For the time being, Jan had adopted a hands-off approach to education. Various types of institutions sprouted out. They were all religious, due to how many of his people were still religious. Educational content differed from institution to institution, and he didn’t bother to change much. If people can read or write, that was good enough for him.
Once a person can read or write in a single language, they can do the same in another language. Whether they do so out of economic need or due to a government authority, is none of his concern. Is it cultural genocide to force people to adopt another culture? Yes. But is it the same if economics dictate that knowledge of English in business is a must? One can argue that it is discriminatory, but that is how business is to be conducted currently.
The might of the British Empire, consisting of its military and cultural influence made English the business language. Following up with American dominance in the latter half of the 20th century, it has further reinforced that. If that was how the trends of history go, shouldn’t he ride along, instead of trying to resist by having his people learn their respective mother tongues?
Of course, a heavy-handed approach cannot be undertaken. One cannot be forced to learn English. Even if he had the authority to do so, it would be considered an overstepping of boundaries. Plus, the traditionalists would want their youths to know their languages. Imagine if parents were unable to communicate with their children, because their children spoke English, while their parents spoke either Zulu or Elfrikaans.
To appease the factions, he planned to impose bilingualism in all schools. First and foremost, every citizen ought to know and understand the English language. Secondly, they must also achieve mastery over their mother tongues, or the language of their people. If they are an elf, whether they are Zulu or Xhosa, then they ought to master their people’s language. If they are Boer, then they ought to either understand Elfrikaans or Dutch.
This way, the mercantile and capitalist class could be pleased with a steady stream of workers that could speak English, while traditionalists could be appeased that their youths could speak in their mother tongue.
The only issue was that he had to convince the various religious institutions that hosted schools to follow up. And if he knew anything about religious people, is that they are extremely resistant to change. Hell, they were willing to fight a war in Europe for Thirty Years for that.
He gathered his Veldkornets and sought their opinions. Janneke and Pietje were resistant to the idea. They were Boers who made the Great Trek, escaping the English administration back in Cape Colony. Here he was proposing that they should have their people master English, the language of their old overlords down South.
Russell was supportive although that was because he was English. He would be relieved if more people could speak his tongue instead of himself codeswitching to either Elfrikaans or Dutch.
“You can argue all you want. And I understand where you’re coming from. But it is going to be hard to convince people to pick up a second language. More trouble than its worth,” Pietje explained.
“I don’t think it will be as hard as what Pietje is exaggerating. But it will be tough. Nevertheless, it won’t be the people you would be convincing. You’ll be convincing the various religious institutions to add English to the curriculum. If you could do that, then there are not many people could complain about,” Janneke added.
Since the easy way of getting his Veldkornets to enforce it was out, he had to negotiate with the religious leaders and Elfrican Chiefs. And with so many groups to negotiate with, this was going to be headache-inducing.
He gathered the various priests, pastors, Zulu Chiefs and Sangomas, and Xhosa War Doctors and Chiefs to discuss the matter. He had bureaucrats, Zulu, Boer and Xhosa to help translate the words spoken by the representatives. The reason why he gathered everyone was that it was much easier than negotiating one by one. He might obtain more concessions that way, but he needed a uniform agreement with everyone if he wanted to put the policy in place.
Funny enough, while the Elfrican Chiefs and religious leaders were digesting his words, the ones making the most noise were the Boer pastor left behind by Sarel.
“English! Are you trying to bring us back under the boot of the English authorities? Have they bought you, an English dog?” The pastor yelled in Elfrikaans, while the Anglican pastor held a saintly gaze. The Dutch pastor shot a nasty glare at the Anglican pastor before turning to face Jan.
“I have already explained, pastor. Whether you want it or not, English is the language of commerce. Tell me, which merchants do you frequently trade with? Are they mostly English? And you tell me we should insulate ourselves and not speak the language of the traders. What if they scam you, will you come to me begging for my assistance? But if our people know English, such a matter would not have happened in the first place. So, tell me, will this benefit me, or will it benefit our people more? Remember our duties, pastor.”
The pastor ground his teeth, and sat back down, taking a deep breath.
“What then, Commando? If everyone is influenced by English ways and become Anglicized? What would the word Boer mean? Even if our skin is as white as the English, they would never see us as English. What they would see is a Dutch person pretending to be English.”
“Then you should know the answer, pastor. Do you believe that our people would be as stupid to completely embrace the fold of the English, without taking that into account? There might be fools like that, but they will always be a minority. But I have no need of such traitors, and if they wish to kiss Queen Victoria’s arse, they are very welcome to migrate to London.”
“I am not asking for Boers to completely forget Dutch and Elfrikaans and brainwash themselves into thinking as Englishman. I am asking for them to be able to communicate with our English trading partners. Our people ought to know Elfrikaans or Dutch and speak the tongue that their ancestors speak.”
Jan looked towards a bureaucrat and winked. The bureaucrat at the back began clapping. This is followed up by the other bureaucrats clapping at the same time. With the power of peer pressure, the various dignitaries in the room clapped along whilst the bureaucrat translated the contents of the conversation to them.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
A Xhosa Chief stood up and seemed to have something to say. He pointed at the Chief and waited for her to gather her words.
Translating the Chiefs’ words, the bureaucrat explained, “There is nothing wrong with learning amaJohnny’s language. But we lack instructors to have our people learn the language. Nor are there any books in Xhosa that could teach our people amaJohnny.”
Jan’s eye furrowed at the term amaJohnny but understood the term in a couple of seconds.
He looked towards the Anglican pastor, who was all too happy to stand up and speak on his behalf.
“The London Missionary Society will be providing missionaries that will gladly teach you all English! We will not hold back!”
‘In converting you all to Christians,’ Jan silently thought as the pastor boisterously explained.
A couple of conversions were unavoidable. But with the Dutch Protestant Church acting as a counteracting force against the Anglican Church, neither faction should be too powerful.
No doubt the Boer pastor was fuming because his rival gained a lot more authority in the region. He looked towards the Commando so that he could give him a piece of his mind. Jan pretended he didn’t exist. Hopefully, the event would incentivize the Dutch Protestant Church to pay more attention to the elves if they didn’t want their Anglican rivals to dominate South Elfrica.
After the meeting and all its all so boring formalities, the Dutch pastor went up to him and began giving him a tirade of what he was doing was a betrayal of his people, and that he was an English dog.
“Pastor, you can tell me all this. Or you could work on increasing the diversity of your Church congregation. May I suggest either the Xhosa or Khoikhoi? I do not wish to anger our Zulu partners.”
The Dutch pastor blurted a couple of more curses while heading for the door.
“Wait, before you go. I don’t suppose you know about distillation. As a Church, you must have distilled alcohol.”
“It seems that only alcohol would incentivize you to go to Church, huh?” The pastor turned around and smirked.
“Not exactly, this distillation process, I need you to teach a couple of men how to do so. Because I planned on starting up a distillery.”
To reinforce the importance of math and science, he needed workplaces that required both subjects. Then he can convince the religious schools to adopt both subjects into their curriculum. This is most important for Zulu and Xhosa schools since subjects like calculus would need some time to explain and convince their Chiefs of their importance. Knowing how some people struggled with calculus in the real world, he didn’t think this would be easy at all. Since they would have to start from primary school mathematics before working their way to calculus, and that is if the Xhosa and Zulu Chiefs even bothered to listen to the teacher’s words. Well then, as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations implied, teachers ought to be paid by the number of students they had, and if they can’t teach, they are very welcome to quit.
Since no foreign investor would bother to do the training and setting up the workplaces to do so, he would have to begin with State Owned Enterprises that require such subjects. And with such a requirement in place, religious schools would have no choice but add mathematics and science to their curriculum to demand from their students. Because a chemist would make so much more than a subsistence farmer, the latter will be forced to pick up Chemistry to climb the social ladder. Just like how people are jumping into the field of Computer Science for the money, wait, never mind, it seems Big Tech is firing these people, oops. Guess that Bootcamp won’t help huh?
Distillation is the separation of various substances from a liquid mixture using boiling and condensation. For example, salt. Once the water is boiled, salt will be left behind as a solid. However, the temperature cannot be 100 Degrees Celsius, since the mixture would have a higher boiling point due to the contamination of salt in the water. More energy is needed to be given to the water molecules as some of the heat is absorbed by salt particles. Once the water molecule obtains enough energy, it would begin evaporating and head to the skies.
What interested Jan was fractional distillation, which is the separation of a mixture into various fractions. The various components of a mixture would have different boiling points, and thus, in a fractioning column, those with lower boiling points will rise to the top and be condensed in a chamber. Whilst those with the highest boiling point would sink to the bottom and be condensed. What was the most famous resource that is fed through a fractioning column, used by all Chemistry textbooks? Oil, more specifically, Crude Oil.
Who doesn’t love to drink? Alcohol has such an old history and tradition that the story of human history cannot be discussed without a mention of alcohol. To make whisky, brandy and rum, one must distil the fermented broth. No doubt, amongst Jan’s men some would love to drink. For an alcoholic, the dream job would be working at a brewery, for they can take a sip or so every time their superiors are not looking.
He would start by sponsoring some state-owned distilleries to begin the production of alcohol. The market? There were elves all around them, and humans willing to procure alcohol. Surely, there would be demand. And if not, they could export them to Cape Colony. From there, once a culture of distillation exists, they can move on to fractional distillation by constructing some oil refineries.
In this period, the true usefulness of oil hasn’t been exploited, and it is merely used as heating in various homes around the globe. Steam-powered machines were common, and they were powered by coal. Once oil wells are discovered in other countries, they would find that the cheapest refineries of oil would be found in South Elfrica due to Jan’s early establishment of oil refineries. And with the knowledge of the modern world, his refineries would be the most efficient and of the best yields. Therefore, oil would flow to South Elfrica, the centre of trade between Asia and Europe.
But that was a dream, and he could only be pleased with the simple alcohol distillery. Unbranded and with little to no name recognition, it was hard to convince people to buy it. He tossed the job to the bureaucrats who came up with marketing plans. And he greenlit it.
In the coming weeks, many Elfrican Chiefs would find gifts of whisky made from fermented corn. Many Commandoes and Veldkornets would also receive the same gifts. The brand name? Distillasie, or distillation in Elfrikaans. No doubt, seeing their Chiefs and superiors drinking this strange concoction brought curiosity to many of their follower’s eyes, so they inquired about the source of the drink. It drove business, as the temporary trend had people seeking to procure the brews of Distillasie.
A certain Xhosa Chief glared at the bottle in her hands. Her husband brought it to her, claiming that it was a gift from the Boers in the North. Hearing this, she smashed the bottle against the ground.
“Why?” Her favourite husband asked as she had had her husband clean up the mess.
“My mother Nqika, Chief of the Rharhabe house of the Xhosa, was an alcoholic. Whose alcohol, was it? What else, but of the amaBthulu or amaJohnny? Do you think such an object could be a gift? Or is it a drug?”
Maqoma sighed once the mess was cleaned from the ground. She had all the time in the world to rest. Hopefully, the British kept to their agreements, and do not come over the Keiskamma River. Her sister, Sandile should be able to manage things after her regency. With Queen Sarhili’s weak authority, there wasn’t much trouble she was able to cause. And there wasn’t much, for they were part of the Right Hand House of the Xhosa Kingdom, an important noble family of the Xhosa Kingdom.
Her failures during the Sixth Frontier War harassed her mind constantly, and all she could think about was the alternate future, where they had won. Where the amaBthulu and amaJohnny were expelled from the region, where their cattle could graze in lands once belonging to them.
But due to the current situation, there were no differences between servants to the colonizers in the West. Due to the loss of many lands meant for their cattle to graze, many Xhosas had to give up their old ways of life and work on English and Boer farms. It was either starvation or becoming a servant. It was a relatively easy decision. Many Chiefs were devastated during the war, their cattle robbed by the English and their Boer compatriots. And that did not include the traitorous amaMfengu!
Those traitorous Fingoes the Xhosa Kingdom accepted during their escape from Shaka, betrayed them and now served their English masters like dogs.
But she can only sigh at the dispossession caused to all of them. She had many nightmares, of one where they were all sent to reserves, trapped by British soldiers watching them from their forts. Many of them would also labour for the humans in their settlements and farms. And they would lose all ways of life as the settlers took everything, they once held dear to them. She hoped things did not pan out that way.
Unfortunately, it did in the old world.