<論説>歴史家E・A・ウォーカーと南アフリカのブリティッシュ・リベラリズム

Abstract

本稿は、南アフリカのブリティッシュ・リベラリズムの確立に寄与した歴史家E・A・ウォーカーの著書を検討する。一九一一年、ケープタウンに来たウォーカーは、親ボーア的かつ人種主義的な歴史家G・M・シールの影響下で南アフリカ史の研究をはじめた。しかし、三〇年の講演「南アフリカにおけるフロンティアの伝統」では、アフリカーナ・ナショナリストのコンサバティズムとレイシズムに対して否定的かつ侮蔑的な態度を垣間見せる。とはいえ、「グレート・トレック」とアフリカ人の歴史については、シールを踏襲するにとどまった。他方、一九世紀末のケープ植民地を巡る「原住民選挙権」などリベラリズムの神話は、ウォーカーにとってもっとも重要な問題となる。更に一九三六年、ケンブリッジ大学に異動して以降、ウォーカーの関心はジェイムソン侵入事件、パクス・アメリカーナの時代のイギリス帝国、アパルトヘイトの問題などに拡大した。ウォーカーに対する批判は六〇年代よりはじまり、七〇年代初め以降本格化するが、ブリティッシュ・リベラリズム自体は決して過去の問題とはなっていない。

In post-apartheid South Africa, one of the crucial issues has been the use of history by the African National Congress government: prime examples of this are the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995-98) and the centenary of the Second South African War (1999-2002). On the other hand, English-speaking historians have felt alienated from the present situation, and have taken an interest in their own identity. However, they have overemphasised their openness to the other ethnic groups such as Afrikaners, Africans and Coloureds in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and minimised the exclusiveness of liberalism in the mid-twentieth century. Furthermore, it has been important for them to consider the relation between liberalism and the British Empire, because imperialism and racism in South Africa have always been issues for the liberals and the radicals in the "British world". Therefore, this article will explore the work of the historian Eric Anderson Walker, who contributed to the foundation of British liberalism in South Africa during the period. Walker was born at Streatham, London, on 6 September 1886, and arrived in Cape Town in 1911. As a professor at the South African College, which became the University of Cape Town in 1918, he began to study the history of South Africa under the influence of the historian George McCall Theal, whose work was pro-Boer and racist. However, Walker's lecture 'The Frontier Tradition in South Africa' (1930) showed his negative and contemptuous attitude toward the conservatism and racism of Afrikaner nationalists. Nevertheless, he followed Theal in dealing with the "Great Trek" and the history of Africans. On the other hand, the most important problem for Walker was the myth of liberalism in the late nineteenth century Cape Colony. Since the 1910s, he had been concerned with the history of the Cape in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, his concern turned to the late nineteenth century from around 1920, when he came to know politicians like John Xavier Merriman, the former prime minister of the colony. Lord De Villiers and His Times: South Africa 1842-1914 (1925), Walker's first book about the Cape history, emphasised the "reconciliation" with the Dutch, and a Whiggish view of history. Nevertheless, he felt a crisis when the Afrikaner nationalist camp attacked the non-European franchise in the Cape and the British in the mid 1930s. W.P. Schreiner: A South African (1937), Walker's biography of the former prime minister of the colony, covered the problems of the "native franchise" and the British identity more directly. In 1936, Walker became professor of imperial and naval history at the University of Cambridge. In 1940, he contributed the article 'The Jameson Raid' to the Cambridge Historical Journal, and tried to investigate the cause of Afrikaner nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Furthermore, his book The British Empire: Its Structure and Spirit (1943) sought to envision the role of the British Empire in the age of Pax Americana. On the other hand, he argued actively against the policy of apartheid, which began in 1948. In 1968, he settled in Durban, Natal, and died there on 23 February 1976. Even before his death, his anti-Afrikaner and Eurocentric work was criticised by Afrikaner nationalist, liberal Africanist and South African radical historians, but British liberalism never became a thing of the past out of the academic world. Walker remained more pro-Boer and reconciliatory with the Dutch than other liberal historians. However, he confronted Afrikaner nationalism and took a leading position on the "frontier tradition" and the Jameson Raid. Furthermore, the most important problems for him were the myth of Cape liberalism and British identity. On the other hand, he did not fully develop his ideas about the British Empire in the age of Pax Americana. Nevertheless, the problem of the Empire undeniably lurked in the background whenever he told the story of South Africa, and in contrast, the South African problem was undeniably present whenever he told the story of the Empire.