Page 54 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

556 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

fear of domination by black people, inter alia, because the Afrikaners had to compete with
60
black people for job opportunities. Many of these whites in due course became supporters of
the National Party’s policy of apartheid. 61
More than a hundred years after the conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War, we are able to
reflect on the immense political and social fallout of the conflict. These negative conse-
quences include the scorched-earth policy and the internment camps of the Anglo-Boer War,
the rebellion of 1914-1915, the years of political Sturm und Drang in the 1920s and 1930s,
the political changes of 1939 and (in particular) 1948, the implementation of the policy of
apartheid, the events at Sharpeville and elsewhere in the 1960s, the uprisings in Soweto and
elsewhere in 1976, and the violence of the 1980s – which spilt over into the 1990s. Not all of
these conflicts and their ensuing collateral damage can be directly linked to the Anglo-Boer
War, but the war of 1899 to 1902 did cause immense damage, disruption and trauma and
set in motion a train of events which to a large extent determined the course that twentieth-
century South African history would take.

die armblankevraagstuk gehou te Kimberley, 2-3 Oktober 1934 (Cape Town, 1934).
60 In considering the role played by fear in the history of South Africa, see, for example, H.J. du Bruijn, Vrees
as factor in die regse blanke politiek in Suid-Afrika sedert 1948: ‘n historiese ontleding (M.A., University of
the Free State, 1995).
61 See in general, S. Dubow, Racial segregation and the origins of apartheid in South Africa (Cambridge,
1989).