Boer insurrection, Boer inspiration
A little history well worth paying attention to.
Fight or flight? A question facing Americans today – to recoil from the cities, from institutions, from society or to fight. It is a question the Boers also faced when the British gained control of South Africa in 1806.
For half a century the ununified, individualistic Boers, who just wished to just be left alone, fled. That is until the First Boer War in 1880 when for the first time, the Boers decided not to run from British oppression but to fight.
Their longing for freedom reignited – their passive resistance came to an end. Fed up with the British violating their treaties, the Boer leaders unified and declared Transvaal independent.
When British reinforcements entered Transvaal they were met by commandos who informed them they were trespassing, and to continue on would be casus belli. Disregarding the threat, the British troops took up arms and were quickly massacred, beginning the First Boer War.
Over the next month, the British under the command of Sir George Colley would attempt to relieve the besieged forts in Transvaal and would face defeat at every turn. The redcoats were no match for the superior marksmanship and guerilla warfare of the hardened Boers.
The story of the Boers is one that is relatable not just to the pioneers, the Irish or anyone else that fled their home in search of a better life and freedom, but of us, as Americans, today. We are at a crossroads.
We can flee and build new, with the hope of keeping the long arm of the “empire” at bay, or we can turn and fight. We can work to take back our cities, our institutions, our culture. Unified, working towards to same goal, we can begin chipping away.
While the Boers waited until the only solution was to take up arms, we are blessed to have other options to prevent our children, our families and our communities from the horrors of war in our backyards. The answer is not to flee, but to unify and dig in.
As y’all know, I’m much less sanguine about those “other options” than the author is, but I could easily be wrong about that…and pray to God that I am. One thing I think we can all agree on: hoping to be “just left alone” hasn’t worked out very well for us, as is almost always the case when a cozened, insufficiently-vigilant populace has permitted tyranny to take root and flourish.
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