ox-wagon, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Figurative use of general English.
A heavy pioneer wagon drawn by oxen; used allusively as a symbol of conservative Afrikaner values and aspirations, representing conservatism and retrogressive thinking; ossewa sense 2 b. Also attributive.
1960 C. Hooper Brief Authority 25For most of my life I had dreaded the vacuous, depopulated, waste regions of South Africa, with their dreary little dorps, their occasional windmills, their dusty aridity, their ox-wagon mentality.
1960 Times (U.K.) 8 Oct. 7The ox-wagon has creaked a little farther away into the blue of the backveld: another stage has been passed in the still unended attempt of the present leaders of Afrikanerdom to put their neighbours’ chimney smoke out of sight.
1971 Sunday Express 28 Mar. 11Students to whom I spoke described the move as ‘archaic and back to the ox-wagon’.
1980 Daily Dispatch 18 Mar. 3Any criticism of the Botha Government’s policies by the conservatives..will be interpreted as a return to the former ox-wagon tempo of change and can be guaranteed to cause restlessness among the black youth.
1981 P. Qoboza in Rand Daily Mail 21 July 13There is one national characteristic we refuse to abandon. It is the mentality of the oxwagon. The oxwagon played a significant role in this nation. It helped the founding fathers of the nation, both black and white, to open up new frontiers and visions...But in an age where spaceships and computers are zooming through space, the oxwagon has left us a terrible legacy. It has conditioned the minds of so many people, and has kept captive their spirit of adventure. We need to relegate the oxwagons to the age they belonged to.
A heavy pioneer wagon drawn by oxen; used allusively as a symbol of conservative Afrikaner values and aspirations, representing conservatism and retrogressive thinking; ossewa sense 2 b. Also attributive.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19601981