The Voortrekker monument was started in 1938 to glorify and codify the Afrikaner national narrative. When it was inaugurated in 1949, 250,000 Afrikaners attended -- the largest gathering of Afrikaners before or since. In addition to the original monument, it houses a museum of Afrikaner history. The museum is an attempt to tell the story of Afrikaners in a way that they can be proud of how they overcome genuine hardships, such as British persecution, and to come to terms with the apartheid period. It highlights Afrikaner culture, language poetry etc. It is an attempt to construct a narrative which is both "true" -- does not gloss over apartheid, but at the same time of which Afrikaners can identify and feel proud. As such it requires careful study and thought. Visiting, we were approached by a very kind Afrikaner family who told us they had brought their children to learn "their history, because they don't learn it in the schools." The overall mood struck me as one of ambivalence -- recognition of the wrongs of apartheid mixed with lingering pride of some of the things South Africa did under apartheid. It reminded me very much of visiting the Ulster Folk Museum in Northern Ireland.
It got me thinking about what sort of Zionist monuments might be preserved after Zionism in Palestine, and what sort of narrative de-Zionized Israeli Jews might start to construct to come to terms with the horrors Zionism perpetrated and the loss of power of its beneficiaries, and at the same time the recovery of a unique cultural heritage shorn of racism and supremacy. This will be important work for Israeli Jews to do. The Voortrekker Museum suggests it is far from complete in South Africa.
The Voortrekker Monument
The circled wagons of the "laager"
Pretoria seen from the top of the monument with the Union Buildings at the center
A frieze inside the original 1938 monument depicts settler women and children being massacred by Africans
In the museum -- I believe this is a poster from the conscientious objectors movement. At a certain point some white men began to resist compulsory conscription into the whites-only apartheid army.