With a long history of warfare, South Africa has numerous historical and battlefield safari options. Many of the battlefields are very well preserved which makes reliving battles of the past so real. Most of the battlefield tours and safaris concentrate on the many Zulu Battlefields and Anglo Boer War Battlefields dotted around South Africa -- especially in the KwaZulu Natal province.
South Africa, riding the wave of a international tourism boom, is bracing for record numbers by promoting the neglected African side of one of the world's most beautiful and culturally diverse nations.
South Africa is offering separate packages to lure visitors from other countries which have had historic links with South Africa such as Malaysia, Indonesia and India from where many slaves and indentured labourers were brought in during colonial rule.
Heritage tours
The other attractions to be touted are the home of Sol Plaatje, the first chief of the African National Congress (ANC) -- the continent's oldest liberation movement -- as "people want to know how the South African miracle was achieved."
In Pretoria, once a bastion of white supremacy, South Africa is proposing a new route which begins with the Voortrekker Monument -- an imposing edifice commemorating Afrikaner nationalism -- in which South African Tourism will also highlight the role of the Zulus in the historic Battle of Blood River. This 1838 war heralded the beginning of the end of the Zulu Kingdom after 464 Boers under the command of Andries Pretorius defeated more than 10 000 Zulu warriors.
The trail would then take visitors to the spot where a young black ANC activist Solomon Mahlangu was executed in 1979, a traditional shebeen or tavern in the black township of Mamelodi where a renowned black protest musician-cum-poet Vusi Mahlasela holds court, and finally to the British-built Union Buildings, the seat of power.
"The Union Buildings are a fitting end as it is emblematic of the new South Africa, which is home to black and white, Asian and Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Jew."
A lot of the vision comes from the personal history and struggle of Carolus, a mixed-race woman who was born on the wrong side of the tracks in Cape Town but married a white man when inter-racial unions were banned and frowned upon.
Politically conscious at a young age, she rose to become one of the leading members of the ANC and was the main person dealing with the media during the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. She then served as ambassador to Britain after the end of apartheid. |
