Polite face of apartheid

Press, 9 November 1978, Page 8

Polite face of apartheid

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg At the beginning of this year Cornelius — “Connie” — Mulder was the man most widely tipped to become South Africa’s Prime Minister when John Vorster stepped down. Now, in the midst of the financial and political scandal rocking the Government and after being beaten for the Prime Ministership in September by Pieter Botha, Dr Mulder has announced his resignation as a Cabinet Minister. Dr Mulder’s decision apparently marks the end of a glittering career. Once he,; ■was hailed as the ideologue!; of apartheid — the successor to the late Hendrik Ver-! woerd, architect of the) theory of separate racial development as opposed to; simple white supremacy. Now 53, Dr Mulder camel from a solidly Afrikaner background. He was born in; Transvaal province and went! to Potchefstroom University, an important seat of Afrikaans learning. He obtained a doctorate from the English-language | University of the Witwaters-! rand — ' the theme of his thesis was the influence of the Bible on the character formation of the Afrikaner people. After university Dr Mulder became a teacher, and later local-Government councillor. He entered Parliament in 1958 for the ruling National Party, and 10 years later went into the Cabinet, as Minister of Information.

i Social Welfare, Pensions,! and Immigration. ; In 1972 he shed immigra-j I tion and added the import-1 ant Interior Ministry to hisj port-folios. At the came time! i he was moving up in the j 'party hierarchy, capturing (the key post of leader of the i National Party in the TransIvaal, which he still holds. i Earlier this year, he suc(ceeded M. C. Botha as MinI ister of Bantu (black) Administration and Develi opment. But characteristically, he renamed his department as “plural relations,” to stress the ethnic plurality of South Africa. Unlike the Foreign Minister (Mr Pik Botha), who is on the “verligte” (enlightened) wing of the National I Party, Dr Mulder did not fall clearly among the hard-lin-ers or comparative liberals. He frequently took a ; tough stance on fundamental , issues. He was the man who , told Parliament, while dis-

cussing Pretoria’s policies of ' declaring black homelands 1 independent countries, that 5 one day there would be no - black South African citizens. On the other hand, he i talked of turning Soweto, . the ugly black township out- i side Johannesburg, into the < most beautiful city in 1 Africa. , And he removed the word 1 “Bantu” from official descriptions and replaced it < with “black.” Although Bantu means only “people,” • it was universally despised ’ by blacks because of its ; links with apartheid. j One commentator said that Dr Mulder brought a| I quality to the job of overI seeing black affairs which I had previously been lacking •>— politeness. 1 ! His style was more {acceptable, even if the ! underlying policies were ■ I fundamentally unchanged.