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Re: Breaker Morant

From: Gordo Taylor
Date: 9/28/00
Time: 3:14:30 PM
Remote Name: 150.38.183.37

Comments

Nobody who knows much at all about the Boer War would claim it was a 'just' war.I don't think that's under dispute. The Australians were particularly hated by the Boers because Australia itself gained federation - independence from Britain - which the Boers also wanted and felt they deserved - during the course of the war.They could not understand why people from one country which had gained this independence wanted to fight to prevent them from obtaining the same thing.

On the other hand, the Boer people are the very same who would one day come up with the system of apartheid,so it's not as if they were all sweetness and light either. They fervently believed that they were the new chosen people - that they had an exclusive covenant with God - and that anybody who stood in their way - African, British, whatever - was of no consequence.

As for my being 'obsessed' with placing the blame elsewhere, far from it. I wonder why the blame was placed ONLY on three officers of the Bushveldt Carbineers while all the others, including those that gave the orders to those that gave the orders, those that formulated policy, those that placed incompetent officers in positions of responsibility and then looked the other way, and those whose disinterest and neglect caused the conditions in the camps to arise in the first place, why they got medals and promotions and went home.

If it was good enough for everyone else to get away with it, then why not Morant, Handcock and Witton as well? Seems pretty obvious when you look at it that way.Someone had to pay.


Last changed: December 29, 2000