Frontiers, Freedom, and Hypocrisy (2/3): Romanticising History

2/3 – Why Cowboys Are Romanticized While Afrikaner (Boers) Are Not? In Part 1 of this series, we explored the myths surrounding figures like cowboys and Boers, questioning the balance between reality and storytelling. Now, in this second part, we take a closer look at how history itself is often romanticized, examining the cultural forces that shape these narratives and asking who benefits from the stories we choose to tell.

The romanticization of certain frontier groups, like American cowboys, while others, such as Afrikaner/Boers, are viewed through a more critical lens highlights significant historical and cultural hypocrisies.

Both groups share origins rooted in pastoral lifestyles, land conflicts, and self-reliance, yet their portrayals diverge drastically due to differences in global narratives and political legacies.

Key Similarities

• Pastoral Heritage: Both cowboys and Afrikaner/Boers emerged from frontier settings, facing harsh environments and relying on farming or cattle herding for survival.
• Land Conflicts: Their quests for land often involved violent displacement of indigenous populations—Native Americans in the U.S. and Zulu/Xhosa communities in South Africa.
• Identity Through Struggle: Both groups built mythologies around resilience and independence, with religion and tradition often framing their actions as morally or divinely justified.

The Hypocrisy of Romanticization

• Cowboys as Heroes: American cowboys are celebrated globally as symbols of freedom and adventure, their conflicts with Native Americans downplayed or reframed as part of the noble “taming” of the Wild West. This romanticization ignores the violence and dispossession central to their role in westward expansion.
• Afrikaners as Oppressors: Afrikaner/Boers, despite a similar pioneering spirit, are largely remembered through the lens of apartheid, with their cultural struggles overshadowed by their association with racial segregation and exploitation. Their comparable frontier hardships are rarely acknowledged or glorified.

Why the Difference?

• Global Media Power: American culture has exported the cowboy myth worldwide through films, books, and music, crafting an appealing narrative of rugged individualism that aligns with broader ideals of freedom and progress.
• Political Context: The Afrikaner/Boer legacy is deeply tied to apartheid, a system of oppression that remains a global symbol of injustice. This political context complicates any attempt to romanticize their frontier lifestyle.
• Selective Memory: The world often embraces historical narratives that fit a desired image—freedom in the U.S. versus oppression in South Africa—while disregarding parallels, such as land theft and indigenous displacement.

Conclusion

The contrasting treatment of cowboys and Afrikaner/Boers exposes how history is selectively romanticized or vilified based on cultural exportability, political legacies, and media influence. Both groups share complex histories of resilience and conflict, yet one is mythologized as a global symbol of freedom while the other is stigmatized by its role in oppression. This hypocrisy reflects broader tendencies to simplify and moralize historical narratives rather than confronting their full complexities.

Romanticizing history may seem harmless, but it has profound implications for how we understand identity and race today. How do these narratives influence modern society? And what happens when migration, colonization, and race intersect with these reimagined histories? Continue with us as we tackle these questions in Part 3: Migration, Colonization, and Race.