Holiday of White Conquest Persists in South Africa

clipped from www.nytimes.com Holiday of White Conquest Persists in South Africa By BARRY BEARAK PRETORIA, South Africa — The 16th of December was once a day of rival holidays here, two opposing flows of memory colliding at a junction. Afrikaners, the descendants of white settlers, celebrated the Day of the Vow, a covenant said to be made between their ancestors and God in 1838 that led to the slaughter of 3,000 Zulus. Blacks commemorated the same day on the calendar, marking the start of armed struggle against the apartheid regime by the African National Congress in 1961. With the arrival of multiracial democracy in 1994, lawmakers considered it wise to maintain Dec. 16 as a holiday, proclaiming it a Day of Reconciliation, a time for all races to come together in the spirit of national unity. But 15 years later, that happily-ever-after ending is a long way off, and the ideal of a rainbow nation now seems little more than a deft turn of phrase.