Fifty years ago, on 17 December 1962, the then State President CR Swart, unveiled a monument just outside Grahamstown, commemorating a very special gesture of friendship of 175 years ago.
Fifty years ago, on 17 December 1962, the then State President CR Swart, unveiled a monument just outside Grahamstown, commemorating a very special gesture of friendship of 175 years ago.
A group of about 100 from the family of Jakobus Uys trekked from the district of Uitenhage, and camped out next to the Bedford road, looking for a church minister to accompany them to the North. Led by William Rowland Thompson, a prominent businessman and later mayor of Grahamstown, funds were collected and a large Bible, bound in Russian leather, was presented to the Uys trek (the same Bible is kept at the Voortrekker Museum in Pretoria).
Even though the Dutch and British were often at war those days, strong bonds of friendship grew between Boer and Brit during the three decades of sharing wells and woes in the Albany area. With the Bible as mutual inspiration, warm pledges of cordial friendship and appreciation were made with the presentation of that Bible.
With the memories of the Anglo-Boer war still strong and fresh disagreements around World War II, it was amazing that strong delegations from the Afrikaner and English communities of Grahamstown worked together in the 1950s to plan, fund raise and build the Bible Monument, which is in essence a Friendship Monument. Leading figures in this project were Dirk Pretorius (also editor of Grocott’s Mail) and Tom Bowker, MP for Albany.
On the eve of the new South Africa, 20 years ago, on 16 December 1992, the Rapportryers of Grahamstown (representing the Afrikaans community) presented a Xhosa and English Bible, together with a pledge for peace and reconciliation, to representatives of the Xhosa- and English-speaking communities of Grahamstown.
This could have planted a seed for the Day of the Vow to become our national Day of Reconciliation.
Governing small acts of friendship like these, 2 000 years ago, God reached out in divine friendship to this world in Jesus Christ, the saviour King who was born in Bethlehem. And God’s clearly stated purpose of his act of friendship was to bring peace between God and man, but very specifically also between us as people.
