The John Chard Medal

I read the issuing of the John Chard medal was stopped for political reasons. Any know what those reasons were?

"In 2003, the African National Congress-led Government of South Africa introduced a new set of military decorations and medals. The John Chard Decoration and Medal are among the awards that were abolished for political reasons."

Source:Military History Journal Vol 14 No 2 - December 2007

The John Chard Decoration and John Chard Medal were replaced by the SADF Good Service Medal in 1975. This was done by the then National Party Government long before the current African National Congress came to power. The ANC has in turn changed all the decorations and medals awarded before 1994.

Brett

While thinking about the John Chard Decoration and Medal it struck me again what curious awards they are. When instituted in 1952, the recently elected National Party Government had set about removing links to Britain. In the military, uniforms and rank badges were changed and in 1952 the JCD replaced the Efficiency Decoration and the JC Medal replaced the Efficiency Medal. A year later, the SA Government decided not to accept the award of the British Korea Medal for South African veterans of the Korean War, and instituted its own medal instead. And so it continued, culminating in SA leaving the Commonwealth nearly a decade later.

In spite of the rampant anti-British sentiment amongst the Afrikaners at that time, they chose to commemorate a British officer and a battle fought mainly by British soldiers for one of the first medallic awards instituted by them. The Afrikaners (aka Boers, Dutch) were not without their own heroes and their own battles, so their choice of John Chard says much about the significance of the Battle of Rorke's Drift even in the minds of ant-British South Africans.

Brett

Well said Brett