Pula! Botswana at 50: love, race and duty in the struggle for freedom
▻http://www.groundup.org.za/article/pula-botswana-50-love-race-and-duty-struggle-freedom
Here was the future King of the Bamangwato, a border people, whose labour was interwoven with South African capitalism, whose capital was at Mafikeng, within South Africa, presuming to transgress the most basic prejudices of the racial order.
The rush of correspondence to stop this abominable wedding was intense. The British government hired lawyers, mobilised diplomats and succeeded in getting a Church of England Bishop to refuse the marriage. Seretse’s uncle forbade him to proceed and Ruth was cast out of her family for a while.
(…) Jan Smuts intervened and changed Churchill’s mind, convincing him that support for Seretse would only harden the Nationalists who had defeated Smuts in South Africa. “Natives traditionally believe in authority,” Smuts explained, “and our whole Native system will collapse if weakness is shown in this regard.”
#Botswana #Afrique_du_Sud #colonialisme #histoire #mariage #racisme #beau
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMswBd8AND4