Page 51 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

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war. Hobhouse also tried to offer traumatised camp and other victims of British collateral
54
damage the opportunity to provide an account of their narratives of loss, suffering and de-
spair so that they could rid themselves in this way of the trauma of the then recent past.
Since Hobhouse’s work was, in large measure, a one-person action, she could only reach
a very limited number of (white) persons, and the therapeutic value of her work, viewed as
a whole, was therefore also limited. There were also never any formal attempts at reconcili-
ation between Boer and Briton. And, of course, black and coloured people were totally left
in the cold to deal with their own trauma. For this reason, most of the war trauma was trans-
ferred to the next generation. The Afrikaners who suffered in the internment camps, stored
the negative experiences in their memories. The trauma was internalised and for many years,
some Afrikaners harboured great resentment, bitterness, frustrations and fear. Later – in some
cases, only many years later, even in a succeeding generation – these traumatic experiences
once again gained prominence and sometimes manifested themselves in some or other politi-
cal view. As time passed, the Afrikaner developed a terrible fear of foreign (non-Afrikaner)
domination. The South African government’s decision to declare war against Germany in
1914, i.e. at the start of the First World War, and invade German South-West Africa (today
Namibia), was an important reason why some Afrikaners rebelled and took up arms, in the
hope that they would be able to regain their republican independence. On the whole, the
rebellion was not well organised and the government forces were able to suppress it fairly
quickly. 55
In May 1924, Emily Hobhouse put the finishing touches to a second book that offered
white civilian victims of the Anglo-Boer War the opportunity to “be heard”. In War without
glamour or women’s war experiences, written by themselves 1899-1902 (London, 1927),
Hobhouse included approximately 30 statements that were written during or just after the
war by Boer women. She held the view that the voices of the generals and the politicians had
indeed been heard, but that the voices of the wronged civilians had not yet received a hearing.
This book strikingly illustrates the terrible effects (collateral damage) of war on civilians.
Unfortunately, nothing was – once again – done to alleviate the plight of black, coloured
and Asian South Africans. As a matter of fact, in the years following unification in 1910, the
plight of black South Africans worsened, as the policy of segregation (a precursor to post-
1948 apartheid) was implemented.
In May 1948, the “right-wing” National Party of Dr D.F. Malan defeated Smuts’ United
Party at the ballot box and introduced a new era in the history of South Africa. In contrast
to the rest of the world, where the emphasis was increasingly placed on equal treatment
and justice for all races (owing to the Second World War, and especially Nazi racism), the

54 See also the Afrikaans translation (by N.J. van der Merwe, the great protagonist of the republican ideal),
which was published in 1923, namely, Die smarte van die oorlog en wie dit gely het (Cape Town, 1923). As
far as Hobhouse’s correspondence is concerned, see also R. van Reenen (ed.), Emily Hobhouse: Boer War
letters (Cape Town, 1984).
55 As far as the rebellion of 1914-1915 is concerned see, for example, G.D. Scholtz, Die rebellie 1914-15
(Johannesburg, 1942), passim; Union of South Africa, Report on the outbreak of the rebellion and the policy
of the government with regard to its suppression (UG10-’15), passim; Union of South Africa, Report of the
select committee on the rebellion (SCl-’15, Cape Town, 1915), passim, and A. Wessels, “The Empire goes to
war: South Africa and the First World War, 1914-1918” in P. Boyden, A.J. Guy and M. Harding (eds), “Ashes
and blood”: the British Army in South Africa 1795-1914 (London, 1999), pp. 118-120.