Colouring-in is something that most of us grow-out of by about the age of 5… but not so for a fellow called Tinus Le Roux. He recently produced a book of colourised Boer War photos, and continues to spew these out on his Facebook page. Had he just produced a book with photos to which he’d added a bit of colour, then that might have been a relatively distracting offering… for about 30 seconds. Instead, however, he surreally decided that being competent at colouring-in makes him an overnight expert on the Boer War, and his colourised pictures are accompanied by text which is often the biggest load of myth-laden nonsense.
Of course, it is possible that Le Roux is just shamelessly playing to the Peanut Gallery, knowing his more simple-minded followers greedily lap up these gruesome / inaccurate / self-pitying captions – most of which appear to have been simply pulled out of the air by Le Roux, or perhaps lifted from a National Party approved book on the conflict.
Suffice to say, he has been making something of a spectacle of himself for a while now, and it only got worse recently when he decided his advanced colouring-in skills meant that he is in a position to lecture the estimable Peter Dickens about the Boer War. To understand just how breathtakingly arrogant this is, one has to remember that Dickens is an expert not just on the Boer War, but also on post-war Afrikaner Nationalism, antisemitism, and links to Nazism – and has published numerous academic papers on these topics.
Le Roux, in stark contrast, has… well… just done a bit of colouring-in:
Needless to say, by daring to write about historical reality, Dickens was not trying to ‘discredit Afrikaners’. Dickens writes about the historical reality of the Boer War because that is what a real Historian is meant to do – just as a Historian writing on the realties of WW2 is not out to ‘discredit Germans’. For reasons known only to himself, however, Le Roux seems much more comfortable with someone who instead panders to the self-pitying, Apartheid-era myths; but there is a name for someone who re-writes history to please his target audience: a propagandist.
Of course, we cannot be sure if Le Roux actually believes any of this utter rubbish, or if he is simply playing to his ‘base’ in the hope of selling a few more books to the NP Faithful… but if he genuinely thinks it is just a ‘conspiracy theory’ that the leaders of the Transvaal and Orange Free State caused the Boer War, then he really does belong in a tinfoil-hat wearing cult (possibly one based in Orania).
Indeed, one is left to wonder if Le Roux also thinks it is a ‘conspiracy theory’ that Germany invaded the USSR in 1941? Equally, does he deny that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor later that same year? Presumably he also believes it is simply a mad ‘conspiracy theory’ that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022?
As inconvenient as it is for the likes of Le Roux (and his more thick-headed followers), there is no doubt that the extremist and fanatical leaders of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State caused the Boer War. A few facts, complete with references:
• Kruger had been pushing the OFS to join him in an offensive alliance against the British since 1887[i].
• The Boers were the ones who had been gun-running and rabble-rousing in British territory for years[ii], prior to the Jameson Raid and the arrival of Milner on the scene.
• The Boers were the ones who hatched the ‘Bogus Conspiracy’[iii] plot – a laughably botched, Keystone Cops style, false flag, attempt to try to give themselves a semi-plausible casus belli.
• The Boers were the ones that mobilised first[iv] – indeed, the Transvaal had sent men to the border of Natal a month before they started the war[v].
• The various territories of South Africa were at peace at the start of October 1899, and the Boers were the ones who ended that reality by declaring war[vi].
And not only that, but – after their truly insane declaration of war – the Boers were the ones who then invaded the British territories of Natal and the Cape Colony. All the battles of the first few months of the war were fought in British territory, as the outnumbered and scattered Imperial garrison tried to contain and repel these invasions. It has clearly escaped the attention of Le Roux that the invading Boers quickly besieged three towns in British territory – Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith (plus the one-horse outpost of Kuruman) – how does he think that was done if the Boers did not invade? Has he thought about any of this at all?
To dismiss all this historical fact as a ‘conspiracy theory’ can only be the ravings of someone who is entirely ignorant about the Boer War… or the rantings of someone who is brazenly throwing out red meat to his extremist and closed-minded followers, and who has no qualms about keeping divisive, self-serving, and completely ahistorical, National Party myths alive.
Still, what can we really expect from someone who is so enamoured of Apartheid-era propaganda that, barely able to stop himself giggling and blushing, swooningly declared the blundering coward that was Christiaan de Wet to have been (wait for it) ‘a Boer War superhero’:
Le Roux seems blissfully unaware that the reason this (ahem) ‘superhero’ wasn’t captured during the Boer War was that he was always the first to run away from Imperial troops – examples of his cowardice and dereliction of duty include Brandwater Basin[vii], Bothaville[viii], and – most comically of all – his crackpot ‘invasion’ of Cape Colony[ix]. It is doubtful that the thousands of men he left behind as he fled time after time, intent only on saving his own skin, considered him to be a ‘superhero’.
Perhaps Le Roux should spare us any more of his sycophantic, warmed-over National Party propaganda, and stick to what he does best: colouring-in.
NOTES:
[i] Cook, The Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War, p.92
[ii] Frere, Letters from an Uitlander, p.21
Warwick, Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902, p.65
Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, p.61
[iii] Amery, The Times History of the War in South Africa, Vol.1, p.302
[iv] Cook, The Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War, p.241
[v] Farrelly, The Settlement After the War, p.213
[vi] C.9530, no.53
[vii] With truly Ocean-going ineptitude, De Wet brainlessly led thousands of men into the blatantly obvious trap of the Brandwater Basin, then, as the British closed the net, ensured he was in the first group that fled. Over 4000 Boers were left behind by their ‘super-hero’ leader to be captured.
[viii] When a tiny British force – initially just 67 men of the 5th Mounted Infantry and two guns of ‘U’ Battery RHA – caught De Wet’s 800-strong commando literally napping, the ‘superhero’ ran away as fast as he could – despite his advantage in numbers over his attackers. His cowardly flight sparked a rout and much of his force fled with him. Others were not so lucky: the British killed 25 Boers and captured another 130 – plus De Wet’s six guns. Sergeant Jackson of the MI waspishly noted that De Wet ‘was the first to clear as usual’. Some ‘superhero’.
[ix] De Wet’s ridiculous ‘invasion’ of the Cape was a farce from start to finish, and all he achieved was to run away faster than the Imperial columns chasing him. Most of the 2,500 men he led into the Cape were not so fortunate, and De Wet’s panic-stricken incompetence had cost him all his transport and guns.
2 Comments
Tinus runs a Forum on Facebook where he showcases the colourisation of Anglo Boer Photos.
I joined the Forum and the first ten or so posts I read were about Concentration Camps. Now I am pretty thick skinned but even I was shocked at the naked hatred of the British and blatant misrepresentation of events these posts portrayed and contained.
I added a post expressing my dismay that such posts were permitted and were allowed to go unchecked by the site owner and moderators, only to find myself banned from the Forum after being a member for less than a day.
I had previously corresponded with Tinus on Faebook so I sent him a civil message asking why and who had banned me from his site, despite reading the message sadly Tinus has not even had the decency to acknowledge my message or reply.
Don’t think I will be bothering purchasing this publication Chris.
Best wishes Scottie
The very fact that Tinus dismisses anyone who doesn’t share his love of National Party propaganda as a ‘flat-earther’ tells us all we need to know. I wonder if he knows that his poster boy, Kruger, genuinely was a flat-earther? Yup – that’s how stupid the man was… and yet the brainless Faithful hero-worship him.
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