Afrikaners’ Great Divide

Donald Trump has managed to create the biggest split among Afrikaners since the Voortrekkers — abandoned the Cape Colony, leaving behind their more refined Dutch compatriots, who had grown to enjoy their walks on Table Mountain and the civilised ways of the British.

- BEN TROVATO

“Sure, a road trip in wagons could be fun, but have you tried scones with clotted cream and Earl Grey tea?”

The Cape Dutch community who stayed and the Boers who left continued to regard one another with deep suspicion, much like Parisians regard those who live beyond the périphérique.

The Boers went on to create their own republics and make lifelong friends with the natives, while the Cape Dutch became wine farmers and divorce lawyers.

Some went to Hermanus and are still there.

Later, the British, not knowing when to leave good enough alone, began trying to turn their Dutch friends into Englishmen. Teaching them how to talk about the weather, put the kettle on ina crisis and make kippers on toast for breakfast wasn’t enough. They persisted with their odd European ways and strange guttural tongue.

Christoffel Brand, son of a former Dutch colonial official and first speaker of the parliament of the Cape of Good Hope, said: “England has taken from the old colonists of the Cape everything that was dear to them: their country, their laws, their customs, their slaves, their money, even their mother tongue.”

The cry went up. “You may take my clogs, but you will never take my slaves!”

Some began wondering if they wouldn’t have been better off in one of those creaking wagons that cut their trails into the earth, over everlasting mountains where echoing crags resounded.

Ironically, many years later, descendants of the Trekkers would pour back into Cape Town in Ford Rangers and Toyota Double Cabs every December.