At a recent address at the Coega Development Corporation offices in Port Elizabeth, our Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan asked the assembled throng (well, those not busy on their phones at least) just how old a few different states were:
- Greece – everyone present said about 3 000 years
- USA – everyone present said around 400 years
- South Africa – most said the South African state was 20 years old
Now Pravin was pretty disingenious as he led his audience to say 20 years in order to prove a point that the present government needed a little bit longer in power in order to make a significant change.
In actual fact, and if we base our thinking on the formation of the Greek state then we have to say that South Africa is older than any other civilisation as evidence exists that people have inhabited southern Africa for thousands of years. Members of the Khoisan language groups are the oldest surviving inhabitants of the land, but only a few are left in South Africa today.
If we had to be generous and then base the age of the South African State on the appearance of the Nguni then the South African State is around 2000 years old as the Nguni people settled in the Gauteng region sometime before AD 100.
But if we are basing the formation of a state on the growth of a population then South Africa state is around 500 years old as the Nguni, ancestors of the Zulu and Xhosa, went on to occupy most of the eastern coast by 1500.
If formation of the Rainbow State is our benchmark then we need to look to see that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in 1488.
But if permanent settlement is the benchmark then the South African State is less than 400 years old as the Dutch East India Company established a provisioning station on the Cape in 1652.
By 1779, European settlements extended throughout the southern part of the Cape and east toward the Great Fish River – it was here that Dutch authorities and the Xhosa fought the first frontier war. So, if a war over land marks the formation of a state then the state of South Africa is only 200 years old following the British gaining control of the Cape of Good Hope at the end of the 18th century.
Surely the creation in 1852 and 1854, of the independent Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State are the closest indication of a statehood for South Africa making our state just under 200 years old?
Or did statehood happen with the formation in 1912 of the South Africa Native National Congress which eventually became known as the African National Congress (ANC)?
Maybe statehood for South Africa came about during the rule of the National Party (NP) who won the all-white elections in 1948 and began passing legislation codifying and enforcing an even stricter policy of white domination and racial separation known as “apartheid”? We certainly had a coupe of State Presidents out of that lot?
So, Pravin, which will it be? 20, 60, 200, 300 or 3000 years of statehood for South Africa?
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Alan Straton
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