Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
Afrikaner consciousness and identification have a tradition of very clear ethnic roots. Derived from a common ancestral stock that gives biological, historical, and linguistic characteristics to their identity, Afrikaners also share a Protestant religion tradition, with a major theme of Calvinistic predestination and being in South Africa due to divine providence. While opposing parties may vie for their support, the sentiment of favouring Afrikaners and whites – in that order – is shared by all.
1 Usually referred to as the first stirings of Afrikaner consciousness. February, V. A., Mind Your Colour: the ‘coloured’ stereotype in South African literature (London and Boston, 1981), p. 41, offers a different interpretation when he states: ‘Then, for the first time, the word “Africander” was used to mean “white”.’Google Scholar
2 Katzen, M. F., ‘White Settlers and the Origin of a New Society, 1652–1778’, in Wilson, Monica and Thompson, Leonard (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, Vol. I, South Africa to 1870 (Oxford and New York, 1969), p. 232.Google Scholar
3 Leonard Thompson, ‘Co-operation and Conflict: the Zulu Kingdom and Natal’, in ibid. p. 357.
4 De Kerkbode (Cape Town), 22 November 1837, my translation of Afrikaans, as elsewhere.Google Scholar
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6 van Rensburg, Niklass, 1862–1926, was the Boer prophet who had gained the confidence of General de Wet during the Anglo-Boer War. When he made certain predictions in 1914 they were accepted and trusted, and much of the uprising depended on his visions.Google Scholar
7 See du Toit, Brian M., Beperkte Lidmaatskap: n Antropologies-wetenskaplike Studie van Geheime en Semi-Geheime Organisasies (Cape Town, 1965),Google Scholar‘The Secret Society as Cultural Agent – the Case of the Broederbond in South Africa’, in Patterns of Prejudice (London), 8, 2, 1974, pp. 1–7,Google ScholarConfigurations of Cultural Countinuity (Rotterdam, 1976), pp. 103–41,Google Scholar and ‘Beliefs and Self-Help: dynamic factors in the emergence of the Afrikaner’, in Weber, G. H. and Cohen, L. M. (eds.), Beliefs and Self-Help: cross-cultural perspectives and approaches (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
8 The Ossewa Brandwag, or ‘Oxwagon Fire Guard’, was formed as an action front for the Broederbond during the commemorative centennial of the Great Trek in 1938. It was opposed to war against Germany, and hoped during 1940–1 to bring about a coup d'état in South Africa. See further in du Toit, Configurations of Cultural Continuity, pp. 119 and 142–4.
9 Pirow, Oswald, Nuwe Orde uir Suid Afrika (Pretoria, 1941), publsihed by the Christian–Republican South African National–Socialist Study Circle.Google Scholar
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11 Theo Cerdener was Minister of the Interior in the Government hdaded by John Vorster when he made his break from the National Party in 1972. The previous year, according to The Star (Johannesburg), 20 07 1971, Gerdener had stated that white South Africans ‘would have to adopt more supple and more humane attitudes towards Non-Whites and that the campaign of dialogue with black states would have to gain impetus and be accepted. The decade of the seventies would be “final”. South Africa would not get a second chance to put its house in order’.Google Scholar
12 Harry Schwartz is currently South Africa's ambassador to the United States.
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16 See David Hirschmann, ‘The Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa’, in Ibid. 28, 1, March 1990, pp. 1–22. For the crucial rô of Clements kadalie and the Industial and Commercial Worker's Union in the awakening of Black Consciousness, see Roux, Edward, Time Longer than Rope: a history of the black man's struggle for freedom in South Africa (London, 1948, Madison, 1965),Google Scholar and Bradford, Helen, A Taste of Freedom: the ICU in rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (New Haven, 1987).Google Scholar
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21 Feite (Pretoria), 9 04 1974. This issue presented, as usual, conservative comments and reprinted newspaper headlines/articles/photographs about various developments, including integration in sports and schools, and contained an attack on the U.S. Southern African L.E.P. and the American Field Service.Google Scholar
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75 One ultra-conservative spokesman sees a direct relation between the ‘humanistic–liberalistic’ Cottesloe discussions and David Pratt's assassination attack on Verwoerd in 1960. See Pont, A. D., Die Liberalisme in die Afrikaanse Kerke (Pretoria, 1978), Christelike Kultuuraksie, No. 10, p. 5.Google Scholar
76 Dutch Reformed Church, Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture (Cape Town, 1976), p. 95.Google ScholarThis is the official English version of Ras, Volk en Nasie Volkeverhoudinge in die lig van die Skrif, which was adopted by the General Synod of Dutch Reformed Church in October 1974.Google Scholar
77 Viljoen, P. J., Gesamentlike Aanbidding. Vanwaar kom dit? Waarheen lei dit? (Carleton, 1979). Hosea, ch. 4, verse 6 reads: ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee that thou shalt be no priest to:seeing thou hast forgotton the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.’.Google Scholar
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89 The word ‘verk’, although translated in its noun form as ‘dead’, is normally only applied to animals.Google Scholar
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102 According to The Star, 15 May 1991, the A.W.B. recorganised and attacked Tshing, a black township outside Ventersdrop, after they had been scared away by the police from Goedgevonden. A week later the A.W.B. announced at a meeting in Pretoria that each of the 2,000 farmers who had taken part in ‘the battle of Goedgevonden’ would receive a medal, and that the scrapping of the 1913 Land Acts ‘assuring whites of the lion's share of South Africa’ would be interpreted as a ‘declaration of war’. Ibid. 22 May 1991.
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104 ‘No Mas,’ means ‘No More’, and was the first ‘whites-only’ election poster to appear in a language other than Afrikaans or English.
105 There are those who explain this split as a result of class divisions – for example, Charney, Craig, ‘Class Conflict and the National Party Split’, in Journal of Southern African Studies (London), 10, 2, 1984, pp. 269–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar According to Baker, Pauline H., ‘South Africa: the Afrikaner Angst’, in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.), 69, 1988, p. 61, ‘The heart of the problem lies within Afrikanerdom. From a homogeneous community of impoverished farmers, miners, and manual laborers in Malan's day, Afrikaners have become largely an urbanized society of middle-class managers and technocrats. The Afrikaners have changed, so have their politics, creating divisions that even Malan did not foresee. Because it is class-based, the process of fragmentation seems irreversible’.Google Scholar
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