One day former President PW Botha and I were chatting when he mentioned that Afrikaners are very individualistic. Then as an afterthought, he added, “perhaps too much…”.

I had a similar discussion with Colonel John Redfern who runs the Rhodesia Association of South Africa. He is an avid student of history with an encyclopaedic knowledge of southern African history. He remarked to me that he’s skeptical about whites from Africa co-operating because, right from the beginning, everyone was setting up his own country!

There have been SEVERAL Afrikaner Republics… but only two lasted for any true length of time and achieved international recognition. Which… by the way… must itself be a bit of an accomplishment… Few people remember that the Afrikaners had TWO independent countries in what is now S.Africa. Approximately half of modern day S.Africa was once ruled only by them.

And frankly, when I look at the way we people are, I also have my moments of despair. Everyone is doing his own thing.

But I do not regard the situation with as much DESPAIR as I used to. I realise too, that we are a COMPETITIVE LOT. That’s why we are this way. We all are fighting among each other and competing against each other – but this is a natural human process.

Afrikaners are legendary for fighting amongst themselves. They break into small groups and really hack away at each other.

Many people look on the situation as hopeless… and yet, just a few decades ago, these same people were actually pretty much united. In the 1960’s – all whites – even english and afrikaans-speaking whites – were very much united with the same vision. So we do know that unity WAS POSSIBLE and it was there for several decades.

But there is another parallel in history I thought I would draw because many people might not have realised it.

The Mongols today are a tiny nation of little significance. In ancient times they were also largely insignificant. Centuries ago, the Mongols really fought against each other. There were many tribes and they fought furiously against each other – in real war – killing each other.

And while they were fighting against each other they amounted to nothing in the world.

But then, along came a leader… Ghengis Khan… He was intelligent and cunning and he did the impossible… he united them.

Then, all that fighting and killing started paying off. They had become so good at fighting each other, that when they united and started fighting others, they turned into killing machines!

The Mongols were extremely clever and they managed to conquer the biggest nation on earth – the Chinese! They were very clever with their warfare and diplomacy and soon they had armies conquering Asia, the Middle East and even parts of Europe.

The Mongols nearly conquered Japan. The legendary Samurai saved Japan. The Mongols almost reached the Atlantic ocean.

The Mongol armies were mobile and their tactics were utterly brilliant. Using cunning they smashed stronger armies.

When Ghengis Khan died, the Mongols started going downhill. It was much the same as happened with Alexander the Great’s empire.

But the fact remains that these crazy, individualistic, fighting people were united for a time, and when they were, they conquered the greatest Empire the world has EVER known.

So perhaps one should not write off all these Afrikaners, Rhodesians and other whites from Africa who are so damned individualistic and so competitive and combative. You never know… maybe all they need is the equivalent of an Afrikaans Ghengis Khan to unite them all… and you never know what these people might get up to! Jan