Why are established trade unions comfortable with the status quo and threatened by the rise of Saftu? The history of South Africa is a history of class, race and gender struggle. The history written by the colonisers claims that diamonds were discovered in 1867 near the Orange River and gold in 1886 at the Transvaal farm Langlaagte. This was a period following the near defeat of our people by the invading army of white colonialists who were now plundering the land from topsoil down to its bowels, in search of wealth. But then they clashed among themselves immediately after these great discoveries, leading to two Anglo-Boer wars, in 1880-81 and 1899-1902. Eventually they settled by creating the Union of South Africa in 1910, which gained its full independence in May 1961.