Afrikaners hold key to S.A.’s future

Press, 23 July 1976, Page 5

Afrikaners hold key to S.A.’s future

Bv Larry HEINZERLING. through NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg The Afrikaners. proud, stubborn, and in full political control, hold the destiny of racially-divided South Africa in heir hands.

Little known outside South Africa, these descendants of Dutch and French Huguenot pioneers dominate the white minority that governs South Africa.

They make up roughly two-thirds of the nation’s four million whites and 1 firmly control politics and I Government administration. I South Africa's English-' speakers, generally more i widely known abroad, are impotent politically: basically passengers in an Afrikaner boat. As the novelist Alan. Paton sees it. the future of South Africa, home of 18million voteless blacks, I depends on the outcome of aj historical confrontation between blacks and Afrikaners, j ‘My view is that the fut-l ure depends reallv more on; the Afrikaner and the black; man than it does on us 1

( E n g 1 i s h-speaking South Africans),” he said in a recent interview. “Were the onlookers.” A thread ot antipathy between English and Afrik a a n s-speaking South Africans runs through the history of this nation, once ruled by Britain.

The hostility lingers on, muted, joked about, and officially dismissed as irrelevant. Bu* nevertheless real. There is a sense of national unity among the white groups and yet many Afrikaners remain aloof, almost xenophobic, stridently clinging to their separate culture in what has become known as Afrikaner nationalism.

Many English-speaking South Africans have a condescending attitude to Afrikaners. reflected in their critical stereotypes of a conservative people bred in a tradition of farming and Calvinism.

Caustic remarks at cock-1 tail partes about the “hairy! backs' or the Boers are still! not uncommon among the! traditionally more urbane' British South Africans.

In fact, many Englishspeaking South Africans — perhaps hypocritically — blame Afrikaners almost entirely for South Africa’s controversial racial laws of apartheid, or separate racial development. although a British-imposed colour bar came first.

The view is possibly twofaced because, as Afrikaners will argue, many of South Africa’s English-speakers are in no hurry to dismantle the privileged position whites enjoy despite the political abuse they hurl at the Government.

Fiercely independent, the Afrikaners have defied the colonial Dutch East India Company, the British Empire. and now the world in their determination to carve a homeland in southern Africa. They came in ships from Holland and France and over the vears evolved a new language and culture — its roots in Europe — which blossomed in Africa.

In Cape Town they came under the rule of the British Empire which eventually led to the Great Trek of 1836

when the voortrekkers, seeking to escape British control, plunged into the interior fighting off hostile blacks to create eventually the Boer Republic.

Though the British won! the Boer War, which ended] in 1902. the Afrikaners wonj the peace, a victory that cul-j minated in the success in the elections of 1948 of the Afrikaner-dominated National Partv.

In the last quarter of a century the National Party has mounted a formidable edifice of race legislation to ensure white domination. This policy of separate race development is characterised by its discrimination against blacks and the division of the country into I scattered tribal homelands! or reserves, which are duel for ultimate political inde-l pendence. The homelands constitute only 13 per cent iof the nation's land area. The Afrikaner architects iof this policy are not defensive about apartheid, but ; rather proclaim it as the 'only way of maintaining i racial peace and preserving

white civilisation in south ern Africa.

The critics of Afrikaner-; dom view the Afrikaners as; authoritarian, dominated by fundamentalist religious principles reflected in the Dutch Reformed Churches,I and politically conservative in the extreme.

But that is a simplistic view which fails to recognise cleavages in Afrikanerdom reflected in a growing debate within the National Party over the nation's future.

A significant number of leading Afrikaner academics, intellectuals, newspaper editors, and others are clamouring for change. It reflects a political division between what have become known as the “verligtes,” or enlightened Afrikaners. and the “verkramptes.” or narrowminded ones.

Mr Willem de Klerk, edi-1 tor of the National Party; i organ. “Die Transvaler,” in the Transvaal province, coined the words in 196/ and is one of the leading

“verligtes” in the Afrikaner press. "Discrimination offends black people, is full of explosive emotions, and is a [poisonous hatred and the fuse to light the conflagration of southern Africa," he wrote recently. That view is shared by a growing number of Afrikaner opinion-makers who are asking in effect for a re-examination of the entire policy of apartheid as it now exists. It is the view of Afrikaner “verligtes” that leaders of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, lead bv the Prime Minister (Mr John Vorster), also want change. The stumbling block, however, is a, conservative electorate that might support a 'Right-wing backlash against [change if reforms come too quickly. [ Thus, argue the “verligtes,” Mr Vorster is in a (position of having to find a [way of instituting change (without appearing to enIdanser white supremacy. I “The Soweto riots were a I blessing in disguise," was the

'(observation of one Afrikaner! (newspaper pundit. “Now hei J has an excuse to do some-[ ’(thing.” i Ironically, it was Afri-j rikaner chauvinism that pro--'bablv sparked the trouble in, lithe black township outsidej; iJohannesburg and the capital of Pretoria because of the in-; risistence that black schools j; ‘teach half their course in|i ’ Afrikaans, despite a black preference for English. t. Some argue persuasively that if Western Powers, par- > ticularlv the United States. i c would support South Africa 1 j more openly politically and i , economically, it would help 1 ' the Government in imple- i menting change. .' They argue, for example, ; -j that increased U.S. invest- ’ ilment in South Africa would ' 11 make it possible to provide ! j[more jobs for blacks with ; (better pav. . They said it would also ; alsoothe the insecurity felt by., iimany whites, and lead to a e|more relaxed atmosphere ini, .which change could take; (place. I a j “The Afrikaner nationalist; e'has reached the final cross-i

iroads in his historv and faces [alternatives of enormous and (fundamental importance to 'the future of South Africa,” (Alan Paton wrote recently. "He must either bring about significant internal change, jsoon, or face violent confrontation.”

Paton, a longtime critic of apartheid. also recognises (the difficult political position lin which Mr Vorster finds himself.

“He must move fast enough to abate world hostility and give confidence to black people in South Africa that there is a possible future for them without revolution," savs Paton.

“And he must avoid making his play so fast that he loses political power. This will put him on a tightrope that will require great personal strength and skill."

Afrikanerdom has shown (an ability to adapt deftly to changing circumstances (throughout its history, and, las one observer recently put (it: “Having been undaunted iby the old Africa, it may [have discovered how to come Ito terms with the new.”