Tag: South Africa stamp

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South Africa 1991, keeping a manned science station on Antarctica

We have done a few of these Antarctica stamps. No South Africa doesn’t put out stamps from their Antarctic stations like some others. In 1991 they put out this issue to give hints about what they had going on. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This issue was on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty allows nations to have scientific stations on Antarctica but they must not be militarized. You might be surprised that South Africa took advantage of that but they have a long presence that continues.

Todays stamp is issue A280, a 27 Cent stamp issued by South Africa on December 5th, 1991. It was a two stamp issue in various denominations, this one showing the research vessel S A Agulhas. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

South Africa maintains 3 scientific stations in the South Pole region with one each on Marion  and Gough Islands and the SANAE IV station on the Antarctic mainland. To keep them manned year round is quite an undertaking and the research vessel S A Agulhas was acquired in 1978 from Japan. It is not a full icebreaker but the hull is ice strengthened. The ship is the size of a large destroyer and can accommodate 200 people. Of special importance in the hanger accommodation for 2 large Oryx helicopters. An Oryx is a South African copy  of a French Puma helicopter. Remember the ship must visit all three stations annually to replace staff and carry adequate supplies to last through the winter. All waste from the stations must be taken away as well.

I mentioned that the current mainland station is called SANAE IV. Stations tend to have a short life because over not much time at all the get buried in the snow. The current station was built in 1997 and raised up on stilts to avoid this and to just let the snow blow through. This design has been copied by newer stations. It houses 10 in winter and 50 in summer.

SANAE IV station. Notice the stilts and the red painted roofs to make it more visible from the air

The Agulhas had a bad December 1991 despite being honoured that month with a stamp. The ships rudder broke and it got stuck in a ice drift off of Gough Island. The German icebreaker and research ship R V Polarstern was able to free it. In 2002 The Agulhas’s helicopters were able to free the crew of the Russian cargo vessel M V Magdalina  Oldendorff. Part of the Antarctic Treaty is that everybody cooperates regarding safety.

Not everything is safe on board though and not just from the cold. There have been two shipboard murders on board. One by axe and one by stabbing. The charges were dropped in the first case and the suspect in the second case went overboard to escape justice. The ship was replaced in 2012 in it’s Antarctic duties by the Finnish made S A Agulhas II. Agulhas still serves as a training vessel.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the hearty crews of Antarctica stations and the ships that supply them. Sounds like great adventure but I wish they would describe more what scientific advances are being made. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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South Africa 1991, as we wind it down, why not some achievements to inspire the next bunch

I while back I did a South African stamp from the early 60s as they started to try to go it alone that made the case why it could work, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/12/21/south-africa-1966-a-tiny-minority-can-go-it-alone-because-they-have-diamonds-but-do-they/  . In 1991 the writing on the wall was more clearly read and South Africa was transitioning to majority rule. So why not look back at some things South Africa achieved going it alone. There was stuff to talk about, like gold mines, but how about medical breakthroughs. Stamps can teach this stamp collector. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp shows the achievement of the first human to human heart transplant in 1967. There was a 1969 stamp showing Dr. Christian Barnard the man who performed it. He gained some notoriety after the achievement and his behavior perhaps is why he was edited out here. As a white South African on the world stage, the world simply demanded that he condemn his own country. He duly Shat on his country even going on a black Africa tour to do it. He of course wanted a Nobel Prize and probably was personally politically liberal. It did not work. He did not get a Nobel. The bow and scrape dance must have earned Dr. Barnard much credibility among South Africa’s majority? No his death in 2001 did not merit a memorial stamp. Interestingly, at least to me, was that his liberal 1960s position was that South Africa should be divided to give blacks homelands, the 1980s policy, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/20/bophuthatswana-1985-the-tswana-people-get-industrious-in-the-bop/  .

Todays stamp is issue A276, a 25 cent stamp issued by South Africa on May 30th, 1991. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog. the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Dr. Christian Barnard was trained and practiced in Cape Town. A hospital in Minnesota, having had good luck with another South African doctor, sought more and got Dr. Barnard for a few years, There he became involved in a top flight heart institute. The field of transplanting hearts seemed life changing. In 1954, the heart of a chimpanzee had been transplanted into a human and beated but the man died 90 minutes later never having woken up. Probably for the best that. Several teams in America and now Barnard’s team in South Africa transplanted one dogs heart into another. A small percentage lived. Dr. Barnard in 1967 was ready to try on humans. He convinced those involved there was an 80% chance of success. The heart of a brain dead 25 year old woman that had been hit by a car was put in a 57 year old man near death from hypertension and diabetes. In the women’s last minutes she had ice water poured in her ear to look for any reaction. The transplant was successful and the man woke up with the new heart. He died a few weeks later from pneumonia brought on by the anti rejection drugs.

Dr. Barnard in 1969

Dr. Barnard was now famous. He divorced his wife and married a string of young models. He even claimed to have had a one night stand with Gina Lolabrigida  while in Rome to have an audience with the Pope. His reputation sank over time as it became obvious that heart transplants were not a long term success for patients. He further lowered himself when he began promoting an anti aging creme. Country’s don’t get to cast their heroes

The reason heart transplants didn’t work is theorized that the patients brain had adjusted to the original damaged heart and those instuctions continued to the new healthy heart. Soon enough the new heart was itself bad.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the team at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. It still exists and still uses that name. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Orange River Colony, For a time, the British Race Patriot wins over the Afrikaner Bond

The British had a goal of a British sphere in Africa from Cape Town to Cairo. Opponents to this were not just found among African natives or rival European colonial powers. South Africa had many Afrikaner settlers of Dutch heritage, many who had already trekked north to give the British their space. At the turn of the 20th century, they turned and fought to keep what they built. To meet this challenge, the British administration turned to self proclaimed British Race Patriot Alfred Milner who dreamed of uniting British people who had gone far and wide, as England was weak without their congress. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The Orange River Colony stamps do not resemble the earlier issues of the Orange Free State. For a while the old issues of the Boer free state were overprinted VRI for Victoria Regina Imperatrix to signify areas of British occupation. It was only in 1903 that the stamp printers were caught up enough to reflect the current situation and honour Edward VII.

Todays stamp is issue A8, a one penny issue of the British Orange River Colony in 1903. It was a 9 stamp issue in various denominations and the only definitive stamp issue of the Orange River Colony that lasted 10 years. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The previous independent Orange Free State was founded in 1854 by Afrikaner Boers of Dutch heritage whose main activity was farming. The area was about 60% black but those folks had no say in government though actual slavery was banned. The British vision of a south to north British sphere was put forth prominently by Alfred Milner, later Governor of the Orange River Colony. His credo is reprinted below not out of approval but to open a window into period thinking.

“I am a Nationalist and not a cosmopolitan …. I am a British (indeed primarily an English) Nationalist. If I am also an Imperialist, it is because the destiny of the English race, owing to its insular position and long supremacy at sea, has been to strike roots in different parts of the world. I am an Imperialist and not a Little Englander because I am a British Race Patriot … The British State must follow the race, must comprehend it, wherever it settles in appreciable numbers as an independent community. If the swarms constantly being thrown off by the parent hive are lost to the State, the State is irreparably weakened. We cannot afford to part with so much of our best blood. We have already parted with much of it, to form the millions of another separate but fortunately friendly State. We cannot suffer a repetition of the process.” Milner was left leaning and a member of the Labour Party.

The Viscount Milner

The Boers sensing the threat formed the Afrikaner Bond to defend themselves from this British threat and fought and eventually lost a string of Boer Wars that ended with the Orange River Colony. It came with attempts to make the place more British. The British military effort in the area was helped along by the discovery of gold in 1886. The resulting gold rush brought many new inland residents who were mostly British and referred to by the Boers as Uitlanders.

After the Boer war, many Boers pledged allegiance to the British Crown and in return were allowed to play a part in post war politics. By 1910, when the British colonies in South Africa formed a British Dominion as the Union of South Africa, many members of the Afrikaner Bond were playing a part and looking out for Boer interest, a process that Alfred Milner would have found suboptimum. Times change and then keep changing.

Well my drink is empty and I find myself reading  and rereading that man’s credo. Saying things frankly in that way is so foriegn. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

 

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Basutoland, Would Her Majesty help a fellow King with the Boers

We have done several stamps from the former colonies of South Africa before it federated. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/04/27/natal-boers-to-the-left-zulus-to-the-right-and-stuck-in-the-middle-with-the-indians/ Most had white rule, but not all and today comes a stamp from an area that kept black rule and stayed independent even as South Africa transitioned to majority rule. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Aesthetically this stamp is both quite old fashioned and yet up to date. The British policy toward the African colonies was about to change. The new policy became known as the writing is on the wall. It meant that the British were going to leave and turn over power to the majority blacks. This was most controversial in the south where there were more white settlers that couldn’t see themselves under black rule. Lots of old history now but look who is on this stamp from even earlier, the current Queen of Great Britain. It is amazing to think how long she has been guiding the ship of the Empire/Commonwealth.

Todays stamp is issue A7, a 3 Pence stamp issued by the British Crown Colony of Basutoland on October 18th, 1954. It was part of an eleven stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Basutoland was ruled by King Moshoeshoe I. He had been successful in raiding neighboring cattle herds earning him the name the razor. He sensed early on that if his empire was to survive he needed to procure a white advisor. The appearance of Christian missionaries provided that. He also was able to acquire some firearms for his warriors. His warriors therefore did surprisingly well against Zulu and British rivals. In victory, Moshoeshoe was conciliatory and so wars were just incidents not long battles and the British established friendly relations.

King Moshoeshoe I

This would prove useful when the Boers came for the land. Boers, Dutch heritage South Africans sent what they called trekkers into Basuto land from the Orange Free State. Again Moshoeshoe had early military success against them but the Boers kept coming in ever greater numbers. King Moshoeshoe appealed to Queen Victoria for help. A deal was struck with the Boers making Basutoland a British Crown Colony with new borders that ended the Boer intrusion. Moshoeshoe I was kept on has Paramount Chief with substantial powers. The area remained far less than one percent white.

As the British read their writing on the wall in the 50s and 60s, the then current Paramount Chief was named King Moshoeshoe II of the new Kingdom of Lesotho. Relations with apartheid South Africa were tense as the ANC had a presence in Lesotho, but British pressure again kept the Boers out. Lesotho decided not to join the new South Africa   in the 1990s and Moshoeshoe I’s Royal line still sits on Lesotho’s Throne. All this stability has not translated into prosperity. The GNP per person is about one sixth that of not rich South Africa, and much of that is from remittances of Lesotho citizens working in South Africa.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Catholic missionaries that got King Moshoeshoe’s ear. You would think that advise from missionaries would just be of a spiritual nature but their good advise lead to a stability and continuity unusual in the region. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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South Africa 1966, A tiny minority can go it alone because they have diamonds, but do they?

Apartheid South Africa thought they could  break off from Britain and the whole world because of the wealth created by diamonds. How well though did they really control it? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The aesthetics of the stamp tell a powerful story with a simple rendering of a diamond. There is a version of the stamp with the country name in English so as not to crowd out the image with superfluous text as with some bilingual Canadian stamps. This stamp recognized the 5th anniversary of the formal declaring of a white republic and the end of British Commonwealth and Dominion status. The issue included a view of Table Mountain, to show beauty, corn to show self sufficiency, a flying bird to show the freedoms enjoyed by the white minority, but the most interesting one to me is the majestic view given to the diamond. To have the view that rule by a small minority was sustainable, what better than show a source of unending wealth. How well though was the diamond resource controlled? Perhaps less directly than the stamp implies.

Todays stamp is issue A126 a one cent stamp issued by the Republic of South Africa on May 31st, 1966. It was part 8 stamp issue in vaious denominations celebrating the 5th anniversary of the unilateral declaration of republic status. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

Diamonds were first mined in South Africa in the colonial period after being discovered by Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was a homosexual and therefore lacked heirs who could run the operation after his death. Into the void came a mining engineer named Oppenheimer that had emigrated from Germany and invested in the De Beers operation. He converted to Anglican and started the Anglo- American mining that merged with de Beers. By then the de Beers operation controlled 90 percent of the worlds diamond mining. In addition to Southern African production, they bought the output of other producers and routed the output through a system of diamond cutters in Israel. The spread out structure of the operation allowed de Beers to get around sanctions. To the Israelis it was a Jewish concern, opposed to Apartheid and employing many blacks. To London operations, the diamonds were coming from Israel. De Beers was 10 percent of the GNP of South Africa and 40 percent of the exports. All the middlemen meant that South Africa was not getting as rich as it might have had the operation been more purely South African. Yet that would have subject to the sanctions that fell on South Africa after breaking the ties to Britain.

In the 1950s, the British saw the writing on the wall and were preparing to turn over the African colonies to local African leaders. To a place like South Africa, with a relatively large number of white residents this was threatening as they did not see black rule as realistic. Unilaterally, South Africa ended Dominion status and declared itself an independent Republic. Only whites voted on this and the measure only carried 52-48. Over time, ever greater international sanctions fell on South Africa in order to pressure them to face the inevitable. South Africa however was by far the richest country in Africa and even their repressed black residents enjoyed a much higher standard of living than black run former colonies to the north. This attracted ever more black Africans to move to South Africa while there was a steady stream of whites out. Eventually a deal was struck and white rule ended.

Ever resourceful de Beers goes on. It had always maintained an official position against white rule and has been generous with new black governments in the area. A new trick is the blood diamond. de Beers announced in 1999 that no diamonds would be sourced from countries in Africa with long running civil wars. This helped delegitimize alternate to de Beers sources of diamonds. The diamonds were supporting long running civil wars in places like Sierra Leonne and Angola but it does seem to be throwing rocks from a glass house.

Well my drink is empty and I am left staring at the majestic diamond on todays stamp. The decision to break with Britain and try to continue alone could not have been easy. They must have been heavily counted on wealth from de Beers, so much of which was syphoned off. The original blood diamond? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Cape of Good Hope 1875, don’t tell us how to run our colony

Colonists are a long way from home, but that does not mean they want the home country telling them what to do. This is especially true if the instructions will complicate their life. So slip on your smoking jacket fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The stamp today features Hope, the Latin female embodiment of the English colony. Such visualizations were much more common in the 19th century. It is worth noting that the first British monarch did not appear on a Cape of Good Hope stamp till 1902. This is reflective of the poor relations between Britain and the colony.

The stamp today is issue A6, a half penny stamp issued by the Cape of Good Hope Colony in 1875. It is part of a 12 stamp issue in various denominations issued over many years. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $16 used.

The Cape of Good Hope is on the coast of Southern Africa about 90 miles west of the division between the Indian and Atlantic oceans. There is a legend that an Indian junk landed around 1000 AD but the Portuguese arrived in the 1490s. Local African Hottentots in the area were nomadic hunter/gatherers with no fixed settlements. The first settlements were Dutch under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company, as a natural stop on the India trade. The Dutch settlers, called Boers, many of whom were German or French Huguenots, often trekked far inland in search of prime farmland. The Colony fell to the British during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1834, the British banned slavery and this sent many of the remaining Boers to Transvaal and the Orange Free State. There had been trouble with the native Xhosa tribe. This trouble dropped away when the Xhosa chief was convinced that if the tribe killed it’s own cattle and burned its crops and clothes that their ancestors who rise up from the dead and kill all the white settlers. The British settlers seeing what was happening, left food out for them, but the tribe decimated itself. This tragedy had the silver lining that the Cape colony became unusually peaceful and prosperous with it’s place on the India trade route.

Into this success came the colony masters from London. They had the idea to federate the multiple colonies of southern Africa into a federation modeled on what had recently been done with Canada. This did not take into account the different ethnicities of the white settlers and the still African ruled homelands in the area. The Cape Governor John Molteno fought the British intrusion as best he could, understanding that other areas of South Africa were much less stable and plagued with wars. He was British, but of half Italian decent and his first wife and child were mixed race. He was a trader and farmer and a rougher character than the British were used to. The British deposed Molteno and sent a new governor from Britain to try to pull off the home country’s federation idea. This did not go well with the outside governor leading a disastrous war with the Zulus and he was eventually sent back to London under charges. South Africa did not unite for another 30 years.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to the toast the white settlers of the Cape that left out food for the suiciding Xhosa tribe. The Xhosa’s hatred must have been very strong to do what they did. It was a touching act of Christian grace to reach out and try to save them from themselves. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collected.

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The Dutch Reform Faith Healer

Welcome readers to today’s offering from The Philatelist. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take the first sip of your favorite adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Todays story will be new to most of you.

Todays stamp is labeled RSA. This means it comes from South Africa and was issued in the later years of the apartheid government. Earlier South African stamps were labeled Suid-Africa. Today South Africa is how the stamps are labeled. RSA stood for the Republic of South Africa.

Our stamp today is issue A197, a four cent stamp issued on May 9th, 1978. The stamp was issued to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Andrew Murray. According to the Scott catalog, it is worth 25 cents, whether mint or cancelled.

Dr. Andrew Murray was a minister, an educator, an evangelist, an author, and a faith healer. He was born in Graaf Reinet, South Africa in 1828 to a French mother and a Scottish father. He was educated in Scotland and the Netherlands and began his faith journey in the Dutch Reform Church.

Much or Dr. Murray’s early work involved education. Achievements in this field included schools for girls, who prior to his time were underserved. He was also the first President of the South African YMCA. Dr. Murray somehow found the time to author 240 books on Christian issues.

Dr. Murray is very involved from his early years in a new revival of Christianity called the Keswick movement. They very much believed in the healing power of prayer. The praying for the healing of maladies and exorcism of demons was controversial among the more conservative church authorities. Indeed the movement is considered discredited by some Christians. By others however,  the Keswick movement is respected as a precursor to the Pentecostal movement.

I suspect that the doctrinal differences are not what is being celebrated by this South African stamp. The work in rural education is being honored. Dr. Murray’s evangelical movement spread to other countries in Africa and the South Africa General Mission that he founded is the root of the Serving in Mission organization that is active in Africa to this day.

South Africa today would probably not find Dr. Murray worthy of a stamp issue today. This though is one of the great things about stamp collecting. The commissioning of stamps goes on for such a long period that one gets to see different perspectives and ideologies reflected in them. Through the stamp of a long ago era, we can put ourselves in the position of a citizen of the day. We then can imagine how they viewed the world being presented to them by their government.  This can be extra interesting when the government is controversial and even deeply flawed.

Well, my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.