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Political Institutions and Afrikaner Social Structures in the Republic of South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Stanley Trapido
Stanley Trapido*
Affiliation:
University of Natal
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Extract

The long-term Afrikaner drive for power has been strongly influenced by the demographic structure of the South African electorate. Within the framework of the primary political system, secondary structures make deviations from the demographic patterns extremely difficult. The purpose of this paper is to trace the relations between the population cleavage and the composition of basic social institutions, and their bearing on the distribution of political power; and to raise the question of the viability of the resulting system.

Let us start with demography. Power in South Africa resides in the two White linguistic groups—the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of mainly Dutch settlers—and the English-speaking descendants of mainly British settlers—and parliamentary party affiliations have come to be determined almost entirely by linguistic and cultural ties; that is, by the structure of the society. The demographic composition of the electorate (Table I)—three voters speak Afrikaans to every two who speak English—has tended to influence the direction that the political system has taken. Because Afrikaners were always a majority of the electorate there were, amongst their political leaders, some who saw that if those who spoke the Afrikaans language voted, not as workers, or farmers, or protectionists but as Afrikaners, then political power would be theirs. General Louis Botha, inverting von Clausewitz, had declared after the Boer War: “the battle which was won and lost in the fields of war must be fought again upon the political platform.” The history of party politics in South Africa is little more than an account of the various attempts, and the ultimate success, of Afrikaner leaders to attain this objective.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 75 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1963

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References

1 In 1936, for every 100 English-speaking persons over the age of 20 there were 115.5 speaking Afrikaans. In the age group 7 to 20 there were 180.2 Afrikaans-speaking persons for every 100 English-speaking. The figures are even more significant for the group under 7 years of age. For every 100 found in the English language group 215 were found in the Afrikaans group. In these figures we can account for the growth of the Nationalist party's vote. See Schuman, C. G. W., Die Ekonomiese Posisie van die Afrikaner (Nasionale Pers) 1940 Google Scholar. There are indications of a more recent decline in the birthrate of Afrikaners. A preliminary report of a survey made by a commission of inquiry undertaken by the Afrikaans Reformed Churches in Pretoria showed that in a sample of 1551 families the average number of children was 2.37. The families from which the parents came had 6.19 children per family, a de¬crease of 62% in one generation. “Natal Mercury,” 1 December 1959.

2 Coetzee, J. A., Politieke Groepering in die Wording van die Afrikanernasie (Johannesburg, 1941), p. 323 Google Scholar, citing Pretoria News, 5 July 1905.

3 Neumark, S. D., Economie Influences on the South African Frontier 1692–1886 (Stanford University Press, 1957)Google Scholar, gives an excellent study of the frontier economy which dispels the idea that the frontiersman was a subsistence agriculturalist. Of the frontier I. D. MacCrone has written that “it is not merely a place or a population, but a process. While it certainly retains its geographical and demographic overtones, its main significance lies in what it does to a people who are subject to its influence over a number of generations.” Journal of Race Relations, Vol. 28, No. 3 (07-09 1961)Google Scholar. For a full treatment of this proposition see his Race Attitudes in South Africa. Historical, Experimental and Psychological Studies (Witwatersrand University Press, 1957), pp. 328 ff.Google Scholar

4 de Kiewiet, C. W., A History of South Africa, Social and Economic (Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 191 Google Scholar.

5 Wilcocks, R. W., “The Poor White Problem in South Africa. Part II, Psychological Report,” Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, 1932), p. 1 Google Scholar.

6 The 1936 census reported 87.5% of White farmers to be Afrikaans-speaking. U.G. 11–42, Sixth Census, 5th May, 1936, Vol. VII, Occupations. Similarly the 1946 census showed 85.54%, or 143,022 out of 167,198 Whites employed in agriculture, to be Afrikaans-speaking. U.G. 41–54 Population Census, 7th May, 1946, Vol. V. Occupations and Industries, p. 42 (male) and p. 54 (female).

7 These skills or capital have been acquired in a colour bar society. The proposition, however, is made on the basis of the society as given.

8 “Agriculture in South Africa is poor and precarious. Much of it is beyond the reach of modern science and technical progress. The expenditure and effort required to overcome many of its handicaps are too great to be profitable. Indeed South Africa is not an agricultural country. It has no natural advantages which by the help of science and organisation could win for its agricultural products a truly commanding position in the markets of the world. Of its pastoral products wool alone was able to compete successfully in the open market. Without subsidy and under conditions of free competition much of the land could not be economically cultivated.” De Kiewet, op. cit., p. 259.

9 Ibid., p. 260.

10 U.G. 1 and 30—1961. Agricultural Economics and Marketing. Vote 46, p. 27S. Estimates of the expenditure to be defrayed from revenue account during the year ending 31 March, 1962.

11 The size of this assistance to the White agricultural community of no more than 400,000 persons can be gauged by comparing it with the recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission which urged the spending of £104 million in the next ten years to provide for the economic development of the reserves. Of this sum £55 million was to be interest-bearing and recoverable. The commission said that £9 million would be required for the first year of their programme. The Minister of Native Affairs did not accept the Commission's recommendations and claimed that at most £36.6 million would be required over a twelve-year period, an average expenditure of £3 million. The population of the reserves in the 1951 census was 3,633,000.

12 The Mines and Works Act (No. 27 of 1956), originally passed in 1911, prohibits Africans from doing skilled work in the mines. The Native Building Workers Act (No. 27 of 1951) prohibits African building workers from working in “White” areas. The Industrial Conciliation Act (No. 28 of 1956), as amended in 1959, reserves specified types of work for persons of a defined racial category. Determinations reserving work for Whites have included: all skilled work in the clothing industry; the driving of motor transport vehicles in the Durban municipal cleansing undertaking, and fifteen categories of work in the Durban steel engineering and metallurgical industry; passenger lift attendants and workers in the domestic appliances industry.

In addition, although the Apprenticeship Act (No. 37 of 1944) does not exclude Africans from apprenticeships, established practice in all trades prevents their being registered under the Act. The Industrial Conciliation Act and the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act (No. 48 of 1953) place obstacles in the way of African Trade Unions and specifically exclude them from the States collective bargaining arrangements.

13 The Last Trek (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957), p. 163 Google Scholar.

14 Kuper, L., Watts, H. and Davies, R., Durban. A Study of Racial Ecology (London, Jonathan Cape, 1958), Table XXII, p. 89 Google Scholar.

15 See the same source as for Table V, at pp. 48, 50.

16 U.G. 11-42, Sixth Census … 1936, op. cit., p. 13.

17 Liberation, September 1957, H. Lawson, pp. 11–23.

18 Natal Mercury, April 1959.

19 Goosen, D. P., ed., Triomf van Nasionalisme. Die Sakewereld-'n halfeeu opkoms en groei, Johannesburg, 1953, pp. 715–718 Google Scholar; S. Pauw, op. cit., pp. 235–236.

20 House of Assembly Debates, February 5, 1959, Col. 458.

21 Forum, July 1961, Stanley Uys, p. 12.

22 Simons, H. J., “Social Structures and Power in South Africa.” Unpublished paper presented to the Africa Seminar, University of Cape Town. 8 pages (1960), p. 7 Google Scholar.

23 Sheila Patterson, op. cit., p. 168 (my emphasis).

24 Progressive Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 5 (10 1909)Google Scholar noted: “The recently formed “Labour” organisation entitled “Arbeid Adelt” held a meeting at the Lombardy Hotel on 14th September. … The society is supposed to be a labour organisation formed for the benefit of the unskilled workers, but it is regarded in many quarters as a political move, designed for the purpose of alienating the Dutch speaking workers from the Labour Party, which has plainly intimated that it will not support the Het Volk, as it did at the last election.”

The Round Table, Vol. 6 (1915–1916), p. 356 Google Scholar, notes of the Nationalist Party fighting its first election that it “promulgated a domestic programme designed to attract labour support. …”

25 Sheila Patterson, op. cit., p. 154.

26 Alexander, Ray and Simons, H. J., Job Reservation and the Trade Unions (Cape Town, 1959), p. 8 Google Scholar, quoting Cabinet Minister Vorster, B. J., House of Assembly Debates, 02 6, 1956, Col. 1047Google Scholar.

27 Sheila Patterson, op. cit., p. 168.

28 Carter, Gwendolen, Politics of Inequality, p. 259 Google Scholar, quoting Dr.Donges, T. E., “Die Toekomsrol van die R.D.B, in one Ekonomiese Lewe,” 4 pp.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 247, quoting Die Johannesburge Skakelkomite Sekretariate Verslag, November 1951–October 1952, 24 pp.

30 Sachs, E. S., Rebels Daughters (London, McGibbon and Key, 1957), p. 146 Google Scholar.

31 Sachs notes, ibid., pp. 138–9, that in 1938 at the time of the Voortrekker centenary celebrations his Union decided to form a “Kappie Kommando” of women, dressed in the traditional Afrikaner costumes, who were to take part in celebrations. Sachs received the following letter from a D. B. H. Grobbelaar: “I enclose herewith a specimen copy of a pamphlet published by me, in which I point out the mockery of our national traditions your participation in the Centenary Celebrations will mean. The same applies to Johanna Cornelius and your other Communistic accomplices. The Afrikaner nation is busy uniting —to mobilise its forces against you and your sort. The thousands of Afrikaner daughters whom you have in your clutches will settle with you and, with them, the whole Boer nation, who are finding themselves in the Voortrekker year. Our people do not want anything to do with Communism and the Jews—the high priests thereof—least of all. The day when we Afrikaners begin to settle with you Jews, you will find out that Germany is a Jewish paradise compared with what South Africa will be! The garment workers will very soon be able to handle their Jewish bosses and do not need your so-called ‘help’. We Afrikaners acknowledge no ‘classes’ as you and your satellites are trying to introduce—therefore, we do not want the garment workers as a ‘class’ to participate in the celebrations, but all together with us as Boers—the factory girl with the professor's wife. You and Johanna Cornelius, who all day organise and address kaffirs—will you dare to bring them also along to the celebrations? They are your fellow workers and ‘Comrades’.”

Sachs invited Grobbelaar to share the platform at a meeting of the Union and move a motion of no-confidence in his leadership. This Grobbelaar did, and Sachs claims that at a meeting of over 2000 persons his opponent could get only thirteen votes.

32 The influence of the English-speaking labour movement should not be over-estimated. Sachs, E. S. writing in Forward, 15 07 1938 Google Scholar, noted that “The masses of Afrikaner people, in spite of their ever-increasing poverty, were neither attracted to the Labour Movement nor did they seek entry. They looked upon Trade Unions and the Labour Party as foreign organisations, and the workers' organisations looked upon the Afrikaner people with an air of disdain. … Gradually masses of Afrikaner workers entered the mines, railways and factories. But the Labour Movement, although it did modify its policy somewhat towards the Afrikaner workers, and opened the doors of the Trade Unions to them has so far failed almost entirely to try to appreciate fully the development, tradition, sentiments and aspirations of the masses of Afrikaners. … The non-Afrikaners failed to realise that the vast masses of Afrikaners may enjoy full rights abstractly, but in concrete practice they feel as an oppressed nation … as a people which suffered cultural, economic and political oppression. People of a ruling race, including even class conscious workers, usually fail to understand the feelings of a conquered nation, of an oppressed people. Let us admit frankly that the Labour Movement in South Africa has failed to give a lead on the national question, failed to orientate itself to the masses of Afrikaner people especially those who live on the land.”

33 Union Statistics for Fifty Years, A. 26, 1951 Census, 1,402,703 persons were members of the Afrikaans Calvinist Churches; 1,502,791 Whites cited Afrikaans as their home language.

34 Rand Daily Mail, 11 September 1959, reported that the Nationalist candidate for Vereen-inging, P. J. du Pisonie, had been either nominated or seconded by ministers of the Gere-formeerde Kerk, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk and the Hervormde Kerk. Natal Mercury, 24 September 1960, reported that an Afrikaans clergyman had opened a republican referendum meeting with a prayer. Sunday Times, 18 October 1959, reported that a prayer of thanks was offered by Reverend S. J. T. Boshoff of Linden outside the polling booth when the election result for North West Rand was announced.

35 Sheila Patterson, op. cit., p. 197.

36 Die Transvaaler, 29 December 1960.

37 Natal Daily News, 3 January 1961.

38 MacCrone, op. cit., p. 127. He reports, ibid.’ p. 129, a conversation between Dr. Vander Kemp’ the famous missionary, and some Khoi Khoin people (Hottentots). A Koi Khoin called Courage asked Vander Kemp if it were not true that God had created them as well as the Christians, and the beasts of the field; “for you know (said he) that the Dutch farmers teach us that He never created us, nor taketh any notice of us!”

39 The Johannesburg Star, 27 April 1960, reports that the Reverend Nell, a N.G.K, minister to the Paardekraal Monument (Krugersdorp) community, told his congregants, shortly after the Sharpville and Langa shootings and the mass arrests that followed, “that bullets and imprisonment could not solve the Native problem.” A Church council meeting was held shortly after this, newspapers reporting that members of his congregation had taken exception to his sermon. Almost immediately afterwards Mr. Nell resigned for “personal” reasons.

The Johannesburg Sunday Times, 30th April 1961, reported that the Reverend A. J. Don had resigned from his congregation and left South Africa for Holland because of his inability to express his opposition to the Government's apartheid policy.

The Natal Mercury, 8 August 1961, reported that the Reverend Redlinghuis of the N.H.K, resigned from the ministry because, “As a servant of God I am compelled to preach the Gospel in all its consequences. I can no longer do that in my Church.”

The Johannesburg Star, 16 March 1961, reported that the Synod of the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk bitterly attacked two of its members who published essays in Vertragde Aksie (Delayed Action), a critical symposium on the theological justifications of government policy. Members of the Synod called for their dismissal. The Synod rejected the request by the dissidents for a commission of enquiry to investigate the scriptural validity of the prohibition of non-White membership of the Church. The Synod declared their support for Government policy, asking only that it be expedited. The dissidents, the Synod asserted, had started an “agitation” at a critical time for the Church and the Nation when both had their backs to the wall and both were fighting for self-preservation. The deviants were requested to submit to Church law and constitution and were given seven days to “think it over.” If they still disagreed they would be asked to resign. A new clause was inserted into the Church constitution which prohibits ministers from publicly criticising Church policy.

The Johannesburg Star, 7 January 1961, had earlier reported that a meeting of 700 people in the Brits Town Hall addressed by ministers of the N.G.K, and the N.H.K, unanimously pasBed a resolution deploring the publication of Vertragde Aksie and assured “the writers (of Vertragde Aksie) that as long as they retain the views they have expressed they will not be welcome to Brits.”

40 The Peoples and Policies of South Africa (Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 184 Google Scholar.

41 The Broederbond appears to be a co-ordinating body, linking the activities of the national-gesindes in political, economic and cultural organisations. See Carter, op. cit., pp. 250–256. General Hertzog in his famous attack on the Broederbond declared that one-third of its members were school teachers. “There are few towns or villages in the country where the Broederbond has not already established cells of five to six members, with at least two teachers belonging to each and whose duty it is to spread Broederbond propaganda.” Cape Argus, 7 November 1938.

42 The Sash, Black, Education for Isolation. Vol. 4, No. 5 (09 1960), p. 9 Google Scholar, J. Malherbe, “Separation in Schools.”

43 This is determined by Education Department officials. Parents sending their children to private (paying) schools may choose the language of instruction.

44 Christelike-Nasionale Onderwys Belied Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuur Vereninginge (1949), Article I.

45 Ibid., Article VI.

46 Natal Daily News, 19 September 1959.

47 Scholars searching for the roots of African and Asian nationalism have noted that many colonial nationalist leaders were influenced by Socialist ideas that were current during their stay at British, and to a lesser extent, American universities in the period between the two world wars. A similar study of Afrikaner nationalist leaders could profitably examine the influence upon them of German romanticism.

48 Rubin, N., History of the Relations between N.U.S.A.S., the Afrikaanse Studentebond and the Afrikaans University Centres, p. 2 Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 3.

50 Ibid., pp. 5, 7.

51 Ibid., p. 3.

52 Ibid., p. 10.

53 For an excellent study of this period see Roberts, Michael and Trollip, A. E. G., The South African Opposition 1939–1945: an essay on contemporary history (London, 1947, Longmans, Green and Co.)Google Scholar

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