Until the Birds of Prey have Consumed them Away

Black and White South African allies – A Series

—The impression has been created by the Media and various Governments of South Africa that White and Black have always been enemies unto death. In reality, Black and White have allied on numerous occasions in South African history. While this may surprise people outside the country, I venture to say it will also be a revelation to many South Africans. It is a truth that is as uncomfortable for the present government as it was for the previous.

The pre-1994 government of the country corralled its political base by convincing it of the Swart Gevaar (The Black Danger). It formed the basis of the Old Apartheid Laws. The present Black ANC government has ratcheted up this approach by orders of magnitude, inciting murder with its singing of “Kill the Whites”. This gets it votes from millions of the Uneducated, the Ignorant, and from racist Africanist Blacks. It forms the basis of the New Apartheid Laws. It appears not to realize that it is vindicating the old government. If it does, then it simply does not care, because the West has given it a free pass to do exactly what it pleases to the utterly powerless Whites.

I hope and trust that the examples provided here will show there was Black and White cooperation and alliance at many seminal events, and that the country does not have to be the divided nightmare that its various governments have made of it.

Click on the Title or first image below to read the fourth article in the series and see the evidence.

• Part 4 in the series on Black and White South African Allies

♦ Frontier, Cape of Good Hope Colony, 17 January 1799

—When the much respected Adriaan van Jaarsveld appears at the Magistrate’s Office in Graaff-Reinet town on this day, he is promptly arrested based on problems relating to a mortgage payment. Magistrate Bresler dispatches Adriaan to Cape Town for trial, accompanied by a dragoon guard unit. They are intercepted by Marthinus Prinsloo and some other armed men. At the Cape, the British Governor sees this as rebellion and dispatches his special Khoekhoe Army of Intimidation under General Vandeleur. This is the event already described in Part 3 of this series.

Treachery and the Disaster it Begets

When the unhappy Frontiersmen duly present themselves peacefully as requested, Vandeleur promptly arrests them and ships them in the aptly named HMS Rattlesnake to Cape Town. The men include Marthinus Prinsloo and Adriaan van Jaarsveld and incarcerates them in the Cape Castle (below).

What follows is the complete disaster explained in Part 3, based on the truly shameful ignorance on the part of the British Military Government about matters on this distant frontier.

By the end of Third Frontier War, the men consigned to the Castle have languished there for more than a year. The group of Frontiersmen taken prisoner by Gen. Vandeleur are finally tried in June 1800. Adriaan van Jaarsveld and Marthinus Prinsloo are the first and second listed prisoners.  The State Prosecutor demands that the first eight prisoners,

…be punished with the halter at the Gallows until Death ensueth, Further the Corpses of the four first prisoners, being dragged to the Out Gallows, there to be hanged again, in order so to remain until the birds of prey shall have consumed them away,…

The men are found guilty and on 3 September the sentence is announced. In a “huge gush of leniency” towards these unfortunate men, the crown decides that their bodies may be buried under the gallows, rather than to have them consumed away by the birds of prey.

The Afrikaner-amaRharhabe Friendship

In the middle of 1800, Sir George Yonge sends the hated Magistrate Maynier and his understudy, Somerville, to the young amaRharhabe King Ngqika to discuss the matter of a possible peace treaty with the British. This happens during the period that Coenraad de Buys and our ancestor Coenraad Bezuidenhout are still with Ngqika. The two British representatives take every precaution to ensure that their messages go only to Ngqika and do not fall in the hands of the two Coenraads.

Ngqika refuses to receive them personally. Despite this, the response from Ngqika is insightful. We quote verbatim Ngqika’s response from the letter that the two British representatives write to the Governor on 14 August 1800:

…the Principal Grounds on which he would consent to make Peace must be the Release of the Prisoners confined in the Castle who he said were his Allies, & without this he could have no Faith in any Peace

This is the clearest evidence on record that the legitimate leader of the powerful amaRharhabe House of the amaXhosa nation sees the long-settled Afrikaners as his friends and allies.

The Treaty of Amiens

On 1 April 1801, Governor George Yonge is removed from office in the wake of charges of corruption. Major-General Francis Dundas is once again to take care as Governor. On 12 October 1801, Dundas receives instruction to refrain from hostilities against France and her allies. Dundas elects to continue the detention of the men in the castle, but he does not carry out their sentences, despite having been ordered to do so by Lord Hobart in Britain.

Dundas sees the Light

Based on testimony from Major Sherlock at Greaff-Reinet, Dundas at last realizes the full scope of his folly. Maynier is suspended from all his roles and his actions are investigated. Finally, fighting Boer and fighting Brit see eye to eye regarding facts on the ground.

During the next few months, Governor Dundas institutes a dramatic shift in policy:

1.  There shall be no punishment for the frontiersmen who have opposed Maynier, despite the fact that they have actually fired at the Magistrate’s office.

2.  On 12 December 1801 Dundas writes to Colonial Secretary Lord Hobart in London, pleading for clemency. In fact, he suggests a full remission of the sentences!:

… feelings of humanity, by reason of their long imprisonment, give the Prisoners a claim to some modification as to the Capital part of their punishment, if not a full remission of their sentence. [They] obeyed without hesitation the summons to deliver themselves up together with their arms and ammunition, having assembled at the place appointed for that purpose, conceiving (as I have reason to believe they did) that they should meet with forgiveness from Government […] all which considerations incline me to think that lenity ought, if possible, to be shewn to the Prisoners…

The complete story of the disastrous First British Occupation of the Cape of Good Hope and the associated above events may be read in AmaBhulu – The Birth and death of the Second America.

On 30 April 1802 Dundas is advised that Britain will return the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch. The Afrikaner captives are all to be released; all except Adriaan van Jaarsveld. He has died in British hands.

Marthinus Prinsloo’ stay in the Cape Town Castle jail earns him the nickname “Kasteel” (Castle). However, the British Empire has a long memory, as we shall duly see in Part 5. And it shall lead to 150 years of intense resentment.

A more comprehensive version of this article, containing all the required references, may be read  HERE.

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The Black King with the White Stepfather

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Afrikaners, apartheid, British Colonialism, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, Xhosa

 Black and White South African allies – A Series

—The impression has been created by the Media and various Governments of South Africa that White and Black have always been enemies unto death. In reality, Black and White have allied on numerous occasions in South African history. While this may surprise people outside the country, I venture to say it will also be a revelation to many South Africans. It is a truth that is as uncomfortable for the present government as it was for the previous.

The pre-1994 government of the country corralled its political base by convincing it of the Swart Gevaar (The Black Danger). It formed the basis of the Old Apartheid Laws. The present Black ANC government has ratcheted up this approach by orders of magnitude, inciting murder with its singing of “Kill the Whites”. This gets it votes from millions of the Uneducated, the Ignorant, and from racist Africanist Blacks. It forms the basis of the New Apartheid Laws. It appears not to realize that it is vindicating the old government. If it does, then it simply does not care, because the West has given it a free pass to do exactly what it pleases to the utterly powerless Whites.

I hope and trust that the examples provided here will show there was Black and White cooperation and alliance at many seminal events, and that the country does not have to be the divided nightmare that its various governments have made of it.

Click on the Title or first image below to read the third article in the series and see the evidence.

♦  Part 3 – The Black King with the White Stepfather

In the year 1795 the British took the Cape with the coerced support of the Dutch Stadtholder who had fled to London to escape Napoleon. The British ignorance about, prejudice against, and hatred for the Afrikaner was extreme. It led to disastrous decision making on the part of the new British Government at the Cape and would eventually cost them half of their new colony. It would also cost two ancestors of the author their lives. Britain would end up paying tribute to men with spears.

This period, usually ignored in both British and South African history, forms the background of the third installment on the subject of Black and White South African Allias. The unique relationship between the Frontiersmen and Rharhabe’s descendants would again surface 15 years later in 1815 in a seminal event that would create 150 years of bitterness between Boer and Brit.

All of this is described in detail in AmaBhulu- The Birth and Death of the Second America.

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The White Giant and the Black King

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Afrikaners, amaBhulu, amaRharhabe, amaXhosa, apartheid, Cape of Good Hope, Dutch East India Company, South Africa, Xhosa

♦  Black and White South African allies –  A Series

—The impression has been created by the Media and various Governments of South Africa that White and Black have always been enemies unto death. In reality, Black and White have allied on numerous occasions in South African history. While this may surprise people outside the country, I venture to say it will also be a revelation to many South Africans. It is a truth that is as uncomfortable for the present government as it was for the previous.

The pre-1994 government of the country corralled its political base by convincing it of the Swart Gevaar (The Black Danger). It formed the basis of the Old Apartheid Laws. The present Black ANC government has ratcheted up this approach by orders of magnitude, inciting murder with its singing of “Kill the Whites”. This gets it votes from millions of the Uneducated, the Ignorant, and from racist Africanist Blacks. It forms the basis of the New Apartheid Laws. It appears not to realize that it is vindicating the old government. If it does, then it simply does not care, because the West has given it a free pass to do exactly what it pleases to the utterly powerless Whites.

I hope and trust that the examples provided here will show there was Black and White cooperation and alliance at many seminal events, and that the country does not have to be the divided nightmare that its various governments have made of it.

Click on the Title below to read the Part 2 of the Series and see the evidence.

♦  Part 2 – The White Giant and the Black King

Thirteen years after the First Frontier War, matters on the Eastern Frontier of the Cape of Good Hope are as unsettled as ever. Rharhabe and his Number One son, Mlawu, have both died, and the new candidate for the amaRharhabe crown, Ngqika, is still under age. Mlawu’s brother, the power-hungry Ndlambe, is regent in his place.

When the Suurveld amaXhosa yet again raid the frontiersmen, the latter decide on mounting their own unsanctioned Commando to punish these particular amaXhosa. Despite initial success, things go badly wrong. As a result, the Governor is eventually forced into war with the Suurveld AmaXhosa. Ndlambe, in an effort to unite the Suurveld amaXhosa under his reign, sides with the White Frontiersmen, just as his father Rharhabe had done. One of the central characters is a 7 foot giant white man.

The unique relationship between the Frontiersmen and the amaRharhabe  would again surface 7 years later in 1800 at one of the lowest points in the history of the Colony and of the British Army. By then, the new young king, Ngqika, will be on the throne.

All of this is described in detail in AmaBhulu- The Birth and Death of the Second America.

The Heart of Darkness

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), amaBhulu, apartheid, Nelson Mandela, South Africa, United States

— I originally posted the essence of this article more than a year ago, before the last election in South Africa. There seems to be some merit in revisiting it now. The term “Heart of Darkness” is borrowed from the shocking Joseph Conrad book about the Congo.

When I started writing the text of AmaBhulu in 2007, I was approached by concerned South Africans to construct a strategic planning map on which to plot the future of the country. Immediately prior to the 2014 General Election in South Africa I published the map so it might serve as a device on which South Africans may plot the consequences of their votes in that election. That election has come and gone.

The South African Scenario Planning Map

The vertical axis in the map below represents the International Condition, which is largely beyond the control of any South African. The horizontal axis represents the Leadership of the country, which IS under the control of the voters, always assuming they think about their actions. Sadly, democracy in the 21st century has not provided much evidence that they generally do. South Africa is not alone in this.

The two axes produce for us a 2×2 “scattergram” map on which to plot the condition of the country. It creates four broad National Strategic Scenarios, which I name:

The Rainbow Nation (The Mandela Dream as sold to a gullible world in 1994);

Rich Man, Poor Man (A severe but colour-blind split between rich and poor);

Black is Beautiful; White is Blight (An anti-White Kleptocracy); and

Heart of Darkness (A Congo/Zimbabwe-like African Horror scenario)

The light orange arrow shows the result of Thabo Mbeki effectively taking over from  Mandela as president of the country in 1997. This was formalized two years later in a general election. The immediate consequence was an ANC government War on Whites. The details of this may be see in Chapters 27-30 of AmaBhulu. This shift was directly to the left on the map, as the world economic picture was positive at the time. Amazingly, the Western World absolutely refused to see what was happening.  As result, more then 10% of White South Africans now live below the breadline and more than 3,000 farmers have been murdered since 1994, often tortured to death.

The Great Recession of September 2008, brought on by out-of-control Wall Street greed, has moved the world picture downward on this map, pushing South Africa in the direction of Heart of Darkness. With it came the election of the raw Africanist Jacob Zuma. Already we have seen the 2012 Marikana Mining Massacre, massive fraud, laws restricting freedom of the press, the shutting down of the South African FBI, and violence—reputedly ANC sponsored—to make the West Cape ungovernable. That same government is now threatening “Phase Two” of its “Revolution” and “Land Expropriation” after the 2014 election. 

Since the 2014 Election:

The Election of 2014 produced another predicted victory for the ANC, which promptly turned even more racist and more brazen. The result of the election may be seen in the following map.The map may be studied in more detail  here.

Green is used for the ANC and Blue for the Democratic Alliance opposition. Lighter coloring implies a non-majority plurality. The DA retained its hold over the Western Cape because of its Coloured People. The red represents the traditional Zulu-based Inkhata Freedom Party. The DA won some ground in the Gauteng area near Johannesburg and also around Port Elizabeth.

A: The Horizontal Axis: National Leadership

Since the election, the utterances of the ANC and the legislation it has tabled or threatened has gown ever more extreme. Interracial tensions have increased, fanned by the incessant stream of anti-white racist rhetoric from that government. The country is clearly moving in a direction of Black Nationalist Socialist Leadership and the ANC keeps using archaic Stalinist Revolutionary language.

Standard & Poor’s cut the South African credit rating to one notch above junk status and the 2014 GDP growth prediction from the World Bank was only 2% and S&P put it at 1.9%. As S&P put it, “we do not believe [the government] will manage to undertake major labor or other economic reforms that will significantly boost GDP growth,...”The country is no longer the largest economy in Africa. That honor now goes to Nigeria. The ANC has managed South Africa down from a position of being by far the biggest producer of gold in the world to being the seventh largest. The country now produces only one third of the gold it did when the ANC took over the government in 1994 and only one fifth of what it did at the depths of apartheid in 1970. Nothing comparable has replaced or buttressed that sector. While the population is increasing dramatically, the production of electricity is decreasing.

All in all, it is terribly difficult to disagree with the vast majority of what Stefan Molyneux describes about South Africa in this Youtube presentation. He has a style of his own and gets some small points wrong, such as describing the Khoekhoe as “Blacks”, but in general his story is painfully correct. Molyneux quotes extensively from AmaBhulu.

The country has  removed itself further from the Western Family of Nations and is now pitching itself openly as an opponent of the USA. It has clearly allied itself with China. South Africa is a member of the BRICS countries, but its foreign reserves constitute about 1% of the total of the member nations. To the extent that the group is a Sino-Russian construction  to economically and financially compete with the West and dethrone the US Dollar, South Africa has shifted from being a staunch but lamented member of the Western Family of Nations, to being something akin to a Sino-Russian Chihuahua lapdog. The President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff in the red top, is a half-Bulgarian Marxist-Leninist who was jailed for her subversive activities and now claims latter-day conversion to Capitalism. She is in “good company” in this picture. Narendra Modi of India must be feeling distinctly uncomfortable by now, flanked by four present and has been Communists styling themselves the Collective Nemesis of the West.

All this means that the position of the country on the Scenario Map has moved yet further to the left along the horizontal axis of the Scenario Planning Map under Zuma.

B: The Vertical Axis : The International Condition

Since the election, both the Russian and Chinese economic boats have hit the Doldrums, while the US economy is leading the world in recovering. The US dollar has grown markedly in value. South Africa might easily find itself out in the cold “wearing the wrong dog collar” if it annoys the US enough.

Obama and his White House, so in awe of Mandela and indulgent of the ANC, will be out of office by February 2017. More specifically Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, the “queen bee” behind the Obama throne, will have no more influence. She has been something akin to his career manager for years and may be seen as the lady with the glasses standing behind Obama in the picture below. Mandela’s ghostwriter, Richard Stengel, who willfully blotted out the Communist connections of the latter to sell him to Americans, will likewise be out of the government. He is Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and is married to a South African.

There is no love lost between the Obama and Clinton worlds. Americans will likely turn with a vengeance on Obama’s disastrous international legacy and any group or country associated with it. None of this spells any good politically for South Africa as regards the ANC’s positioning of the country with any new US Administration, including specifically that of Clinton.

Meanwhile tensions between Russia and the US have flared dangerously. We have Russian Su-30s and US F-14s dodging one another over Syria, passenger planes full of innocents being shot down over Ukraine, and refugees by their millions headed for Europe. In the Middle East, both Shia and Sunni Fanatical Extremism are on the ascendant, one now with a clear path to nuclear weapons, the other practicing the most shocking horrors imaginable. The United States has been reduced to protesting ineffectually from the sidelines while Putin is having his way with absolutely everything he does. Even Israel appears to be spending more time talking Realpolitik to Putin than to Obama. The West is suffering an acute Deficit of Leadership and is quietly but frantically treading water until Obama’s reign is over.

This means the international situation is directed distinctly downward on that map. Essentially, the only counter trend is from the USA, where the economy is painfully slowly improving despite Obama’s best efforts at destroying the business initiative of the populace.

The light red arrow under Zuma shows the resultant shift in South Africa’s overall position on the Scenario Map.

Conclusions

The situation is worse and more urgent, and is now distinctly headed for the Heart of Darkness scenario. I can also tell it personally by the particular individuals who are giving up and leaving the country where they have bloodlines of 360 years. It needs to be understood that this is the equivalent of American descendants of the Mayflower passengers quitting the United States in disgust and despair.

As before, I would state that there is hope for South Africa, and the slight gains of the DA hint at that. Clearly more Black people have started thinking about their vote. The Rainbow Nation scenario may indeed one day be achieved, but the present ANC government and its New Apartheid will have to have been as completely destroyed and discredited socially and politically among Blacks as its predecessor, the Old Apartheid National Party, has been among Whites.

Rationally, the Rainbow Nation Scenario is not achievable by either of the two main antagonists to the so-called “Struggle”. As long as the ANC views itself as some sort of “victor over Whites” and struts around in its political hubris like a red-shinned male ostrich in heat, sounding like a cabal of Cold War Soviet throwbacks, this beautiful country and its people will suffer. After all, even the Russians, the inventors and champions of Soviet Socialism, abandoned it for the rank idiocy and disastrous economic failure that it was. The most dyed in the wool communists outside North Korea now seem to be in South Africa.

South Africa’s Whites did away with the National Party in the 1990s. It’s Blacks need to do away with the ANC, because a leopard cannot change its spots. The tool for that is called “an election”. In this last election, the Black Electorate chose not to use that opportunity intelligently. And, if they do not want to hear, they must unfortunately suffer the consequences.  The only issue is how much damage the country as a whole can take and how many innocents must die before the obvious and the necessary happens. And, it must be said, how long can the ANC blame Whites for their own vivid incompetence and get away with it in the eyes of their voters.

The Black King seeks White Help

Tags

Afrikaners, amaBhulu, amaRharhabe, assegai, Cape of Good Hope, Commando, Dutch East India Company, Fish River, flintlock, Rharhabe, South Africa, Suurveld, Xhosa

Black And White South African Allies  – A Series

—The impression has been created by the Media and various Governments of South Africa that White and Black have always been enemies unto death. In reality, Black and White have allied on numerous occasions in South African history. While this may surprise people outside the country, I venture to say it will also be a revelation to many South Africans. It is a truth that is as uncomfortable for the present government as it was for the previous.

The pre-1994 government of the country corralled its political base by convincing it of the Swart Gevaar (The Black Danger). It formed the basis of the Old Apartheid Laws. The present Black ANC government has ratcheted up this approach by orders of magnitude, inciting murder with its singing of “Kill the Whites”. This gets it votes from millions of the Uneducated, the Ignorant, and from racist Africanist Blacks. It forms the basis of the New Apartheid Laws. It appears not to realize that it is vindicating the old government. If it does, then it simply does not care, because the West has given it a free pass to do exactly what it pleases to the utterly powerless Whites.

I hope and trust that the examples provided here will show there was Black and White cooperation and alliance at many seminal events, and that the country does not have to be the divided nightmare that its government has made of it.

Click on the title below to read the first article in the series and see the evidence.

Part 1 – The Black King seeks White Help

In 1780 King Rharhabe of a powerful Black amaXhosa group offered a treaty to the White Afrikaner Frontiersmen on the Eastern Frontier of what was then the Dutch Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. He sought their alliance in bringing to heel several other amaXhosa groups that he saw as his rebellious underlings. These were exactly the same people who were raiding the Frontiersmen.  The resulting First Frontier War created an alliance between the Frontier Afrikaners and the amaRharhabe Xhosa that would last at least 20 years. It would play the strangest role in 1800 in an episode that the British Empire would simply write out of its own history. The unique relationship between the Frontiersmen and Rharhabe’s descendants would again surface 35 years later in 1815 in a seminal event that would create 150 years of bitterness between Boer and Brit.

Read the full story of the First Frontier War and the lives of the men who fought it in AmaBhulu – The Birth and Death of the Second America.

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Mandela almost born American!

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Afrikaners, amaBhulu, amaThembu, Cape of Good Hope, Fish River, Grosvenor, Hercules, Nelson Mandela, President John Adams, Shipwreck, South Africa, Tamboekie, United States

The Eastern Cape Frontier, June 1796

— It is a winters day like any other, some 600 miles by oxwagon east of Cape Town. We are on the New Year’s River, a tributary of the Bushman’s River on the outermost limits of Christian civilization [1]. See the map below and click to enlarge. The location is not far from the 21st century town of Alicedale behind the Suurberg, west of Grahamstown.

There have already been two wars with the amaXhosa people who have been pushing westward over the Keiskamma River. The powerful amaRharhabe Xhosa leaders, who have allied with the White Afrikaners, have been trying to bring the local chiefs to heel. This effort has not been successful. Relations therefore remain tense. Groups such as the amaTinde, amaMbalu, imiDange and and particularly the amaGqunkhwebe have repeatedly crossed the Fish River border into the Suurveld. Chief Cungwa (“Congo”) of the amaGqunukhwebe is now living pretty much full time west of the Bushman’s River near the 21st century town of Alexandria. Ironically, it is close to where Diaz turned back in 1488. In the distant future, a road sign near Alexandria will still read “Congoskraal“.

Jan du Plessis is dressing two carcasses of animals his son shot the previous day. He is doing this immediately outside his mud brick and thatch roof house. Jan is a captain in the militia and a rather remarkable man for his time and place. While he lives on the far frontier, he is a literate man and his diary will survive into the 21st century. He is 64 years old; the grandson of the immigrant Jean Prieur du Plessis from Poitiers. His younger sons live on the farm and he has one daughter who is not yet married.

Jan’s grandson, also Jan du Plessis, will one day be one of the two leaders of the so-called Double Trek in the Great Trek. They will arrive at Piet Retief’s camp in Natal on the very day of the Bloukrans Massacre. He will eventually fight at the pivotal Battle of Blood River. The present account, as well as that of the younger Jan and his relatives on the Great Trek, may be read in AmaBhulu.

When Jan looks up, he sees a sight that freezes the blood in his veins. Standing dead still some distance away are two Black Tamboekie warriors, assegais (throwing spears) in hand [2]. It is only three years since the last war with the vicious amaXhosa, and here he is now confronted with the Tamboekies. They live even further away to the east than the true Xhosa, and these two are totally out of place. He yells to his sons in the house, and turns to fetch his schietgeweer―his musket―and the powder horn. But then some disheveled white men and even Indians appear among the Tamboekies.

Captain Stout

The leader is an American ship’s captain named Benjamin Stout. They have been aided by these two Tamboekie warriors all the way from the land of the Tamboekies where they were shipwrecked. Jan promptly dispatches his sons with a wagon to collect the rest of the shipwrecked men, who are beyond exhaustion and have been left along the way.

That evening, Stout discusses the state of the country with Jan, who makes it clear that the farmers distant from the Cape are disgusted with the Dutch East India Company [3]. It taxes them, makes rules for them, does not understand their needs, and then leaves them in the lurch in times of danger. They would welcome any decent liberal authority on the local coast and they would be happy indeed to trade with them.

Only in Africa

At this point, Stout asks Jan the one question that has bothered him all day since their arrival:

“What on earth are the two massive carcasses you are dressing outside the house?”

Jan responds without blinking an eye:

“Two rhinoceros my son shot yesterday.”

Getting to Cape Town

Jan arranges for the men to be taken to the distant Cape. He writes a note in Dutch for Stout and his party to show to all the farmers along the way to aid in their passage. The captain  will later immortalize this note in a book:

Good Friends,
Be so good as to help these people forward towards the Cape. They are Americans, who have lost their ship beyond the river Biga. The Caffers have brought these people to me.
Your friend, Jan Du Plessis, the elder.

The River “Biga” is some 15km south of the present coastal town of Hamburg. In the 21st century the name of the river is spelled Bira, but in isiXhosa an “r” is pronounced as the guttural “g” in Dutch. In fact, the shipwreck occurred near the wreck of the Grosvenor, which was at the Mkweni River far to the north, halfway between Port St. Johns and Port Edward on what is today the Pondoland Coast [5]. Since Stout’s day, the Tamboekies, or at least their territories, have moved more inland.

The survivors are taken by wagon to Cape Town. One, a Swede named Peter Ernst Wahlstrand, elects to stay in the colony. He will become the Graaff-Reinet Court Messenger [4] and will eventually marry Maria Magdalena Olivier, an Afrikaans lady in the author’s ancestral family. In this way, a Swede shipwrecked on an American ship in Africa will become and Afrikaner. Fact is usually stranger than fiction.

An American Colony in South Africa?

On 16 June 1796, the American ship, the Hercules, was wrecked on the Suurveld coast. The Master of this ship was Captain Benjamin Stout. He was well treated by the amaThembu (“Tamboekie”) subgroup of the extended isiXhosa speaking nations, and was impressed by the countryside. He was equally impressed with the White Afrikaner farmers who went out of their way to help his party get back to the Cape. When Stout returned to Europe, he wrote as follows to his relative, President John Adams, suggesting the establishment of an American colony on the Southeast Coast in the land of the amaThembu [6] :

To the Honorable John Adams,
President of the Continental Congress of the United States of America.

Sir,
If this Narrative be transmitted across the Atlantic, and should find its way to your hand, receive it as the voluntary homage of a native of America, who from his earliest life hath been taught to venerate and admire your virtues and your talents. […]   It has never been understood, when the Dutch took possession of the Cape of Storms, as it was originally styled by the Portuguese, that they also claimed a title to the whole of the southern part of Africa; such an undefined and unlimited claim must at once appear not only presumptuous, but preposterous; and on this ground I argue, that the people of any nation have an unquestionable right (provided the natives give their assent) to settle on such parts of the southern continent of Africa, as do not interpose with the lands already in possession of the colonists.

By the early years of the 1800s, American ships were trafficking up and down the southeast coast of the present South Africa. Ever more American sailors were calling for an American presence in South Africa. Britain prized its trade route between Britain, the Cape and the River Platte in South America. Losing America was one thing, but conceding its trade routes to the Americans was another matter altogether.

In the event, President Adams turned down Stout’s suggestion. Thereby died the intriguing thought that, had he accepted, Nelson Mandela, the later South Africa’s first Black president, might very well have been born an American citizen or subject. Nelson Mandela was a Thembu; a Tamboekie!

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REFERENCES

1. Tributary of the Bushman’s River; J.S. Marais, Maynier and the First Boer Republic, (1944), Maskew Miller, p. 59, places Jan here.
2. AmaThembu, an isiXhosa speaking nation that has historically provided wives for the amaXhosa kings.
3. Jan was apparently unaware the Cape had changed hands to the British in Sep. 1795; Stout discovered this later
4. The Missionary Magazine for 1800, Vol. 5, (1800), p. 217; Recounted in Vanderkemp’s missionary travels
5. Originally published 1797. Republished in UK: Stout, Benjamin, Cape of Good Hope and Its Dependencies: An Accurate and Truly Interesting Description of Those Delightful Regions, (1820), Edwards & Nibb, London; see p. 53
6. Ibid, see p. 2

The First American Immigrant to South Africa

Tags

Afrikaners, amaBhulu, Amsterdam, Cape of Good Hope, Dutch, Dutch Reformed Church, East River, Goldman Sachs, Holland, Manhattan, New York, Peter Stuyvesant, South Africa, Stone Street

Cape Town, 14 April 1675.

On this day a marriage is solemnized in the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town. The entry in the marriage book intriguingly reads:

—“Den 14 Aprill: Hendrick Evertsz Smidt geboortigh van Eupenbieren j.m. en Adriaantje Sterevelt geboortigh uyt Nieuw-Nederlandt jonghe dochter.”

Translated and decoded, it reads,“

—“14 April: Hendrick (Evert’s son) Smidt born in Eupenbüren young man and Adriaantje Sterevelt born in New Netherlands young maiden.”

New Netherlands was, of course, the name of the Dutch Colony at New York, the town itself being called New Amsterdam. “Eupenbüren” is most likely Ibbenbüren just west of Osnabrück in Germany.

Three years earlier, on 22 may 1672, Adriana’s older sister, Cornelia, also married in the same church with her origin given as New Netherlands. In earlier Church documentation at the Cape the two are revealed to be orphans. There is no direct evidence of how exactly they came to be at the Cape of Good Hope.

As part of the research effort for AmaBhulu, the author had to research this family. These two orphan siblings constitute the earliest link between South Africa and the United states. This is important, because the book retains a link between the two countries all the way through. Interestingly, in the late 1600s a British officer at New York refers to the Dutch farmers in Upstate New York as “Boers”, the term used by the British in the 19th century for the Afrikaners of South Africa. It is also the source of the title of the book, which is the isiXhosa corruption of the term “Boere”. The prefix “ama-” means “people” and “Bhulu” was the closest the amaXhosa could get to “Boere”, hence “amaBhulu”; the Bhulu people.

On Manhattan

It took some years to get clarity on these two girls, but eventually the secret was revealed. They were the daughters of Adriaen Huybertsz Sterrevelt, son of Egbert Huyberts of Segwaart near Soetermeer in Holland. Their mother was Judith Robberts. Cornelia was baptized 12 August 1657 and Adriaentje on 29 August 1660. After the death of Judith around late 1662/early 1663, likely in childbirth, Adriaen married Thysje Gerrits on 3 May 1663.

The couple owned Aris Otto’s Tavern on Hoogh Straat in New Amsterdam, which was then confined to the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Wall Street was then known as de Cingel and ran along a wooden palisade which bounded the settlement. Back then, their home was one street removed from the East River. See the 1660 Castello plan (click on the map image). Today Hoogh Straat is the blocked off and cobbled/bricked section of Stone Street used for street cafes in the shadow of the imposing Goldman Sachs building. The Stadthuys (City Council Building), the seat of city government, was on the southwestern corner of Stadthuyslaan and ‘t Water, the road along the East River. in other words, it was right round the corner from the Sterrevelt home.

An absolutely fantastic website providing an interactive map of 1660 New York is available online. Do try it; it is truly  superb, and specifically lists Aris Otto’s tavern, the Sterrevelt home. Just click on the thumbnail image.

Their home, Aris Otto’s erstwhile tavern, stood more or less halfway along today’s Stone Street (Hoogh Straat), on the northwestern side. In her time as 3-5 year-old, Ariaentje could watch Governor Peter Stuyvesant ride past their front door on his famous Flanders mare. This was because the street was the most direct route to the all important ferry to Breukelen, which would later become Brooklyn, across the East River. Click on the image to see a described full-sized image.

Their neighbors included Burgermeester Olaf van Cortland, who lived across the road at one point, and negotiated the surrender of New York to the English in 1664. Two others, either side of their house, signed the “Remonstrance” to the tough old Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who meant to oppose the English attack of September 1664. The Remonstrance appealed to Stuyvesant not to endanger the population in this pointless resistance. The document reads,

But (God help us!), whether we turn us for assistance to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, ’tis all vain! On all sides are we encompassed and hemmed in by our enemies.

The painting included here is the famous fictionalized scene of the stubborn and ornately peg-legged Stuyvesant standing on the ramparts of the fort, ready to order his men to fire on the Fleet of the English Colonel Nicholl, while the womenfolk and Dominee Megapolensis plead with him not to do so. Note the Indian gunner and the man with the lit match at the ready. Stuyvesant was completely outnumbered in guns and men and powder, but was severely criticized for the surrender. The English came with 600 men while the Governor had a few men and his town militia. He was a tough old guy, but it is said he agreed when he saw his own son’s signature on the Remonstrance.

So, our ancestral Sterrevelts found themselves right in the middle of a pivotal point in American history. Some months later, Sterrevelt left for Holland, recording for posterity that he “no longer knew how to make a living here“. We can trace his arrival in Amsterdam when he registers as a “Tobacco Merchant from Soetermeer”. The next thing we have is several months later, when the two girls appear at the Cape as orphans. Ariaentje’s life in New Amsterdam is described in more detail in AmaBhulu.

The little Chinese doll

The complete story of the family may be found in AmaBhulu. The genealogical research may be seen in the paper “Ariaentje geboortigh van Nieuw Nederlandt.” The entire PDF may be downloaded from that site.

Ariaentje would eventually marry three times. In 1690 she and her last husband would be accused of assaulting a boarder at their home in Cape Town. For this they were going to be banned for life to the “tropical hell” of Mauritius, where Ariaentje had been as a young girl in the care of Mr Smiendt, Caretaking Governor of the island. To avoid this fate, Ariaentje and husband Joost Luns fled the Cape on the 6 June 1692 Return Fleet from the Far East, leaving all the children with the family Smit. The excruciatingly detailed contents of Ariaentje’s home in 1692 may be studied in the Luns Estate Inventory. It is fascinating. My father used to call a crowbar (koevoet) an “uintjiesyster”. In this inventory it is referred to as “1 ijser om uijen te graven“!

The author’s wife is descended from Ariaentje’s daughter from her first marriage, Judith, named for her mother who died in faraway New York.

If anyone knows what happened to the Chinese doll that my ancestor Ockert Cornelisz. got, please let me know. To understand this strange question, you’ll have to read the paper linked above and live Ariaentje’s life for an hour as I did for many months of research. It wil also allow the reader to find out what likely eventually happened to Ariaentje. As to the missing horse, I have absolutely no idea.

So, tell me that bit again about history and genealogy being boring…

 

Déjà Vu: Obama reliving the Soviet 1970s

Tags

Al Nusra, apartheid, Arab Spring, Democracy, Iran, Iraq, ISIL, ISIS, Obama, Putin, Russia, South Africa, Syria, United States

—Before I expound on this issue, I would like to make the following very clear:

♦1.  I consider the United States the Greatest Force for Good in the World. To the extent that I criticize, it is in the hope that at least some of what I explain might help to restore that country to its proper leading place in our world.

♦2.  All that I explain below about the 1970s may be found in Chapters 22 and 23 of AmaBhulu.

♦3.  On 9 Jun 2002 this author predicted for an Israeli business visitor that the next Democratic Administration in the United States would sell out Israel. The warning was politely laughed off and I was told it would never happen.

The United States 1975 – International Position

In 1975, the United States was in very bad shape. The country had just hounded its president out of office and the Vice President, Gerald Ford—a good man—was in office. The US had shortly before lost the Vietnam War in particularly demoralizing fashion. It had lost around 60,000 men in that war, partly due to demanding that its men fight with their hands figuratively tied behind their backs. On April 30 of the year, a shocked Western World had to see American seamen shove helicopters into the sea (photo) the previous day to make way for others to land on aircraft carriers with people evacuated from the fallen Saigon. Desperate South Vietnamese people who had supported the United States had been forcibly shoved away from the last helicopters leaving Saigon, thereby sentenced to a life of Communist re-education if not death. The Americans called it “Operation Frequent Wind“, and it lives in infamy.

Inside the United States

A Democratic Party majority ran both Houses of Congress. They had the requisite 60% of the votes in Congress to override any presidential veto. Their focus turned almost immediately to finding ways to curtail the abilities of their own Central Intelligence Agency which they blamed for the war. The nation was in a funk about “little wars” turning into Vietnam-like nightmares for Americans. I am keenly aware of the emotions and convictions of the time and count Americans on different sides of that argument as my personal friends, including so-called “Draft Dodgers” who fled to Canada. Culturally, the United States seemed to completely ignore the International Communist Revolution and focused instead on its own parochial internal Social Rights. While a rampant USSR promoted the International Communist Revolution all over the world under the Brezhnev Doctrine, the United States ignored the planet and promoted the Sexual Revolution within its borders. The United States had grown myopic and obsessive about gender. The best this author can say, is that the 1970s music was very good.

In this introspective psychological state the United States elected the Georgia Governor and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter as president in 1976. He appointed Andrew Young, a Black Caucus member [read that link to the end], as UN ambassador. Together they created what most Americans agree today was the worst administration the country had seen since world War I. It is a rare Democrat indeed who will today defend that Administration.

The Russian led Response

The Russians are a chess playing nation. Correctly sensing the self-inflicted weakness of the United States, the Russian dominated Soviet Union made its move. Using Cubans as a proxy army it moved into Angola in 1975 on the watch of the Congressionally hamstrung Ford. The Über Liberal Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minster of Canada, made the airfield of Gander in Newfoundland available to Fidel Castro to ship his troops to Angola.

Desperate, several African states turned to South Africa for help. So did Henry Kissinger, still US Secretary of State in 1975. With such compelling pleas as background South Africa elected to back one of the Angolan parties fighting against the Communist supported Angolan government. The story can be read in detail in AmaBhulu, where all the evidence any reader could wish for is provided, including information from declassified US State Department documents.

A Democratic led United States on the World Stage

On 16 December 1975, despite desperate pleas by President Ford, the US Congress implemented the decision to cut off the financial ability of the CIA to maintain the support effort in Angola. President Ford’s sage words echo across history [1]:

A great nation cannot escape its responsibilities. Responsibilities abandoned today will return as more acute crises tomorrow

In short, an American government in which the Democrats held the controlling hand deserted the field of battle in the face of the enemy. The CIA packed its bags and very literally flew off, leaving the South Africans to their fate in Angola. South Africa withdrew back to Namibia. In Luanda in Angola, a senior Cuban intelligence officer took over the facilities that the CIA’s Robert Hultslander had occupied before [2].

The ensuing period is treated in detail in AmaBhulu. However, instead of believing this author and his massive list of reference material in that book, the reader could just accept the truth from the horse’s mouth. The “horse” in this case is Russian Soviet Ambassador to the UN/US, Anatoliy Dobrynin (shown here), who later (1995) stated [3],

…having suffered no major international complications because of its interference in Angola, Moscow had no scruples about escalating its activities in other countries, first Ethiopia, then Yemen, a number of African and Middle Eastern states, and, to crown it all Afghanistan.

For “Ethiopia”, one may read “Somalia”, which was the opponent. And the whole world knows that Afghanistan and Somalia gave us Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The mess in Yemen is still with us. Zaïre, one of the “number of African states”, is today a prime example of a completely failed state. All this would ultimately lead to the World Trade Center attacks on 11 September 2001 and the loss of more lives than the Pearl Harbor attack. The abandoned responsibility certainly returned with a vengeance, and the consequences are with us all still.

Invoking the word “Apartheid”

Back in the 1970s, sensing revolution in the water, the ANC in South Africa initiated the 1976 Soweto Riots. As a result of this, Jimmy Carter and Andy Young found the time and inclination to insist on “One man, One vote” in South Africa [4]. Somehow they thought that their domestic political management model applied to South Africa. That country is today teetering on the brink of collapsing into the most significant national basket case on Earth precisely because of this insistence. Democracy is a superb way of resolving issues and it has its place among civilized people, but does not belong in a country dominated by either base savagery or religious fundamentalism. In 1977 the Soviets exploited the situation by suggesting that the US was feigning concern about the Soviet effort in Ethiopia in order to distract attention from apartheid in South Africa [5].

Hitting Rock Bottom

By 1980, with the Iranian Crisis, the United States finally hit psychological rock bottom.  This author well remembers his best American friend physically in tears about his country; and he was a loyal Democrat!! The indelible image of this period is a dejected Carter sitting with his team in the White House near a television set, trying to work until the last few minutes (see photo) of his disastrous presidency, hoping against all hope that the Iranians would release their American captives. Carter was replaced  after his first term in office by Ronald Reagan (below), a man who could rightly stomach America’s international disgrace not a minute longer, and actually did something about it.

The US gets back its Mojo

Over the following 12 years the United States recovered its “mojo” despite some economic setbacks. It is called LEADERSHIP. It is that leadership that led the US to declare the ANC in South Africa a terrorist organization based on hard evidence. It is also that leadership that welcomed President Assad Senior of Syria as ally in the First Gulf War. I have been listening very closely to the US Media over the last month, and there has not been so much as a peep out of them about Assad Senior’s membership of the US Ally Team in that war. But, I remembered the incongruous images of Syrian pilots climbing into their Russian-built MIGs as part of a US attack. I don’t forget such images. The US media does, because it is convenient. And right now, in American minds, Assad Junior HAS TO BE the monster and Democracy HAS TO BE the solution. It never occurs to US administrations that the guys replacing the “monsters” are “monsters” themselves. They just never seem to learn the lesson. They simply do not comprehend that they are misreading an entire culture.

 NOW, FAST FORWARD TO 2015 ⇒

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The United States 2015 – International Position

—In 2015 the United States is in very bad shape.  Some seven years before, in 2008, the country was in a funk about its 2003 invasion of Iraq. That war had been a very quick initial success, followed by a comprehensive failure to consolidate the situation. It had all gone wrong and dragged on because of Democracy plugged into Iraq like a square peg in a round hole. Why would Democracy work in a place where there is no regard for another man’s life, let alone his opinion expressed via a cross on a piece of paper? Eventually, the previous president, George Bush, had implemented a “Surge” of military effort and had stabilized the situation. With a loss of around 4,500 men and thousands maimed for no apparent benefit, Americans felt that they had just experienced another near-Vietnam. They wanted “out”. Many used the faulty intelligence employed as reason for the invasion as an expedient basis to justify withdrawal. To make matters worse, the world economy “tanked” at the end of 2008 on the back of American Financial Sector malfeasance that misled the entire world and deeply damaged almost all economies around the globe. Many Americans lost their homes and millions lost their jobs.

Inside the United States

A new presidential Candidate, Barack Obama (shown here), promised he would end the war in Iraq; now approaching six years in the running. By early 2009, the new Democratic Party Government controlled the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate: utter and complete control. As in 1975, the focus immediately swung inward. The economy received little attention, the War in Iraq even less, and the big issue appeared to be Socialized Medicine. Soon the issue was a fictitious “War on Women” and various Social Rights issues. Yet again, under a Democratic administration, the United States had grown myopic and obsessive about gender. This time there was no good music to save the era.

A Democrat led United States on the World Stage

On 18 December 2011, Obama withdrew the last US forces from Iraq. Ironically, the last vehicle to leave was a mine-proof BAE Caiman based on a design by the South African company Land Systems OMC.  Just like Angola, where South Africa had suffered a similar US departure in 1975 and had learned to make the mine-proof vehicles, Iraq was left to fester in the rubble left behind by the United States’ effort. Entirely predictably, the Shia dominated government  promptly turned to diminishing the position of the Sunni and the general situation in the Middle East started to metastasize.

Precisely a year before Obama withdrew from Iraq, the so-called Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia. Soon, a veritable horde of Arab and Muslim African countries were in different states of upheaval. Through idealistic Democrat eyes this was  overwhelming testimony to the irrepressible power of Democracy and its supposed inherent goodness. Thousands of miles away, the much tried white South Africans felt they’d seen this all before and knew how it would end. They were right. They had experience of what Democracy does in uncivilized places. The author certainly realized that Democracy had already given the Shia Hezbollah and its allies veto power in Lebanon and given control to Hamas in Gaza. There was no way that Democracy could bode well in the present Arab world. In South Africa it had given the country to a Listed Terrorist Organization that has since shown its true colors. It would assuredly do the same in the Middle East.

The US helped to remove Muammar Gadaffi (below) from power in Libya, but did not replace him with anything. Ultimately, the US ambassador to Libya ended up dead at the hands of a local Al Qaeda affiliated group on the watch of Hillary Clinton. The Arab Spring failed in Egypt and resulted in the Muslim Brotherhood taking over. This situation was only overcome by yet again letting the Egyptian military restore sanity in non-democratic fashion. Yemen produced a supposedly US-friendly leader that soon fled in the face of Iranian sponsored Houthi attacks. The Americans upped and left Yemen.  Trouble flared and subsided in Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait,  Morocco, Sudan, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, and even in Western Sahara and Mali. Fortunately, the inappropriate domestic management process of Democracy could not make much inroad there, otherwise those countries would surely be terrorist headquarters today.

Syria and Iraq

But it was in Iraq and Syria that an evil straight from Hell was brewing. When matters boiled over in Syria, Obama failed to take decisive action and focused instead on domestic issues with a general overtone of “rights” rather than “responsibilities”. The fictitious “War on women” was receiving more attention than the real wars in the Middle East.

Back in the Middle East, ISIS developed within Eastern Syria from the mire in Iraq.  It chased the largely Shia Iraqi Army out of most of the important Sunni territory in Iraq, taking massive amounts of the American weaponry and vehicles in the process.  Then it started perpetrating the most vile of inhuman crimes on those who would not follow their sick brand of supposed Islam. The world could undeniably see on TV the horror white people had had to deal with in Africa for many decades. The Western World was stunned.

Obama, who is still today veto-proof in Congress, seemed paralyzed. In Syria he was caught between Assad Junior on the one hand and an even worse ISIS on the other. It seems odd to this author that the US in 1990 welcomed Assad’s father as an ally, but Assad Junior was now being painted as a monster. Obama chose neither and backed instead the so called “Free Syrian Army”. This is a force so nebulous and ineffectual as to be non-existent. His reward for this was that 25% of the equipment the US provided ended up in the hands of Al Nusra – “Al Qaeda in Syria”.

The Russian led Response

Correctly assessing the weakness of the American leadership, the Russian leader Vladimir Putin has now made his move. He has no difficulty making decisions. He believes the choice is between Assad and ISIS and that Assad is the lesser of two evils. Therefore he is going to support Assad. As it is, Assad has been a Russian ally for a while and, unlike the US, the Russians do not employ the word “Democracy” as an anti-evil incantation.

Over the past three weeks we received various reports of Russian military equipment and men heading for Syria. It was clear that Putin is a man of action and resolve and understands the interests of his nation. Shrugging off US and European sanctions like an irritating tick bird on his back, he openly flew his Su-24 strike aircraft, ground-support Su-25s (below), and some Su-30 air superiority fighter planes into Syria.

At this point, stinging Internet posts from the Middle East joke ironically that a year of “so-called Allied bombardment” has killed “33” ISIS members. Much of the US air-dropped supplies are said to fall into ISIS and Al Nusra hands. At least one Internet poster cleverly muses that the “33” ISIS members that were killed died “when US supplies dropped on their heads”. US Generals have confessed that, after a year of training,  they now have “4 or 5” recruits trained elsewhere in Syria. The situation is outrageous in the extreme.

After the first Russian bombs dropped, Obama complained that the Russians were bombing  the moderate parties the US is “supporting” and not ISIS.   Putin has denied this, and Foreign Minister Lavrov has been asking how it is that, if the US knows so clearly where ISIS is, it has not obliterated ISIS in its own bombing campaign. Tough question indeed!

And what do we have now?

In one fell swoop, Putin has effectively checked the US influence in the Middle East. Israel finds itself on the front line with the Russian, Hezbollah and Iranian Khuts proxy forces on their border. The country is in late 2015 precisely where South Africa was in 1975 with respect to the Russians, Cuban proxies and MPLA in Angola. The difference is that Israel is not subject to sanctions. If terrorists from Syria now were to strike at Israel the Israelis would in principle not be able to hit back without risking confrontation with the Russian Air Force.

However, here is the interesting twist that was not available to South Africa in 1975. Benjamin Netanyahu has simply ignored Obama and has made arrangements with Putin regarding matters of military air operations. He made it clear to Putin that Israel has no problem with Assad, just with Hezbollah and Iran. After all, Israel is used to having non-Democratic neighbors. It has sensibly been staying out of any inter-Arab conflict. However, it has also been selling Russia military drone technology. Perhaps the fact that Russian is by far the most commonly spoken unofficial language in Israel has played a role.

All this is happening at a time when Barack Obama has just signed a deal with Iran that will allow the latter access to nuclear weapons. Putin helped facilitate this agreement. All this was done over the vehement objections of Israel. Obama’s defense to the justified criticism is essentially, “that was the best we could get“.  No one can blame Israel for turning to Putin in order to survive the last year of Obama’s rule in the United States.

Even before the ink was dry on the Nuclear Deal the leader of the elite Iranian Kuds Force got together with Putin. When we all woke up yesterday morning, Iranian forces were serving in Syria in support of the Russians and Assad. Later yesterday we learned that the Russians now had 50 aircraft in Syria; almost double the number of the day before. This morning we learned that Putin had called up 150,000 military conscripts.

Invoking the word “Apartheid”

Just as the Soviets invoked the word “Apartheid” in 1978, Mahmoud Abbas, leader of West Bank Palestinians Wednesday invoked it at the UN against Israel. Abbas plays to US audiences as “imminently reasonable”. However, his doctoral thesis was “The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism”. As in Ethiopia in 1977, while the Russians make military moves, others run flak for them using the word “Apartheid”. Abbas is a graduate of Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University, a place that South Africa’s 1970’s government constantly warned about. See AmaBhulu for the author’s personal encounter with another graduate from that place. The Epilogue of the book was written in 2013 and reads (about South Africa):

There is something inherently obscene about the West commending the destruction of its own first outer wall, even as it is preparing to sell out Israel, the guardian on its second outer wall. That country will soon be treated the same way the West treated “the Second America,” and it will be morally assailed by the media. At the same time, the events of the first decade of the 21st century have forced the First America to question its own invincibility. The entire Western Civilization has lost its edge and is losing its place in the world. This work is a wake-up call to that Civilization; an opportunity to stare closely at the beast lying in wait.

Will the United States regrow its Mojo?

I believe it will. However, it will not be under Barack Obama. The nation shall have to find a way to survive his term until February 2017. That is an awfully long time for Putin to do just what he pleases. Meanwhile Obama will keep “staring at the TV in the White House” and wonder “What the hell just happened?”; a deer in the headlights of history. This is what happens when a great nation is badly led.

The frustration for America’s top generals must be beyond endurance. On the ground, mature Americans who lived the 1970s, are saying “Obama is the best thing that ever happened to Carter.” In the rest of the world they talk to Putin.

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References

1.  White House Press Meeting in the Briefing Room, 4:58 pm, December 18, 1975
2.  National Security Archive, Interview with Robert W. Hultslander, former CIA Station Chief in Luanda, Angola
3.  Anatoliy Federovich Dobrynin, In Confidence, (1995) p.403
4.  Time Magazine, Monday, 30 May 1977; SOUTH AFRICA: Mondale v. Vorster: Tough Talk
5. Bruce D. Porter, The U.S.S.R. in Third World conflicts, (1986), p.189; Radio Moscow transmission July27, 1977.