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The following is the preface to and the introductory chapter of a soon to be published book about the history of South Africa and the origins of Apartheid. The book is titled: Britain's Bastard Child. The author is Psychologist and Psychohistorian Helene Lewis who has been doing research for the book for the last fifteen years. The book seeks to understand the psychohistorical factors, which influenced the thinking and behavior of the European settlers who emigrated to South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries and came to be known as Afrikaners. The intergenerational transmission and re-enactment of trauma are seen as the pathway that led from the trauma induced by the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the twentieth century to the establishment of Apartheid.
The Journal of Psychohistory plans to publish several more chapters of the book in the next several issues.
PREFACE
What does trauma do to a people? What is the effect of, not decades, but centuries, of humiliation? What compelled the Afrikaner, a people traumatized by British barbarism, to inflict the legalized racism of Apartheid on their fellow black South Africans?
With this question in mind, I was inspired to research Afrikaners' 300-year historical journey.
My conclusion, and the central theme of this book, is how the humiliation Afrikaners experienced, starting with the arrival of the British in 1795, compounded by unprocessed grief for the losses suffered in the Anglo-Boer Wars (1881 and 1899-1902)-led to a fierce nationalism and a re-enactment of their trauma, in the institution of apartheid. My aim is not to justify apartheid, but to shed light on the historical events and psychological impact that informed its origination. One hopes this may help not only Afrikaners but also other groups and nations to reflect on their own painful experiences and learn from it.
Looking at my own past, I find it difficult to pinpoint where my awareness of this humiliation by the British, and more recently by white English-speaking South Africans, came into being. Growing up on a farm in northern Namibia, meeting English-speaking people was a rarity. Most white Namibians were Afrikaners and Germans, and there was no animo- sity between us. In school we learned English. Of course, our teachers thought us hopeless...