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Afrikaner Nationalist Historiography and the Policy of Apartheid1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Extract

One of the characteristic traits of a national culture is a distinctive historical folklore, which lauds the qualities and magnifies the deeds of national heroes and derides those of their opponents, domestic and foreign. Such a mythology is harmless enough if it is light and humorous in tone, if it is taken with a pinch of salt, and if it is offset by dispassionate teaching in the schools and universities and objective writing by the historians. But if the mythology itself is bitter and humourless, if it dwells upon grievances, if it is taken too seriously, and if it is propagated by teachers and writers, then the national outlook is liable to become diseased. In the extreme case, the capacity for formulating and pursuing a rational goal becomes vitiated by illusion. Duped by a romantic historical image, party, press and even pulpit advocate unwise and unjust policies, in the name of tradition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1962

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References

2 Jarman, T. L., The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany (London, 1955), 50.Google Scholar

3 See Myrdal, Gunnar, The American Dilemma (New York, 1944), Appendix I, ‘A Methodological Note on Valuations and Beliefs’, and Appendix 2, ‘A Methodological Note on Facts and Valuations in Social Science’.Google Scholar

4 Wilmot, A. and Chase, J. C., History of the Colony of the Cope of Good Hope (1869), 157. The books mentioned in this paper were published in South Africa, with the exception of those which are stated to have been published elsewhere.Google Scholar

5 The most reliable general histories of South Africa which are now available in the English language are those of Walker, Eric A., A History of Southern Africa (third edition, London, 1957),Google Scholar and de Kiewiet, C. V., A History of South Africa, social and economic (Oxford, 1941).Google Scholar The former, a modified and enlarged version of the same author's A History of South Africa (first edition, London, 1928), is a work of reference with a British bias; the latter is a brilliant but somewhat sweeping liberal interpretation.Google Scholar Some of the chapters in The Cambridge History of the British Empire, viii, South Africa, Rhodesia and the Protectorates (Cambridge 1936) are still of value.Google Scholar The questions touched on in the above paragraph have been handled in the following scholarly works: the Black Circuit of 1812 and the Slagter's Nek rebellion of 1815 by Reybum, H. A. in The Critic, III, Oct. 1934, Jan. 1935 and April 1935;Google Scholar the emancipation of the slaves and its aftermath in the Cape Colony, by Macmillan, W. M., The Cape Colour Question (London, 1927),Google ScholarMarais, J. S., The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 (London, 1939),Google Scholar and Edwards, Isobel E., Towards Emancipation: a Study in South African Slavery (Cardiff, 1942);Google Scholar the events on the eastern frontier in the 1830's by Macmillan, W. M., Bantu, Boer and Briton (London, 1929);Google Scholar the Great Trek by Walker, Eric A., The Great Trek (London, 1938);Google Scholar the British reversal of the policy of non-intervention north of the Orange River by de Kiewiet, C. W., British Colonial Policy and the South African Republics, 1848–72 (London, 1929);Google Scholar and the 1877 annexation of the Transvaal by de Kiewiet, C. W., The Imperial Factor in South Africa (Cambridge, 1937).Google Scholar

6 Du Toit, 89–90.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. 84

8 Bezuidenhout, C. P., De Geschiedenis van het Afrikaansche Geslacht van 1688 tot 1882 (The History of the Afrikaner Race from 1688 to 1882).Google Scholar

9 Afrikaner historiography, from its origins to 1881, is admirably described in van Jaarsveld, F. A., Die Afrikaner en sy Geskiedenis (1959), 63–124.Google Scholar I am also indebted to my colleague, Davenport, T. R. H., whose The Afrikaner Bond, 1880–1900 (unpublished thesis), deals with the work of S. J. du Toit.Google Scholar

10 First published in Dutch, Een Eeuw van Onrecht (Dordrecht, 1899); American edition, A Century of Injustice (Baltimore, 1899); English edition, A Century of Wrong (London n.d. (1900)). The first Dutch edition attributes it to Reitz, F. W., State Secretary of the South African Republic; the second Dutch edition (Dordrecht, 1900) and the English edition state that it was ‘Issued by F. W. Reitz’. In fact, J. C. Smuts was the principal author. The quotations are from the English edition.Google Scholar

11 In Afrikaner nationalist terminology the Transvaal War of 1880–1 is the ‘Eerste Vryheidsoorlog’ (First War of Freedom) and the South African War of 1899–1902 the ‘Tweede Vryheidsoorlog’.Google Scholar

12 See the bibliography in my work, The Unification of South Africa, 1902–1910 (Oxford, 1960).Google Scholar

13 Wieringa, P. A. C., De Oudste Boeren-Republieken (1921). An accurate account of the episode is in J. S. Marais, Maynier and the First Boer Republic (n.d. (1944)).Google Scholar

14 Bibliography in Martin, A. C., The Concentration Camps, 1900–2 (Facts, Figures and Fables) (1957).Google Scholar

15 E.g. Worsfold, W. Basil, Lord Milner's work in South Africa, 1897–1902 (London, 1906)Google Scholar and The Reconstruction of the New Colonies under Lord Milner (2 vols., London, 1913); Cecil Headlam's commentary in The Milner Papers (South Africa) 1897–1905 (2 vols., London, 19311933);Google ScholarCrankshaw, Edward, The Forsaken Idea: a study of Lord Milner (London, 1952);Google ScholarWrench, Sir Evelyn, Alfred Lord Milner, the man of no illusions, 1854–1925 (London, 1958).Google Scholar See also Mimer, Viscountess, My Picture Gallery (London, 1951).Google Scholar

16 Besides the works mentioned on p. 127, n. 5, Walker has written two important biographies, entitled Lord de Villiers and his Times: South Africa 1842–1914 (London, 1925)Google Scholar and Schreiner, W. P.: A South African (London, 1937).Google Scholar

17 van den Heever, C. M. and Pienaar, P. de V. (eds.), Die Kultuurgeskiedenis van die Afrikaner (19451950).Google Scholar

18 van der Walt, A. J. H., Wiid, J. A. and Gever, A. L. (eds.), Geskiedenis van SuidAfrika (1951).Google Scholar

19 For example, several of the chapters on ‘Native and Colour Policy in South Africa’ and on ‘The Cultural Struggle of the Afrikaner’ in vol. II of the Geskiedenis van SuidAfrika.Google Scholar

20 See n. 13 on p. 130 above.Google Scholar

21 Theal, G. M., The History of Africa south of the Zambesi from the earliest Times to A.D. 1884, II vols. (London, 18921919);Google ScholarSir Cory, George, The Rise of South Africa, 5 vols. (London, 19101930).Google Scholar Both Theal and Cory were reasonably equitable as between Boar and Briton; both were strongly biased in favour of the White as against the non White South African. They have provided the facts and the judgements which form the basis of many school textbooks which are used in South Africa to the present day.

22 Recently an African nationalist mythology has begun to be published in South Africa, e.g. Nosipho Majeke, The Role of the Missionaries in Conquest (n.d.)Google Scholar, and ‘Mnguni’, Three Hundred Years (1952). Both these works are vehemently anti-White: anti-British as well as anti-Afrikaner, anti-missionary as well as anti-settler.Google Scholar

23 See the works listed above, p. 227, n. 5. Eric Walker would be classed as a moderately liberal historian. In South Africa the word ‘liberal’ normally carries the special connotation of liberality in questions concerning the non-Whites.Google Scholar

24 The same ideas are enunciated in Day Dawn in South Africa (1938), Preller's only book in English.Google Scholar

25 The origins of the race attitudes of the Afrikaner people are described in MacCrone, I. D., Race Attitudes in South Africa (London, 1937).Google Scholar

26 Professor G. Cronjé followed this book with others on the same subject: Afrika sonder die Asiaat (1946), Regverdige Rasse-Apartheid (in co operation with Dr Wm. Nicol and Prof. E. P. Groenewald, 1947) and Voogdyskap en Apartheid (1948).Google Scholar

27 Inspan, Dec. 1944, 7–17.Google Scholar A full study of the history of speculation about race relations in South Africa would trace the ideal of separation back to the time of van Riebeeck; which is not surprising, because it is obvious enough that a homogeneous society is likely to be more viable than a plural society. At various times and in various ways this ideal has been advocated by colonial governors and missionaries as well as settlers, and in the interests of non-Whites as well as Whites. The suggestion that it was essential for the survival of the Whites that the process of territorial intermingling that had already taken place should be reversed, and that the several ethnic groups, or at least the Whites and the Africans, should be completely separated from one another into different territories was propounded by English writers before it was propounded by Afrikaners. See, for example, Bell, F. W., The South African Native Problem: a Suggested Solution (1909),Google ScholarEvans, M. S., Black and White in South Africa (London, 1916)Google Scholar, and Gibson, J. Y., The Evolution of South African Native Policy (1929). The Afrikaner Nationalist Party was the first political party to adopt the idea. It did so, with some equivocation, in the 1940's, largely as a result of the influence of Afrikaner academics and ecclesiastics, such as those mentioned above.Google Scholar

28 Published in both English and Afrikaans editions, 1960.Google Scholar

29 The book contains many inconsistencies. In this summary I have tried my best to present the central thesis as coherently and logically as possible, and for the most part I have done so in the words of the text.Google Scholar

31 pp. 27, 246. Likewise p. 228, ‘a unique programme for the complete uplift of the different Bantu communities’; and p. 255, ‘a programme for wholesale emancipation’.Google Scholar

33 pp. 47–8, 53.Google Scholar

34 Marais, J. S., The Cape Coloured People, 9–12Google Scholar

35 p. 179.Google Scholar

36 The evidence concerning the eastern part of the present Cape Province has recently been reviewed by ProfessorWilson, Monica in ‘The Early History of the Transkei and Ciskei’, African Studies, xviii, no. 4 (1959).Google Scholar

37 Omissions in chapter 3(3) and assertions in chapter 4(1) and (2).Google Scholar

38 Marais, J. S., Maynier and the First Boer Republic.Google Scholar

39 pp. 55–6; Marais, op. cit.Google Scholar

40 pp. 60–1.Google Scholar

41 pp. 62, 66.Google Scholar

44 p. 204.Google Scholar

45 This is not in fact the policy of the Union Government, which rejected the somewhat moderate recommendations of the Tomlinson Commission on this subject.Google Scholar

46 At the time of the 1951 census the total ‘Bantu’ population of the Union was 8,560,083, of whom 3,307,234 were in the ‘Bantu areas’ and 5,252,849 were outside them. (Union Stati.stics for Fifty Years (1960), p. A-10.) The number of Africans in the Union, but outside the ‘Bantu areas’, is now much larger than it was in 1951. According to the preliminary report of the results of the census of 1960, 30% of the ‘Bantu’ population of the Union was in the urban areas, compared with 27% in 1951. (Union of South Africa Bureau of Census and Statistics, Special Report No. 234, p. 1.)Google Scholar

47 pp. 212–14.Google Scholar

49 p. 205.Google Scholar

50 p. 124.Google Scholar

52 p. 252. The differences between these last three quotations are an example of the inconsistencies referred to on p. 126, n. 3 above. There are similar inconsistencies concerning the degree of independence to be accorded to the ‘Bantu territories’.Google Scholar

53 The census of the population of the Union of South Africa taken on 6 September 1960 showed: Whites 3,067,638; Coloureds 1,488,267; Asiatics 477,414; Bantu 10,807,809: Total 15,841,128. (Union of South Africa Bureau of Census and Statistics, Special Report No. 234, p. I.)Google Scholar

55 p. 164.Google Scholar

56 p. 187.Google Scholar

57 p. 246.Google Scholar