South Africa’s Forgotten War White South Africans who fought in
the long ‘Border War’ to maintain apartheid now find themselves
in a country run by their former enemies. Gary Baines examines
their continuing struggle to come to terms with the conflict and
their efforts to have their voices heard. At the base of a hill
near Pretoria stands a triangular memorial commemorating those
who died in South Africa’s ‘Border War’. It has been erected,
unofficially, by veterans of a conflict fought to preserve
apartheid. It stands, defiantly, on the approach road to another
memorial, recently erected by the post-apartheid government,
naming those who died ‘in the struggle for the nation’s
liberation’, but pointedly omitting the veterans’ names. The two
memorials represent two versions of South African history and
highlight one big unresolved issue – how should a war be
remembered when the majority of a nation chooses to forget?
Almost all white, male South Africans now between the ages of
around 35 and 60 donned the nutr