The Effects of European Imperialism on South Africa

The county of South Africa is an economically flourishing country and probably the most advanced country on the continent of Africa. However the entire continent of Africa is probably the most undeveloped part of the world. Why is South Africa so different from the rest of its continent? Karen Politis Virk explains that it is because of South Africa’s developed economy and diverse population (Virk 40). South Africa has three main ethnic groups: African, Afrikaners, and the mixed race. The Afrikaners and mixed races have many roots to Europe and Asia giving the nation even more diversity and a culture melting pot. This set the nation apart from the rest of the African nation in which the majority of the residents are of native African descent (Virk 38). There has been no mixing of cultures or ideas in the nations as there has been in South Africa. South Africa has less problems with diseases and socio-economic problems. The reason for South Africa’s success could be because they have had such a tumultuous and interesting history compared to the rest of the continent The majority of the African continent is underdeveloped for one simple reason: diversity (Abdullkadir, 634). The rest of Africa has all had some sort of outside influence, but the influence did not stay with the people. The Boers developed differently than the rest of Africa, and the breaking point is the Boer War.

The Boer War is a forgotten war. Many educated people cannot tell you anything about this war, except maybe where it was fought at. The war has many names: The South African War, The Anglo-Boer War, and the Boers call it the Engelse oorlog, or English War. It resulted after many decades of bickering and conflict between the Afrikaans, the Dutch settlers in t...

... middle of paper ...

... South African Journal of Science 105.5 (2009): 171-. Print.

Oxford University. "Boer Wars." The Oxford Companion to British History. Ed. John Cannon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 111. Print.

Pakenbam, Thomas. The Boer War. New York: Random House, 1979. Print.

Sparks, Julie. "Consent for the Boer War." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 44.3 (2001): 385-8. Print.

Van Heyningen, Elizabeth. "Costly Mythologies: The Concentration Camps of the South African War in Afrikaner Historiography*." Journal of Southern African Studies 34.3 (2008): 495-513. Print.

van Heyningen, Elizabeth. "A Tool for Modernisation? the Boer Concentration Camps of the South African War, 1900-1902." South African Journal of Science 106.5 (2010): 1-10. Print.

Virk, Karen Politis. "South Africa Today." Applied Clinical Trials 18.11 (2009): 38-44. Print.