Hi G,
I thought I’d share a few thoughts on paper, as it were, regarding the issue that you raised about the Boers/Afrikaners versus the English and the feelings these two groups have harbored against each other, both historically and presently.
Present day: I think any ill thoughts towards Afrikaners today by the English are more along the fault line of liberal and conservative. When you speak to English liberals these feelings or attitudes, for instance, would not accept any group, including Afrikaners that will not accept the new dispensation (the rainbow nation, since 1994). This will also include and explain your friend M’s comments and attitude against Orania, i.e. a liberal stance peppered with the old traditional animosity against Afrikaners.
Interestingly many liberal English and Afrikaners have since 1994 changed their political and social opinions, because of the many bad things that have happened to South Africa, including crime, the country’s degeneration, and so on. These English have now become more conservative, like Prof. David Bullard (Twitter handle: 
Historically speaking: More interestingly is the historic animosity between Afrikaners and the English. This has now become more symbolic, I feel, and does not carry so much vitriol or venom when uttered by someone today as it did before, because of the aforementioned bad things that have happened in the country in recent years.
You correctly mention that this animosity comes from the open conflict that occurred during the Anglo-Boer war and the rules and societal things imposed on Afrikaners after the war, such as forced English tuition at school and the reservation of jobs especially in the Government and various other reasons I cannot recall at the moment, but which I am sure Dr. Wynand Boshoff (brother of Carel Boshoff iv) a historian, can enlighten you on when you meet him when you visit Orania.
But this divide (as an aside) goes even further back in history to the colonization of the Cape (Cape Town and Cape Province) by the British in 1806, which resulted in the Great Trek (great ‘mass’ movement) of the Boers inland; away from British rule.
But I would say the main reasons for the animosity prevalent during the 20th century is the Anglo-Boer war and the nationalistic (self-rule) aspirations of the Afrikaners to separate from the British Empire and as realized in the National Party victory during the 1948 elections and independence gained in 1961. This animosity during the last century manifested in separate institutions like the Freemasons on the one side and the Afrikaner Broederbond on the other as a very famous example, but I am sure many more can be mentioned – like ideologically and ethnically separated newspapers, political parties and so on. I remember reading a few books on this subject: the “Boer Nations English problem”, written by T.B. Floyd and “The Fault, Black Man” by Barnett Potter.
More recent books on the subject I have read and can recommend is “For whites only” written by Charles Cilliers (a bit unsettling) and the hilarious “The Racist’s guide to the people of South Africa” by Simon Kilpatrick (very funny and not what you would expect) and last but not the least the book I am finishing now: “Capitalist Nigger” by Chika Onyeani.
But today, as I mentioned, those historic feelings are not so prevalent and much more symbolic and any real and consequential feelings of animosity can be found along the lines of the liberal and conservative divide.
I hope this gives you some historic and contemporary perspective on the question that you asked me about this.
Kind regards
Omar Fourie (‘Fourie’ as in the movie “Fury” starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Ayer, or ‘Furies’ as in Greco-Roman mythology).
Written and emailed: 7 July 2018
