Abstract
The descriptive names which Afrikaners gave to “that English woman” Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) indicate that she had earned a special place in the hearts and minds of Afrikaner people – names such as “the angel of love” and “the heroine from abroad”. She earned this place because she did her utmost to improve the living conditions of the Boer women and children forced by the British forces to stay in concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902. These camps were erected in 1900 and remained in use until the end of the war in 1902. Emily organised physical assistance for the camp inhabitants and became a public advocate fighting against the shameful treatment of the Boer inhabitants and for the improvement of these camps. Initially these camps were not properly prepared and were not suitable as accommodation for these women and children. The camps were founded to support the British policy of “scorched earth”, which entailed destroying the two Boer republics: the South African Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek or ZAR) and the Republic of the Orange Free State (OVS). The aim was to cut the support lines between the Boers on the battlefield and their wives or women on the farms or in towns.
Hobhouse’s visits to the camps were limited by the British military to one period during the war: January to May 1901. During this period she was allowed to visit camps only in the south, as far north as Bloemfontein. It nevertheless enabled her to analyse the camp conditions in Bloemfontein to her own satisfaction and to come up with serious misgivings about these camps. She was prohibited from visiting the Kroonstad camp with its bad image among Afrikaners as well as the camps in the ZAR. A second attempted visit by Hobhouse in October 1901 came to nothing. She arrived by ship in the harbour of Cape Town but was prohibited under military law from disembarking and was deported back to England. The British forces were unwilling to allow an outspoken woman like Emily Hobhouse to witness in person the conditions in the camps and make these public. Recent research indicates that 34 051 Boer women and children died in these concentration camps and in other war-related circumstances. However, when the Women’s Memorial (Vrouemonument) was unveiled on 16 December 1913, the generally accepted number was 26 370.
Emily Hobhouse used a Biblical approach to stress an important matter at the unveiling of the Memorial, an approach which indicated her independent but Christian thinking on war-related issues. She called on the crowd present at the ceremony – approximately 20 000 Boers, or Afrikaners – to forgive the imperialist English for their misdeeds in the war, “for you can afford it”. These misdeeds entailed, among others, the destruction of the Boer Republics and the erection of the deadly concentration camps. A call was made by Hobhouse at the Women’s Memorial which honours the spiritual strength and boldness of the captive Boer women in these camps. She asked the Boers for unconditional forgiveness of their enemies since forgiving your enemies is a command of Jesus Christ. In 1903, at the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, she asked for an acknowledgement of guilt by the three Englishmen whom she blamed as being the driving forces behind the war: Milner, Brodrick and Kitchener. She deemed an acknowledgement of guilt from these individuals a necessary precondition for the Afrikaners to forgive the British. However, at the time of the inauguration of the Women’s Memorial in 1913 she asked for unconditional forgiveness – because this would complete the efforts of fighting during the war following the teachings and help of God.
Hobhouse was supported in this point of view by former President M.T. Steyn. In his speech as the spiritual father of the Women’s Memorial and the main force behind the text of the engravings on it he referred to it as a monument of love. According to him it had not been erected to remind visitors of the tragic consequences of the Anglo-Boer War, but to honour the women and children named on the memorial: a monument with the overriding message of “Thy will be done”.
Because whatever Steyn and Hobhouse said about the Women’s Memorial was accepted unconditionally by Afrikaners, there was no public reaction against or a noticeable response to Emily’s call for forgiveness. Neither did it ever become a point of discussion in the history of the Afrikaners. With the exception of M.T. Steyn’s response, her call for forgiveness, “Forgive for you can afford it”, went unanswered, although the inscription on the Women’s Memorial contains the prayer of Christ: “Thy will be done”.
Keywords: Anglo-Boer war; concentration camps; Emily Hobhouse; forgiveness; Women’s Memorial; unveiling of Women’s Memorial
Lees die volledige artikel in Afrikaans
“Forgive for you can afford it”: Emily Hobhouse by die onthulling van die Vrouemonument