The purity of Arthur Kemp's People:
The Afrikaners
Arthur Kemp is a South African white supremacist. His fellow white countrymen, called Afrikaners (also known as Boers or The White Tribe), are descendants of South Africa's earliest European immigrants, including mainly the Dutch, but also French, Germans, and Scottish. What is not so much acknowledged, is that up to 7% (and no less than 5%) of Afrikaner ancestry comes from non-whites. The earliest European settlers in the Dutch Cape Colony were mostly men. Since for the first century there were scarcely any European women available, Dutch colonists resorted to taking Khoikhoi and slave women (West Africans, Malays, and Indians) as concubines, and in many cases as wives. The result was that most colonial born Dutch had a European father and non-white mother. When the mixed-race or "Coloured" females became women, new arrivals to the colony took them as wives or concubines, resulting in the eventual "whitening" of the mixed-race offspring, until they became indistinguishable from white. It was not until up into the 18th century that the sex ratio amongst the settlers improved. By then, much coloured ancestry had entered the "white" Afrikaner genepool.
Arthur Kemp alleges that only 6% of Afrikaners have mixed ancestry. This is a deliberate misinterpretation of the genetic data. It's 6% of Afrikaner GENES, that are of non-white origin, not 6% of Afrikaner people. The same genetic data Arthur Kemp misinterprets, states that the Afrikaner genepool is 40% Dutch, 40% German, 7% French, and 7% Scottish. Does this mean that the Afrikaner population is composed of 40% Dutch, 40% Germans, 7% Scots, and 7% French? It would sound silly that all these elements represented individual ethnic personages and not genes but according to Arthur Kemp, it is so. But the reality is 6% of over all Afrikaner genes are non-white.
Research by J.A. Heese, who studied the genealogical composition of the Afrikaners looking at the period 1657 - 1867, has concluded that the Afrikaner nationīs ancestry was Dutch 34.8%, German 33.7%, French 13.2%, Non White 6.9%, British 5.2%, Other European nations 2.7%, Unknown 3.5%. GFC de Bruyn used a different form of calculation and his results were: Dutch 34.1%, German 29.2%, French 24.7%, British 0.3%, Other European nations 2.4%, Non European 5.4%, Unknown 3.9% (refer to J.S. Bergh ed., Herdenkingsjaar 1988, RTJ Lombard "Die bydrae van die Franse Hugenote tot Suid-Afrika se bevolkingsamestelling"). That means, the average Afrikaner (including Arthur Kemp himself) gets 5-7% of their ancestry from non-whites.
Arthur Kemp states that in 1685 a law was passed banning miscegenation with non-whites. The law in question banned intermarriage with slaves, but as with the American South, illicit interracial sex was far from uncommon! The law banned marriages between white settlers and SLAVES. It did not ban marriages with Coloureds and other FREE Persons of Colour. J. A. Heese, in Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner 1657-1867, presented the results of research from parish registers and other sources on the ancestors of the Afrikaners. He found that between 1660 and 1705, 191 of the settlers from Germany married or lived with women who were not pure blood Europeans. Of the women, 114 were born in the Cape (most probably mixed), 29 were Bengalis and 43 were from other Asian regions. He estimated that in 1807, between 7.2 and 10.7 percent of the ancestors of the then living Afrikaner population were Africans and Asians. His figures were perhaps inevitably conservative. It may well be that a tenth of the present Afrikaner population has Indian ancestry.
In some cases dispensations were given allowing interracial marriages. One example is the case of a Khoikhoi or Hottentot woman named Eva-Kroata. A Dutch man named Pieter Van Meerhof, married her and had 5 children with her. All of them in turn married white men. Eva-Kroata is the progenitor of a number of Afrikaner first families. These include the Krugers, Van Riebeecks, Bruyns, Van Rensburgs, Zaimans, and Pelzers, to name a few. Paul Kruger, the great revered Boer hero, is a descendant of Eva through her daughter Petronella Meerhof. Andries Pretorius, the Great Voortrekker leader was himself a descendant of two East Indian slave women, Catharina van Bengale on his mother's side, and Helena van Malabar on his father's side. Thus, the entire Pretorius family can trace their ancestry back to these two slave women. These well known interracial marriages, are just a fraction of the non-white blood absorbed into the modern Afrikaner genepool. Ironically, Governor Simon Van Der Stel, who passed the 1685 law, was himself of Coloured stock. He was born in Mauritius to a half-Bengalese mother.
There is also a further factor, colonial South Africa had no "one drop rule" as Arthur Kemp wants the reader to believe. A person that looked white was seen and treated as white, and was considered White by law. In fact even Apartheid did not have a one drop concept. When people were being separated into four "races", people were divided based on their appearance, skin color, and hair texture, not their ancestry. Government officials measured peoples facial features and skull shapes and applied paper bag and pencil tests, to deterimine race. If a person passed the skull measurement tests, had skin lighter than a paper bag, and a comb went through their hair with ease, they were classified as "White."
Even if a white family was found to have non-white ancestry, despite social dissapproval, that family was still white by law. An example of which, was the case of Sandra Laing. Both her biological parents were white. But she was born with brown skin and frizzly hair, although the rest of her features were European. DNA tests proved that Abraham Laing (the white father) was the biological father of Sandra Laing. The Laing's ran into trouble when they tried to register her for school, and the government threatened to have the child reclassified as Coloured and separated from the parents. Although Sandra Laing was to be reclassified, her parents were still unquestionably white by law. And because of Sandra Laing, in 1967 a new law was passed, which stated that a child of two white parents was White. In her case, that shows a few Afrikaners had significant levels of non-white ancestry. Although as studies show, the average Afrikaner is 5-7% non-white, which is negligible. Sandra Laing's parents were amongst the few that had as much as 20% non-white genes, even though they and her brothers look completely white. Today Sandra Laing's brothers do not speak to her, and refuse to embrace their undeniable African heritage.
Sandra Laing and her mother
As well as the above, under Apartheid there were people changing their racial classification based on their appearance. Some light-skinned Coloureds were successfully reclassified as white under Apartheid. In fact in 1984 according to the South African government, nearly eight hundred South Africans officially crossed the racial lines. Of these, 518 light-skinned Coloureds were reclassified as white. In fact hundreds of Coloureds between 1950 and 1991, reclassified themselves as white every year. This was of course in the best interest of the National Party, which was eager to register more "white" Afrikaans-speaking voters to the voters list. This could explain the high levels of non-white ancestry in Sandra Laing's parents. These are all facts about Apartheid South Africa which Arthur Kemp neglects to mention in his "March of the Titans".
Also, the Afrikaans language spoken by Afrikaners, was actually originally spoken by slaves. Just like in the United States of America, where Black English or Ebonics developed from the broken English Southern dialect spoken by Black Americans, Afrikaans developed in the same way. The Afrikaans language, although Dutch based, absorbed many Khoikhoi, Malay, and Indian words. As white colonial children were raised by non-white slave mammies and had mixed-race children for playmates, one can see how the white settlers abandoned their Dutch language for Afrikaans instead. The very fact Cape Coloureds still speak Afrikaans, even though their ancestors did not participate in the Great Trek, shows that the language did not originate amongst the Voortrekkers, as Afrikaner white supremists claim. Cape Afrikaans (spoken by Coloureds) and Orange River Afrikaans (spoken by white Afrikaners), although baring dialectic differences, are similar enough to be regarded as the same language and mutually intelligible. Thus, Afrikaners ironically, speak a language with non-white origins.
To further tear down Arthur Kemp's theory of Southern Europeans being Mulattoes while Afrikaners are pure Nordics, one only needs to look at genetic studies on Southern Europeans. The Portuguese, who have the highest amounts of non-Caucasoid ancestry amongst Europeans at 1.65% Sub-Saharan, have four times less non-white blood than Afrikaners. If the Portuguese are Mulattoes, then what does that make Afrikaners? Maybe the collapse of Apartheid was due to the 6% non-white blood in Afrikaners? Why is it the race conscious Afrikaners have more non-white blood than than Southern Europeans who can't help but sleep with every non-white they see? Before Arthur Kemp worries about non-white blood in Southern Europeans, he should worry about his own coloured ancestry first. Fact is Apartheid was about ensuring white minority rule in South Africa, not about racial purity. The very fact the Apartheid government granted white status to those with known non-white ancestry, shows they weren't concerned with absolute purity of blood.
Hendrik and Betsy Verwoerd. Betsy Verwoerd was rumoured to have non-White ancestry, as is not uncommon amongst "white" Afrikaners.
genetic diseases
from http://mail.medacad.org/www.ichg2001.org/abstracts/symposia.htm
S11. Disease Profiles in the Genetically Dinstinct Populations of South Africa
M. J. Kotze
Division of Human Genetics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stellenbosch; Tygerberg, South Africa
The genetically distinct populations of South Africa provide valuable information for molecular research. Only a small fraction of the sequence changes that arose in Africa has spread to Europe and other countries. The indigenous Khoisan people and African Negro slaves contributed to the unique gene pool of the white Afrikaner population (~3 million), that originated from approximately 2000 settlers who emigrated from Holland, Germany and France in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, with a lesser increment from England in the 19th century. This group provides an excellent example of founder events in human evolution. The origin of the Coloured population of South Africa can be traced back to 1652, when marriages between European colonists and the two indigenous populations, the Khoi and the San, occurred relatively frequently. An additional gene flow to this gene pool came from the Indian traders and slaves from East Africa and Madagascar, who were either completely Negroid or Negroid with Malay or Indonesian admixture.
The high prevalence of several genetic diseases in the Afrikaner population resulted from a reduction in genetic variability due to geographic isolation and religious/cultural bonds, coupled to rapid population expansion over 10-12 generations. This was confirmed by molecular analysis of diseases such as familial hypercholesterolaemia, variegate porphyria and hereditary haemochromatosis. These studies illustrated the importance of genetic factors underlying population/ethnic differences in disease risk and defined the recently admixed Coloured population as a valuable candidate population for the identification of genes/mutations underlying complex diseases. This population is currently studied extensively, in an attempt to identify genetic factors associated with hypertension or modified risk of HIV infection and progression to AIDS. Information gained through the analysis of disease profiles in the African context has contributed to our understanding of why certain diseases affect different populations at different rates.
References
Boeseken, Anna. "Slaves and Free Blacks at the Cape 1658-1700", Cape Town 1977
Bosman, D.B. "Uit die Biografie van 'n Hottentotin in beskawing", Huisgenoot, 3 July 1942 and 10 July 1942
Burman, Jose. Who really Discovered South Africa, Chapter II, Cape Town, 1968
Cairns, Margaret. "Armosyn Claasz of the Cape and Her Family" Familia XVI, 1979, p84 ff
"Race: 795 Reclassified." Cape Times, 1985
Elphick R. and Gilliomee H. The Shaping of South African Society
Heese, Hans Friedreich. Groepe sonder Grense: Die rol en status van die gemengde bevolking aan die Kaap 1652-1795, Belville 1984
Heese, J.A. "Die Herkoms van die Afrikaner 1657-1867," Cape Town, 1971
Malherbe, V.C. "Krotoa, called 'Eva': A Woman Between" Communications No 19/1900, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town.
Kock, Victor de. Those in Bondage, 1950
Read, Audrey Eunice. "A Research into the History of the Family Bruijns/ Bruyns/ Bruins/ Broens"
Robert, C. and Shell, H. "Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652-1838"
Wells, J.C. "Eva's Men: Gender and Power in the establishment of the Cape of Good Hope, 1652 -74," The Journal of African History, Vol 39, 1998, No 3
Links of Interest
Apartheid Definitions are a rude reminder
India, Britain, and the Struggle against Apartheid
The Black Woman with White Parents