Diamonds, Gold, and War: the British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa
Martin Meredith
PublicAffairs, New York 2007
Just one year after turning out a critically-acclaimed 750 page book on Africa - The Fate of Africa - Martin Meredith has turned his attention to South Africa's complicated history.
His Diamonds, Gold and War is over 500 pages, but it is a page-turner that more resembles a summer novel than historical non-fiction. The book is a must-read for anyone seeking to gain an understanding of the power politics of South Africa from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth.
Meredith's book reads like the narration of a dramatic chess match between two of South Africa's largest historical figures: British-born Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), politician and mining giant, and Paul Kruger (1825-1904), the Boer president of the mineral-rich Transvaal.
At times it seems that Meredith is telling South African history through the lives of Rhodes and Kruger. Rhodes is depicted as the British Empire incarnate, single-mindedly bent on expanding it at any cost. Never concerned with material comforts, Rhodes, the founder of the world’s largest diamond company De Beers, instead used his wealth to increase his, and thus British, influence. He wanted to establish British rule from the Cape Colony to Cairo, Egypt.
Understanding the value of propaganda, he would lobby editors and buy newspapers, including the Cape Argus, to give favorable portrayals to his cause and himself. In seeking British expansion, he pursued political office and rose from serving as a Member of the Cape legislature to becoming the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. As a politician, Rhodes not only consistently fought for the expansion of the British crown, but also served the interests of big business by pushing for land concessions from African tribes and fighting against labor rights. Along the way, Rhodes fought tooth-and-nail for mining concessions.
The other towering figure in Diamonds, Gold, and War is Paul ("Oom Paul") Kruger. An informal man, Kruger would often sit on his porch and grant an audience with anybody seeking to speak to him. He often used the Bible as a reference in making important decisions. As President, Kruger was chiefly concerned with the welfare of his state: maintaining Boer culture, expanding the borders of the Transvaal, and fostering trade.
Rhodes's ambitions led him inevitably to clash with Kruger. Along with other imperialists, Rhodes was set on subjugating the Transvaal, which not only jeopardized British expansion to the north but also included the gold mines around Johannesburg.
To defeat Kruger, Rhodes and other imperialists rallied around the British miners and businessmen, called uitlanders, in the Transvaal who were denied suffrage. Rhodes gave Kruger an ultimatum; either grant reforms or face war with Britain. Kruger, who saw uitlander suffrage as a threat to Boer culture, played the gallant, though stubborn hero, preferring to go to war rather than submit Boer independence to the British crown. The result was war and the wholesale loss of Boer independence. Interestingly, Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi play roles in the war.
Diamonds, Gold, and War is not without bias. Meredith tends to favor the British cause over the Boer, although this does not distract the reader from the narrative. The Boers are portrayed as crude, which while it may be true is simplistic, and Meredith makes little mention of the habits of British immigrants. It is doubtful they roamed the veld as proper English gentlemen. And the Boers are depicted as racist and intent on seizing as much land from Africans as possible, while no such motives are attributed to the British, who are portrayed as mediators to whom Africans plead for help in regaining their land. When the British side with Africans – which is rare – it is out of disdain for the Boers rather than sympathy for the Africans.
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Diamonds, Gold, and War is not a history of its times. Africans play only a peripheral role, and there is hardly a mention of people of Indian descent. It is, rather, a story of British Imperialism and power politics at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Walker Ristau is an intern with allAfrica.com. He has a BA from the University of Iowa, in Iowa City and his education has included Asian (Chinese) and African studies.
