Pleading Patriots and Malleable Memories: The South African Cape Corps during the First World War (1914–1918) and Its Twentieth-Century Legacy

Abstract

s p r i n g 2 0 1 7 w i c a z o s a r e v i e w news of the outbreak of war in Europe prompted a surge of pro empire sentiments and effusive declarations of loyalty to Britain among many colored (mixedrace) people in the Union of South Africa. Orchestrating and encouraging these avowals was the African Political Organisation (APO) of Dr. Abdullah Abdurahman. The APO was the main political vehicle for colored people, and its newspaper, also by the same name, played an influential role in disseminating political ideas. The First World War initially dominated the entire content of the newspaper. Mass meetings were further occasions to provide voluble support. One such meeting in the landmark Cape Town City Hall was described as “of an enthusiastic character with the audience, which embraced practically all sections of the coloured community, almost filling the floor of the spacious hall.” A motion of loyalty to the British Crown was accepted with wild applause. Support for the British war effort went beyond the Cape Town epicenter, and thirty towns in the Cape countryside, as well as meetings in Johannesburg and Pretoria, weighed in with similar declarations of loyalty. To add substance to these patriotic sentiments, some colored notables established a special fund to help contribute to warrelated initiatives. Although the vociferous support might at face value be considered as blind, unthinking loyalty and difficult to comprehend, given the prevailing levels of discrimination against colored people in the Pleading Patriots and Malleable Memories the South African Cape Corps during the First World War (1914–1918) and its twentiethCentury Legacy