Talk:Boers

Hi Adi, appreciate the edits on Afrikanerdom, but I'm not 100% sure that you can really split Boer and Afrikaner into 2 separate groups. "Boer" essentially means farmer and these days most Afrikaans-speaking people would classify themselves as Afrikaans, not Boer. If anything, the only people who would apply the handle "boer" to themselves would be far right wing groupings like the Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweeging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), but that's more a political thing, than an actual demographic. Just my 2c worth from a local. :) Welshman 15:43, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

Boers and Afrikaners

Welshman, to me as a Boer, it is very clear that Boers and Afrikaners are two distinct cultural groups. There is a big difference in culture between the two. The term is used by some far-rightists, but there are clear anthropological distinctions between the two. I could possibly write an article on the differences, if that would help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Adi (talk)

I agree with Adi as the Boers are a distinct cultural group from the Afrikaners & have historically been so as the term Afrikaner is artificial & was promoted & applied to all White Afrikaans speakers in a political context particularly from the 1930s on - but most White Afrikaans speakers are not of Boer descent as they are from the Cape Dutch cultural group. Therefore the artificial term Afrikaner actually makes the Boers a minority within the designation.

Furthermore it should be noted that most Boers were propagandized into also viewing themselves as Afrikaners on the part of the politicians & the fact that the Boers had become a particularly impoverished people whose organizations were supplanted by Afrikaner ones. Therefore it is not that the Afrikaners & the Boers are the same but rather the Boers had their identity marginalized by the ascending Afrikaners.

The term Boer transcends political movements because it was & is still just the cultural term used to describe those Afrikaans speaking folks of Trekboer descent as the term was adopted by the folks who developed on the Cape frontier during the 1700s whom adopted an anti-colonial & independence outlook while those Afrikaans speakers who developed in the Western Cape did not & were often pro Colonial & did not subscribe to the Boers' independence outlook. Historians have classified the dialect of the Boers as Eastern Border Afrikaans named after the region where their dialect was created. The term Boer has been gaining prominence among those of Boer descent for decades now as many are realizing that the term Afrikaner made them part of another cultural group which does not even share their outlook as the Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners do not see the Great Trek / the Voortrekker Monument & other elements of Boer history as having anything to do with them - which of course is right. Ronp5 21:47, 3 October 2009 (EDT)