Three: Unannihilated: the Resurrection of the Afrikaner

After the "Calvary" of the Afrikaner's defeat at the end of the South African War, there was a lull. Thereafter, that was followed by the "Resurrection" of Christian Afrikanerdom as a united nation.

Here I wish to outline the eschatology of victory among the Afrikaners in the twentieth century. First, I shall give a general "bird's eye" view.

In the last lecture we arrived at the debacle and the defeat of the Afrikaner during the Anglo Boer War -- the Second South African War between the Afrikaner and the British Empire. It ended in 1902, after three years of bitter fighting, in the defeat of the small number of Afrikaner farmers outnumbered 25 to 1 on the field. It resulted in the annexation of the Old South African Republic and the Orange Free State Republic by Britain, and their incorporation into the British Commonwealth.

The next ten years in South Africa was a decade of great difficulty. Many of the Afrikaners were very depressed -- both economically and spiritually. Psychologically, they then felt the way Southerners felt in the U.S. in the decade after their defeat during the American War Between the States.

Today, there are monuments that have been erected -- commemorating that period of time. In point of fact, though, the Afrikaner became very impoverished. He was disappropriated, as a result of the loss of the war. To a large extent, he was economically ruined. In many cases, his women and children had died in the British concentration camps. Farms had been burned down, and crops destroyed. The catastrophe was awful, and horrible to contemplate.

Yet, even during those ten years, life had to go on. A very significant development was the establishment of the so-called "Christian National" Schools. These were privately owned, and generally started by the South African Reformed Churches -- meeting in facilities owned and financed by the Church. The Church too, of course, was struggling financially at that time. It operated independently of the Public School System, which had now fallen into the hands of the British conqueror.

The Public Schools had now become a tool for de-calvinisation, at least for a long while. They had also become a tool for anglicisation -- for turning the Afrikaner nation into an English-speaking nation and an integral part of the British Empire. So the emergence of these Christian National Schools during the decade 1900 to 1910 is a very important factor.

By 1910, the forces of union in promoting the idea of a British commonwealth in South Africa, and especially in the two conquered South African Republics, were strong enough to demand the Afrikaner's allegiance to the British Commonwealth. There were those who resisted, but they were in a minority even amongst the Afrikaners. And yet the "Christian National" Schools, rising out of the ashes of military defeat, had during that ten-year framework nevertheless become strong enough and produced enough graduates to offer a further stout resistance to the process of anglicisation of the Afrikaner.

Even in 1910, those militant Afrikaners were still in the minority among their own nation. Nevertheless, they had now become strong enough to demand at least equality for the Afrikaner language -- alongside of English -- in the new South Africa that was emerging.

In 1910, a National Convention was held in South Africa. There, political representatives of the various Provinces (or States) within South Africa -- the Cape, Natal, the Orange Free State, and the territory comprising the old "South African Republic" (which was now called the Transvaal) -- all sent their representatives to this National Convention for the purpose of discussing the creation of what became known as the Union of South Africa.

Most of the representatives at the Convention were pro-union. Those who were anti-union and pro-independence -- especially for the independence of the previous Orange Free State Republic and the South African Republic -- by and large stayed away from the Convention. They did not want to co-operate with it, though some went there and fought the idea of union.

There was a lot of talk at this Convention as to whether the relation of the several Provinces should take on the form of a union (as in the United States of America today), or whether it should take on the form of a confederacy (as in the original USA of 1776, and as in the "Dixie" Confederate States of America at the time of the War Between the States). After a great deal of talk, the people at the convention decided on union rather than on confederation.

Looking back, that was a most unwise move. Yet it was made by both sides. The two British Colonies (viz. the Cape and Natal) on the one hand and the two Afrikaner Ex-Republics (the Orange Free State and the Transvaal) on the other hand all had to make concessions towards the idea of union.

They decided on two official languages, English and Afrikaans. From then on, all legal documents in all of the Provinces would be published in both of these languages. This was to be so even in a Province such as Natal where hardly any Afrikaans was spoken, and even in a Province like the Orange Free State where hardly any English was spoken. So this bilingual policy -- at least on paper -- was enacted and spread throughout the land.

A second difficult decision that needed to be made, was the matter as to which legal system to follow. In the Cape, of course, there had been massive influences of English Law. Especially British Statute Law had been superimposed upon and even replaced large segments of the Calvinistic Roman-Dutch Law which had preceded it there. It was finally decided that the system of Roman Dutch Law would prevail throughout the whole of South Africa -- even throughout the former British Colonies of the south. However, the whole of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in South Africa was, from this point on out, to be derived from British Law rather than from Roman-Dutch Law (even in the Free state and the Transvaal). So really, what you have in South Africa today -- and in Rhodesia [alias Zimbabwe] to the north of South Africa is basically Roman-Dutch Law. Only in the area of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure is British Law followed.

There were also difficulties in arriving at an agreed educational program. After a great deal of debate at the National Convention, it was felt that education would be on a confederate basis rather than on a federal foundation. So to this day, South Africa has no uniform public educational system. The Transvaal has one system of education, the Free State another, and so forth.

Incidentally, the Transvaal Province -- to this day, by far the most powerful and richest "State" (where most of the gold is mined) -- has refused to allow evolution to be taught in the curriculum of the primary or the secondary Public School System. So there were these differences in educational approach -- and disparities in the extent to which bilinguality was achieved, in the various different portions of the country.

They also wrestled to a tremendous degree at the National Convention with the racial situation in South Africa. Perhaps not so much as previously, they wrestled with the relationship between White Afrikaner South Africans on the one hand and the White English-speaking South Africans (who had arrived in the country only from 1820 onwards) on the other hand. But they particularly wrestled with the future pattern as to the relationship between all of the White people on the one hand (whether they normally spoke English or Afrikaans) and all of the various Black peoples of South Africa on the other.

At that time, about one-quarter of the people in South Africa were White. About three-fifths were Black (divided into a dozen major tribes). The rest were Coloureds, Indians, and Aboriginals. Since then, the White percentage has constantly diminished.

There were then (and still are) tribes and differences , between the various Black nations. This was not really a problem at all back in 1910 -- because the Black peoples, at least at that time, were still quite primitive. But it was foreseen that they would develop.

Particularly as they became more christianised and more civilised, the country could head in the direction of the ultimate integration and absorption of these huge numbers of Blacks into the fabric of White society. Inevitably, South Africa would then cease being a Western nation -- and instead become a Black nation with some vestiges of Western influence.

On the other hand, the future direction of South Africa could instead involve some kind of segregation between Whites on the one hand and Blacks on the other -- hopefully leading to an ultimate policy of good neighbourliness. The Whites could then preserve their Western culture, and the Blacks their own culture.

Both of them would hopefully then be Christian nations by that time. Thereafter they would become more and more sanctified, until ultimately co-existing as good neighbours -- not mixed up with one another, but existing alongside of one another. They would then help one another and borrow from and lend to one another -- on a basis of formal equality.

In the interim, there would obviously be many problems -- as Christian or Semi-Christian Whites extended civilisation in South Africa among the various groups of then-hardly-evangelised Black people. We now give an example of this.

A little before this time, a very interesting situation took place. There was a group of Black people called the Venda. They lived and still live in a very beautiful area of South Africa -- in what is now the northeast of the Transvaal. It is an area rather more mountainous and well-watered than much of the rest of the country (which is largely desert).

The Venda people, who are Black, were and are very different the other Black groups surrounding them to the north and the east and the west. The White South Africans were to the south of them. The Venda people found themselves on the receiving end from more aggressive and unsympathetic Black people to the north, so the Venda appealed to the White South African Republic to protect them against the Black tribes to the north that were then giving them a difficult time. Thus the White Christian South African Republic extended its control over Vendaland, establishing it as a de facto Protectorate. But at this point, the difficulties began.

The Venda were pagans at that time. They then had a rather obnoxious practice. When the girls of the village reached puberty (as a "class"), the local witch doctor would shake his dice and then point to one of these girls of the group. She would then be required to bear the "sins" of the whole class.

This poor unfortunate girl was thereupon required to have sexual intercourse with her own father in front of the onlooking villagers. After that, she was picked up and tossed to the local "holy crocodiles" in the nearby lake.

Well, you can imagine that after the White Calvinists had extended their control over this territory in order to protect this particular Black tribe against other Black tribes to the north, the above-mentioned practice posed a severe problem to the White Government. But what the White Government did, was to put a stop to that practice -- as being intolerable, in terms of the teaching of the Bible. That prohibition upset some of the Venda at the time.

I like to put it this way. The witchdoctor was upset about it. The crocodile was very upset about it (because he didn't get so many meals from here on out). But at least one village virgin -- and, in fact, the rest of them too (who might have been bait) -- were rather grateful to the White Government for the intervention!

This is a rather extreme example, but there have been many similar kinds of problems that have arisen from time to time. On the whole, though, the general stance of successive South African Governments has been to allow Black customs (of marriage and land tenure, etc.) and to leave the Black people in their own areas (which the Whites have controlled from time to time) to determine their own destiny and to preserve their own language and culture.

Of course there have been many White attempts to christianise these Black people -- but usually not to try to turn them into "Black Europeans" (or into Black "White South Africans"). The aim has rather been to try to turn the non-Christian Blacks into Christian Blacks, rather than to try to turn them into "Black Afrikaners" (if there could be such a thing).

There is obviously a tension in this kind of situation. We, have tensions between people who don't always understand one another's languages; tensions between people who are of an entirely different cultural background; tensions between peoples at different levels of civilisation. But there is tension too particularly between one group of people in whom the Christian ethic is strong (the White Afrikaners), and another group of people in whom a pagan religion is paramount.

The only acceptable direction, though, must clearly be to develop the country into a system of different States in which ultimately all of the various groups of people, each living in their own areas, will be Christian peoples. They will still be different from one another, but they will nevertheless then be united in Christ. See: Deuteronomy 32:8f; Matthew 28:19; Acts 17:26f; Revelation 15:4 and 21:24 to 22:2!

Today, I am happy to say, this very territory I have been talking about -- Vendaland -- has to some extent already been christianised (at least nominally). It is now a self-governing republic within the territory of Southern Africa.

Indeed, Vendaland has now "seceded" from the Republic of South Africa. The independence of Vendaland and of other Black territories -- such as the Transkei and Bophutatswana -- has been recognised by the White Government. They all maintain ambassadors with one another. They are adopting a policy of increasingly good neighbourliness -- as the Black areas more and more develop and are being helped (ever increasingly) by the investments of especially White South African entrepreneurs working in the Black areas.

The White South African Government really wants such White people in the Black areas not so much to get rich as to help the Black people to get established, and to establish a strong Black middle class just as quickly as possible. The hope is that the Black people will themselves opt for free enterprise, and that Black capitalists will then emerge in the Black areas. This is the scheme that the White South African Government is trying to promote at the moment, with varying degrees of success.

I may add that White South Africa is the only country in the world at the moment which officially recognises the independence of these Black Republics. Today one of the saddest things is that the United Nations -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany -- absolutely refuse to recognise the independent status and nationhood of these Black areas in South Africa. This is a very interesting phenomenon. Here are various countries -- a White country and several Black countries -- trading with one another and maintaining diplomatic relations with one another within Southern Africa. Yet the rest of the world ignores it, as if it had never happened!

Of course, the world humanist establishment wittingly ignores it. It implies that Vendaland, the Transkei, Bophutatswana and all of the other independent Black nations would then have to be given independent seats at the United Nations. That would indeed demonstrate to the world that the South African policy of separate development is working. That, of course, would be lethal to the liberals who do not want to see it work. For they believe in racial amalgamation and integration -- rather than in good neighbourliness between man and his fellowman and respect for one anothers's differences and right to be different.

Well now, in 1910, at the creation of the Union of South Africa, all of these future developments had to be projected as best they could. Many had been killed, and the country itself had been ruined by war just ten years earlier when about 25% of the population of South Africa were Whites. By 1910 only 22% of the population of South Africa was White. By 1980, this figure had gone down to 17%. By the year 2000, it is projected that only 13% of the population of South Africa will still be White.

Now this is not so much on account of the arrival of birth control methods. The fact is that the growth rate of the White South Africans is considerably higher than the growth rate of the Whites in other countries.

They had a very interesting survey several years ago in South Africa, asking Roman Catholic White girls and Calvinist White Afrikaner girls how many children they would like to have in their families. The replies were very significant. The average Roman Catholic girl, then still implacably opposed to contraceptives, gave the answer that she would like to have four children. The average Calvinist Afrikaner White girl said she would like to have five children, if that be possible. Indeed, the size of White families in South Africa is still definitely higher than it is of most White people elsewhere.

However, even if each White South African family were to produce an average of four or five children, the Black South African families -- especially since the advent of White medicine which has drastically cut down the Black death rate -- has now risen to some eight or nine children per family on the average. And, of course, at this point we also run into the theological problems concerning the cultural mandate.

There, God did not say "be fruitful and add and fill the earth" -- so that two people, a man and his wife, should want to produce only two children. For then, only if those two children were to grow up and both to get married and both to be fertile, would there be no decrease. Instead, God said: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." So it seems to me that two people getting married should desire to produce a very minimum of four children per family. For that alone is multiplication.

I believe in the United States the average number of children per family is something like 2.2. That is rather too low. On the other hand, the Word of God does not say that human beings are to be fruitful and to teem in the way in which the fishes and insects do. In the Hebrew of Genesis 1:26f, they are merely to rabah -- to multiply. Not to sharats -- to teem as do the fishes.

Of course, this is a problem not just in South Africa. Today, worldwide, Whites are not multiplying but barely adding -- while Blacks are multiplying and sometimes almost teeming. This is a demographic problem, throughout the world. For in 1900, the White race constituted approximately 1/6 of all the people in the world. The Whites then controlled 90% of the whole world. But today, the Whites control only 10% of the world -- and have shrunk to a mere 1/8 (and are rapidly shrinking to become 1/9) of the world population.

So what you really have in South Africa, demographically, is just a small microscopic picture of what is happening to the sons of Japheth throughout the world in our day and age. It is interesting that with present growth rates, by the year 2000 there will be a slightly lesser percentage of White people in what is South Africa than the percentage of Black people in the United States of America. In 2000 the White man will apparently represent but 13% of all South Africans. Yet the Blacks will then represent at least 14% of the American population. Of course, these trends can change (with AIDS etc.). But this does seem to be the direction in which things are going at the moment.

Well now, in 1914 the First World War broke out. It created a crisis -- even in South Africa. A great Afrikaner general who had fought bravely for the Orange Free State some fifteen years earlier against the British -- General Hertzog -- strenuously protested the actions of General Botha and his helpmate General Smuts.

All three of these great men were then in politics. Botha and Smuts wanted South Africa to declare war against Germany just because England had declared war against Germany. But General Hertzog wanted South Africa to remain neutral in this World War against Germany. For Germany had not evinced any hostility whatsoever towards South Africa fifteen years earlier, in her own war against England. To some small extent, Germany had even helped South Africa -- by selling her cannons in exchange for gold. So there was a lot of tension in South Africa during World War I, between pro-British Whites -- and such Whites as wanted neutrality.

Fascinating things happened during World War I in South Africa. One was that some rebellions broke out. A whole church rent itself asunder. Church splits are very rare in South Africa, but in a place called Winburg, the birthplace of the first President of the new Republic of South Africa established in 1961, the Reformed Church split. Those who were for neutrality in the war, went off to meet on the other side of town. Those two churches are still in that town today -- even though the reason for the split has now died down.

Feelings ran very high in the First World War. General Botha and General Smuts, who were running the government at that time, insisted on sending pro-British South African troops north -- against the Germans in the old German colony of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in East Africa, and on sending other White South African pro-British troops into German South West Africa (today called Namibia). So many of the White South Africans who wanted neutrality in this war, strongly protested. Some of them rebelled against their own White Government, though not very successfully.

A very interesting phenomenon is that of General Beyers. He was a famous South African general in the Anglo-Boer War some fifteen years earlier. He now got up at public meetings and called upon the people of South Africa to make peace with Germany and not to fight Britain's war. For, said General Beyers, the Bible teaches in Deuteronomy and Proverbs: "cursed is he that moves his neighbour's landposts!"

General Beyers felt that those texts teach the curse of Almighty God on anyone who tampers with the boundary line between his ground and his neighbour's ground. Such a tamperer, he believed, commits theft even against God Himself. Beyers further felt it was not just individuals who can steal from one another -- but nations too, in ill-founded boundary disputes! He felt that what Botha and Smuts were doing, was transgressing the Law of God. So he protested against what they were doing -- in the Name of the Lord.

Well, a warrant went out for the arrest of Beyers. Trying to escape from the government forces, he was drowned in one of the rivers. The rivers of arid South Africa are dry most of the year. But at this particular time of the year, the rivers came down -- and General Beyers was drowned.

There was also the great General Koos de la Rey. He had been a loyal general in the forces of the South African Republic in the previous Anglo-Boer war. He too was on his way to Johannesburg and Pretoria -- to speak to Smuts about putting an end to this war against the Germans which de la Rey considered to be ungodly. He was gunned down in the streets.

Even to this very day, there is a veil of mystery surrounding it. Some say Smuts deliberately had him killed. Others say -- and this is the official line -- that a very vicious bank robber had escaped from jail at that time. The police were alerted to shoot and to kill this bank robber. Tragically, the police shot General de la Rey -- thinking he was the bank robber. That was very bad. For de la Rey was a hero. But then de la Rey should not have been going through the streets at that time. He should have known that the police were out to shoot the bank robber on sight. Feelings ran very high in the country at this time about the death of de la Rey.

Then there was a young Calvinist named Jopie Fourie. He went into German South West Africa with the "rebel" General Maritz -- to try to put an end to the fighting between pro-British White South Africans on the one hand and White Germans on the other hand. This man Fourie was being followed and hunted down by Botha and Smuts. But then a very interesting thing then happened.

The Sabbath day came round. Jopie Fourie, wanting to be a good Calvinist -- yet not being as good a Calvinist as he should have been -- refused to fight on the Sabbath. He rightly felt it was a day of rest. Yet, if he had known his Bible just a little bit better, he would have known from Joshua six that the armies of the Living God circled Jericho for seven consecutive days (one of which must have been the Sabbath).

Though he was tragically ignorant about the military implications of this, one can certainly admire Fourie's godliness and devotion to principle. But he was captured on the Sabbath by people who had no problem in fighting on the very day he would not. So he was shot to death -- for his role in trying to bring about peace.

The situation became more and more anarchical in South Africa. Even after the defeat of Germany in 1918, we find a steady deterioration in the situation. We find the creation of a large mass of impoverished White Afrikaners whose farms had been burnt out during the Anglo-Boer War. They had never recovered -- neither emotionally, economically nor psychologically. So we find these "Poor Whites" -- now working alongside of Blacks as unskilled artisans in the gold mines.

It is at this point that we must go to the Soviet Unions and specifically to Lenin, for the next fascinating episode in the development of the South African saga. I wrote my second doctorate on communist eschatology, and read through all the works of Marx and Lenin in writing it. I then discovered a fascinating writing by Lenin, penned during this period -- in which he comes out violently in favour of the White South Africans, and against the British. The latter he saw as agents of international capitalism. Even more significantly, Lenin then totally ignored the Black people of Africa. He then felt they were culturally irrelevant.

So it was that we then find the development of Communism in South Africa -- especially among White Afrikaners who had previously been nominally Calvinist. This new movement, however, was not called the Communist Party. It became known as the Labour Party of South Africa. It was rather strongly not only anti-British, but also anti-Black.

Meantime, the various Communist Parties throughout the world -- until deep into the 1930's -- were supporting the policy of giving racial preference to the Whites in South Africa. The South African Communist Party, which from 1921 onward also existed separately on a small scales was violently anti-British -- and also violently anti-Black. One of the interesting gymnastic stunts of the South African Communist Party about the time of World War II, was its repudiation of its anti-Black stance. Thereafter it attempted to go along with giving lip service to equality between Black and White. But that enraged many of its own followers. They decommunised on the spot. What an interesting quirk of history.

We must now, however, go back and look at the big goldminers' strike. The White South African impoverished goldminers struck in 1922. The Communist Party exploited that situation so skillfully, that a Communist Republic was proclaimed in South Africa. Johannesburg, or rather Fordsburg (a suburb of Johannesburg), became the new government of South Africa. The Red flag was raised. South Africa was officially a communist country in 1922 -- for three days.

But then General Smuts, who was a man of some action, commandeered the army and marched into Johannesburg. He gunned down and destroyed this whole garrison of Poor White workers (the dupes of a handful of communists). So Smuts ruthlessly and effectively wiped out the communist government -- and re-established anti-communist control in South Africa.

About the same time, there was a tribe of Hottentots called the Bondelswarts -- in the extreme west of the country. They had refused to pay their dog licenses. General Smuts, who ran the government at that time, really didn't like it. He told them that they had better pay their dog licenses -- or else! These yellow-skinned Hottentots still refused to do this. So Smuts sent in the air-force, and wiped them out.

Well, by this time the people of South Africa were beginning to think that Smuts's touch was just a little too hard for most of the people. In the election of 1924, the South African Party -- Smuts's party -- was defeated and removed from office. A coalition government took over -- an alliance between the (Afrikaner) National Party under the leadership of General Hertzog on the One hand, and the (Marxist) Labour Party on the other hand.

The big motto of this coalition government, was "Suid-Afrika Eerste" ("South Africa First"). Hertzog then followed what he called a two-stream policy -- complete equality for the English language and culture and the Afrikaans language and culture. (Interestingly, his son Dr. Albert Hertzog later became the leader of the "Refounded National Party" [H.N.P.] -- which adopted the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26 in article one of its Constitution.)

General Hertzog had favoured neutrality in the First World War. (He also favoured neutrality later in the Second World War to which we will come a little later.) Throughout, he followed a policy of "South Africa First" -- and hence one of indifference toward the interests of Britain.

Meantime, constitutional developments continued. In 1926, there was a meeting of British Commonwealth Prime Ministers and other governmental officials in London -- under the leadership of the then British Prime Minister, Lord Balfour. They came out with what was known as the Balfour Declaration. The gist of it was that South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Her Majesty's other possessions across the seas were all given self governing dominion status. That is to say, from this point on, they were totally responsible solely to their own locally elected and locally legislating governments -- and no longer in any way responsible to the British government sitting in London.

However, they still remained Her Majesty's dominions within the British Empire. (This was further refined in 1931. There, by the Statute of Westminster, the British Government formally agreed to accept the sphere-sovereignty -- over against itself -- of the governments of South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada etc.).

In 1927, there was a huge tussle in South Africa about the flag. There were at least three parties.

First, there were those who said that the "Union Jack" of Great Britain should be the only flag of South Africa. However, the climate was then moving away from this -- and toward the re-assertion of a South African nationalism, albeit of a different type than had prevailed up till 1900.

Then there was the extreme right wing. They wanted a brand new flag totally different to any that had ever been used in South Africa previously.

There was also another party. It wanted the whole of South Africa to adopt the flag of the old South African Republic -- the Transvaal.

After a lot of bickering and wrangling, all three parties agreed on a compromise flag -- the one which South Africa has to this very day. It is a flag with three horizontal stripes -- bright orange in the top stripe, then a white stripe under that, and a bottommost stripe of pale blue. That is called the "oranje-blanje-blou." It is the flag that Johan van Riebeeck, the first governor of the Cape, erected on the shores near Cape Town in 1652.

However, when you come to the white middle strip of the later South African flag, there are three smaller flags on that field. There is the Union Jack, representing the old Cape and Natal Provinces. Then, in the middle, there is the flag of the old Orange Free State Republic. Last, on the other side of this, there is the old flag of the South African Republic.

I don't think there is another flag quite like this in all the world. However, it says something for the attempts of the South African people -- standing up for principle -- finally to negotiate a settlement that would be as acceptable as it possibly could be to all the groups of people.

In 1929, South African ambassadors were appointed for the very first time to the United States, Italy and the Netherlands. Previously, there had been no South African ambassadors anywhere in the world -- ever since the British destruction of the South African Republic and the Orange Free State Republic in 1902.

In 1931, the great depression hit. A tremendous controversy was unleashed about the gold standard. This caused such a political crisis in South Africa, that even the two former arch rivals Smuts (with his 'South African Party') and Hertzog (with his 'National Party') now entered into coalition with one another to get South Africa moving again financially.

The Song of the Flag
Cradled in beauty forever shall fly
In the gold of her sunshine, the blue of her sky,
South Africa's pledge of her freedom and pride
In their home by sacrifice glorified.
By righteousness armed, we'll defend our might
The sign and the seal of our freedom and right,
The emblem of loyalty, service and love;
To our own selves true, and to God above,
faith shall keep what our hearts enthrone,
The flag of the land that is all our own,

- C.J. Langenhoven

Many years earlier they had both been associates against the British during the Anglo-Boer War. Hertzog had been a general of the Orange Free State Republic, and Smuts of the South African Republic. Though subsequently opponents, these two now joined forces to form the powerful (National South African) "United Party"

The depression spread world-wide. It was a shock that went around the world when Wall Street fell. The gold standard was removed in almost every country on earth. Yet there were still those in South Africa who refused to enter into the new coalition, even to get the country moving again.

Such included the great Dr. Daniel Francois Malan, a clergyman turned politician and a dour or obdurate Calvinist. He entered into opposition as Leader of the recently-purged National Party. Then there was Colonel Stallard's Dominion Party. It was based chiefly in the Natal Province, and wanted a return to a completely pro-British control of South Africa. These two very unlikely groups (the N.P. and the D.P.) now formed an uneasy alliance with one another -- in opposition against the Government.

From 1932 to 1937, there was constant agitation for the separate political enfranchisement of non-White voters in their own areas. It was felt -- in spite of the world depression; in spite of the difficulties of the relationship between South Africa and England; and in spite of the tense relationship between White Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and White English-speaking South Africans -- that more attention should be given to the overall relationship between the White people and the various Black peoples in South Africa.

So they moved another step further in the direction of the separate development of the races. They removed the handful of Black voters from the Joint Voters' Roll -- and they created political rights for the Black people in their own areas (which would thereafter develop much more rapidly since that time). The Coloured (or Mulatto) people, however, still remained on the same Voter's Roll as did the Whites.

In 1938, a major event took place. It was exactly a hundred years after the Great Trek had occurred -- when the White South African Afrikaners had moved out of the Cape successively to set up the Republic of Natalia, the Orange Free State Republic, and the South African Republic.

Feelings again began to run high. The Afrikaner found his soul again. He got back to his Calvinist roots. These were the days of the great "Ossewabrandwag" or OB -- the great "ox-wagon movement" epitomised in the poem I previously read you: "The White child treks into South Africa; treks on into the land both wide and far... Trek on! How far? As far as God would have us trek!"

So, with this tremendous national movement of the centennial celebration of the 1836 ox-wagon trek, the Re-united National Party began to make great progress. It launched its memorable motto: "Believe in God; believe in your nation; believe in yourself!"

Then in 1939, came the Second World War. It split White South Africans right down the middle. The South African Parliament itself split open on this issue. There were eighty votes in favour of going to war against Germany, and sixty-seven votes in favour of neutrality. It was just like World War I, all over again!

Even the South African Cabinet split. There were seven votes in favour of declaring war on Germany, and six votes in favour of neutrality. So there was yet another political realignment.

In September 1939, General Smuts became Prime Minister of South Africa -- replacing the man he had just been working under, General Hertzog. The latter again declared: "We cannot get involved in Europe's Wars," -- a parallel of America's own "Republican Isolationism" -- in South Africa! Now the Labour Party and the Dominion Party entered into coalition with General Smuts's South African Party and declared war on Germany. But the Nationalists, under the leadership of Dr Malan, became the official opposition -- together with the breakaway followers of Dr Hertzog who became known as the Afrikaner Party. Sometime later, the latter amalgamated with the National Party -- under the title of "Reunited National Party" (H.N.P.).

In 1943, after the tide of the war had begun to turn strongly against Germany, the National Party succeeded in gaining forty-three seats in the South African Parliament. Its representation had been whittled down to eleven just some years earlier. Yet the Government still controlled 111 seats in the Parliament.

In 1948, there was a General Election. By a narrow majority, Dr Malan -- by entering into coalition with the Afrikaner Party -- took over the Government of South Africa.

I was in High School at the time. The impact was quite unforgettable. We had never had the Bible in our (English-language) public schools -- before that election. One week thereafter, the teacher came in with a Bible and told us: "The new government says we've got to teach the Bible throughout the schools of the land."

It was that sharp a change! Immediately, we find many dramatic developments. On the whole, there were improvements (from a Calvinist perspective) in education, in politics, and in economics. A consolidation of Calvinist power in South Africa now took place -- in politics, economics and education.

In 1960, a national referendum was held to determine whether South Africa should or should not become a Republic. It was decided to become a Republic. So in 1961, the Republic of South Africa was created -- acknowledging Almighty God and the necessity of Christian education in its very constitution.

From 1970 through 1980 -- the period of my general absence from that country -- it has been my perception that there has been a vast improvement in race relations between Black and White in South Africa. In spite of some isolated and unfortunate incidents, the move is more and more toward the universal education and christianisation of all Black people and all White people within what is now the Republic of South Africa.

Yet it still intends its own dismemberment -- to become a system of separate States (with the possibility of later confederation). In the next lecture, we will deal with the eschatology of victory in the political life of the Afrikaner in further detail.

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