The Nature of Afrikaner Nationalism

Melvin Goldberg

doi:10.1017/S0022278X00056536

The Nature of Afrikaner Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008

Melvin Goldberg

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Melvin Goldberg: Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town

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Afrikaner nationalism has been analysed from broadly-speaking two perspectives. In the main, the literature has focused on the evolution of a movement rooted in a common history, language, and religion,1 and has traced the roots of a nation-in-the-making back 300 years in South African history,2 before the inevitable flowering of Afrikanerdom in the twentieth century. In contrast to the growth of European nationalism which is linked to the rise of the bourgeoisie, studies of Afrikaner nationalism have tended to neglect the class dimension by emphasising ideology as a unifying force and organising principle. An alternative approach has been attempted by Dan O'Meara who locates Afrikaner nationalism within the dynamic of capitalist development in South Africa, explaining its ideology in terms of its class character, and although his study often lacks subtlety, it stresses factors that have been neglected by the more usual idealist accounts.3

Type: Africana
Information: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1985 , pp. 125 - 131

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00056536 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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^{page 125 note 1} See Vatcher, William Henry Jr, White Laager: the rise of Afrikaner nationalism (London, 1965), p. ix;Google Scholarde Villiers, René, ‘Afrikaner Nationalism’, in Wilson, Monica and Thompson, Leonard (eds.), The Oxford History of South Africa, Vol. II (Oxford, 1971), pp. 365–423;Google Scholarde Klerk, W. A., The Puritans in Africa: a story of Afrikanerdom (London, 1975);Google Scholar and Moodie, T. D., The Rise of Afrikanerdom: power, apartheid and the Afrikaner civil religion (Berkeley, 1975).Google Scholar

^{page 125 note 2} Vatcher, op. cit. p. 40.

^{page 125 note 3} O'Meara, Dan, Volkskapitalisme: class, capital and ideology in the development of Afrikaner nationalism, 1934–1948 (Johannesburg and Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

^{page 125 note 4} Sachs, E. S. (Solly), Rebels Daughters (London, 1957), p. 33.Google Scholar

^{page 125 note 5} David Welsh, ‘The Growth of Towns’, in Wilson and Thompson (eds.), op. cit. p. 176.

^{page 125 note 6} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 26.

^{page 125 note 7} Welsh, loc. cit. p. 176.

^{page 126 note 1} Carnegie Corporation Commission, Report of the Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa, Parts I–V (Stellenbosch, 1932), pp. vii–viii.Google Scholar

^{page 126 note 2} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 26.

^{page 126 note 3} Cresswell to Hertzog, 12 April 1923, cited in Kruger, D. W. (ed.), South African Parties and Policies, 1910–1960: a select source book (Cape Town, 1960), p. 74.Google Scholar

^{page 126 note 4} Ibid. p. 77.

^{page 126 note 5} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 28–31.

^{page 127 note 1} Welsh, loc. cit. p. 203.

^{page 127 note 2} O'Meara, op. cit. pp. 39–48.

^{page 127 note 3} Ibid. p. 47.

^{page 127 note 4} Roberts, Michael and Trollip, A. E. G., The South African Opposition, 1939–1945: an essay on contemporary history (London and Cape Town, 1947), p. 7.Google Scholar

^{page 127 note 5} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 49.

^{page 127 note 6} Ibid. pp. 49–50.

^{page 128 note 1} Moodie, op. cit. p. 115.

^{page 128 note 2} Ibid. p. 100, my emphasis.

^{page 128 note 3} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 60.

^{page 128 note 4} Moodie, op. cit. p. 198.

^{page 128 note 5} Ibid. p. 55. Kuyper, Abraham, Calvanism (Amsterdam, 1899).Google Scholar

^{page 128 note 6} Ibid. p. 70.

^{page 129 note 1} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 68.

^{page 129 note 2} See, for example, Moodie, op. cit. p. 26.

^{page 129 note 3} E.g. Bunting, Brian, The Rise of the South African Reich (Harmondsworth, 1964),Google Scholar and Simson, Howard, The Social Origins of Afrikaner Fascism and its Apartheid Policy (Uppsala, 1980).Google Scholar

^{page 129 note 4} See Moodie, op. cit. p. 154.

^{page 129 note 5} Kedourie, Elie, Nationalism (London, 1969), p. 64.Google Scholar

^{page 129 note 6} Moodie, op. cit. p. 150.

^{page 129 note 7} Ibid. p. 169.

^{page 129 note 8} O'Meara, op. cit. pp. 68–9.

^{page 130 note 1} Moodie, op. cit. p. 175.

^{page 130 note 2} Sachs, op. cit. p. 132.

^{page 130 note 3} Moodie, op. cit. p. 204.

^{page 130 note 4} O'Meara, op. cit. p. 104.

^{page 130 note 5} Ibid. pp. 100–6.

^{page 131 note 1} Ibid. p. 235.

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