| August 9 |  |
Editor says, in this District 9 crossover post, we wonder: what if Multi-National United (MNU) made the aliens' advanced weaponry work - but for the apartheid government? Perhaps Freedom Park would have been named Victory Park, we wonder. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1994, on this day the Victory Park memorial wall was official unveiled. Speaking on the crest of Salvokop Hill near Pretoria, President Eugene Terreblanche dedicated the triangular memorial to the two thousand white, male South Africans who had perished in the nutria brown uniform of the South African Defence Force (SADF). Between 1967 and 1994, approximately 600,000 young men were conscripted to perform national service, or diensplig. And yet the key to apartheid victory in the so-called "Border War" was the advanced weaponry which had precipitously fallen into Government's hands after the arrival of the poleepkwa in 1980.
Watch Alive in Joburg 
Celebration at Victory ParkBy that time, apartheid was in long retreat. The term "Border War", or Grensoorlog, was usually assigned to the war waged in Angola and Namibia but this conflict was actually part of a civil war within South Africa and the wider region. For All Those Who Fell heeding the Call of Their Country ... including those whose names are not on the Freedom Park wall. So We May never Forget the Dearly Fought Freedom of all Ideologies, Credos, and Cultures and their Respective Contributions to our rich South African Heritage.The term was ubiquitous in white South African public discourse during the 1970s and 1980s. It encoded the views of most whites who believed the apartheid regime's rhetoric that the SADF was shielding its citizens from the "rooi/swart gevaar" (literally "red/black danger"): the dual threat of Communism and African nationalism.
Increasingly, conscripts defied the system and joined oppositional organisations such as the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) and in rare instances national servicemen went into exile to join the ranks of the armed wings of the African National Congress (ANC) or Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC).
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Gary Baines, White South Africans who fought in the long "Border War" to maintain apartheid now find themselves in a country run by their former enemiesStory Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Johannesburg, Aliens, District 9, South Africa, Eugene Terreblance. Editor says, Gary Baines writes ~ The earnestness of the [SADF] veterans' quest for reaffirmation of their contribution to the new South Africa is highlighted by the recent controversy over the Freedom Park memorial wall on the crest of Salvokop Hill near Pretoria. Rather than adopt an official SADF memorial, erected in 1979 at Fort Klapperkop (not far from Freedom Park), which lists the names of some 2,000 killed in defending the Republic of South Africa, veterans have ignored its existence. When the Freedom Park Trust announced the erection of another wall of names to honour those who had fought for freedom and humanity, a pressure group led by conservative Afrikaners sought to have the names of veterans killed in the Border War included in that roll of honour. The group also objected to the fact that the memorial wall was to include the names of Cuban soldiers who died in Angola fighting the SADF. Their request for 'fair treatment' was dismissed by Wally Serote, CEO of the Freedom Park Trust, on the grounds that SADF soldiers had fought to preserve apartheid and defeat the struggle for liberation. The veterans' group responded by erecting its own memorial at the access road to Salvokop in January 2007.
~ So what did the poleepkwa get out of supporting Terreblanche?
~ access to rehydrate with running water / people / not being held in District 9 / opportunity for technology assistance to return home perhaps in other words a fair trade when you consider the state they are in as described in Alive in Jo'burg.
~ "Poleepkwa?" Did I miss something?
If nothing else, a surviving "apartheid" SA would give the chronically-indignant a fine target for their chronic anger.
~ Watch the vid link sir OR the short version from Wikipedia IS : The alien species in Alive in Joburg are never named, and are frequently referred to simply as "them" or "the aliens." One citizen referred to them as "the poleepkwa.".
you are right, perhaps Eugene gets in the Nazi shorts in a subsequent episode.
~ The "chronically indignant"?
A surviving apartheid South Africa is unlikely, even given access to high-tech alien weaponry. And if it did happen, Pretoria would owe the aliens plenty. What would happen when they decided to collect on the debt?
~ Good points mr Lipps as always (not that its an exclusive to you just that your comments seemed to nail my wobbly jelly stories to the wall quite effectively :-)). 'chronically indignant' was the tone of the source article, justifying the emotion behind the unofficial memorial, so I copied it - bite me!. The Poleepkwa just want to return home, so my POD suggests they trade assistance (water / fuel / repairs to their junk ships) for weaponry which I agree is unlikely, but as you will see in the movie, they're getting desperate. Yes unlikely for apartheid to survive but do watch the first scene in Alive in Joburg (linked to this post) regarding the space suits, they are quite effective in combat so might have assisted the Border War!
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
