`Until the lions are taught to write, history will always be
written by the hunters'. In the early planning stages of Freedom
Park, Robin Binckes participated as a member of the history
sub-committee. The amount of debate and argument, much of it
heated, astounded him. Practically every event discussed was
interpreted from diametrically differing viewpoints. One of the
most controversial topics was the Great Trek, the 1836 Boer exodus
from the Cape Colony. Traditionally, writers on the subject have
covered the event from a perspective not only of 'white history'
but predominantly of 'Afrikaner history'. It has always been seen
as 'an Afrikaner event'. It was anything but. As the Great Trek and
the events leading up to it involved every section of the
population - Zulu, Sotho, Ndebele, Xhosa, Khoisan, Khoikhoi,
Coloured, British, English-speaking South African and Boer - it is
time to portray the trek in that light, in the context of a
unbiased, modern South Africa. Like most history the dots are all
connected; it is impossible to separate the Great Trek from events
which took place as far back as the Portuguese explorers because
those early events shaped the backdrop to the causes of the Great
Trek. Most writers have specialised in the trek itself whereas
Binckes has adopted a broader approach that studies the impact of
the earlier white incursions and migrations - Portuguese, Dutch,
French and British - on southern Africa, to create a better
understanding of the trek and its causes. Drawing heavily on
eyewitness accounts wherever possible, he has consolidated these
with the perspectives of leading historians, the final product
being an objective and comprehensive record of one of the seminal
events in South African history. This book shows that the Afrikaner
was, is, and always will be, an important player in South African
society, but it shows him as part of a bigger picture. The author
distances himself from the noble characters stereotyped for the
past two centuries and portrays them in their true light:
wonderful, courageous people with human feelings, strengths and
failings.
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