 1901: "...As for the indigenous South Africans, one thing which appears to me quite evident is that a distinction must be drawn in the case of the natives between personal and political rights. A political equality of white and black is impossible...in any South African Parliament the interests of the blacks should be specially represented...This could be best done by white men, not elected but nominated for that particular purpose...As regards to personal rights, I hold that those of the natives should be just as clearly defined, and just as sacred as those of the white men. I do not, however, think that they need always be, or ought always to be the same...."
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