Reversing the Boer War

Like a million other South Africans, the Stoltz family was up at cockcrow one morning last week, all ready to cast its votes in the first general election since 1948. Grandpa Stoltz, 75, stumped out to the car that would take his household to the polls at Nigel, a dusty gold-mining town 25 miles southeast of Johannesburg; as he reached the car there was a roar, and his house blew to smithereens. Grandma Elizabeth Stoltz and a 32-year-old gold miner named Lukas van der Merwe lay dead in the wreckage; the Stoltzes' son Pieter had a leg blown off.

What caused the blast was an unexploded shell that had stood in the Rand dust outside the Stoltzes' door for half a century--since some unknown cannoneer had misfired or forgotten it in the far-off Boer War (1899-1902). To the long-memoried Afrikaners who back Prime Minister Daniel Malan, that war is still as explosive as the shell that killed Grannie Stoltz. Last week, at the polls, they went far towards reversing its verdict.

No More Short Cuts. Boer nationalism was in fact the issue, though most of the noise was about apartheid--the religiously held dogma that 2,600,000 whites (Boer and Briton) should rule four times their number of blacks, half-whites and browns. Malan's racial stand was strident: "This is South Africa's last chance to remain a white man's country. Our aim is to safeguard the purity of the white race." His special strength lay on the veldt, among the Afrikaans-speaking farmers whose fathers had conquered the blacks only to see their early Boer Republic snuffed out by British imperialism. Egged on by predikants (ministers) of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Nationalists made gory predictions of Mau Mau-style massacres to come, of "Godfearing white girls" forced to marry "coons."

Lost in the political wilderness since the death of its inspirer, Jan Smuts, the opposition United Party fought back with hot charges that Malan threatens democracy and mocks the rule of law. "Vote now," was their slogan, "so that you may vote again." United Party Leader Jacobus Gideon Strauss, who was once Smuts's secretary, accused Malan's Nationalists of provoking racial strife, but labored hard to show that he could not be accused of undue sympathy for the Negro. "Of all races and colors," said he, "the black Africans have failed to contribute to man's progress . . . They must work their passage, not try for short cuts."

No More Legalism. The Negroes, seven-tenths of the population, had no votes at all; only 48,000 half-castes were eligible to vote. And even among the whites who did vote, Malan got less than a majority--but he won a sweeping electoral victory. From dorps (villages) and the poor-white slums of the Rand, his Nationalist supporters flocked to the polls to keep the land "pure" of "black barbarism" and "British legalism." Of South Africa's 1,600,000 voters, 86% voted: 640,000 for Daniel Malan, 760,000 against him.

The weighting of rural constituencies, where Boers predominate, worked as it does under the county-unit system in the U.S. State of Georgia; in the House of Assembly the Nationalists won 94 seats, the combined opposition 61. Malan, though second in the popular vote, increased his majority to an overwhelming 60% (from 13 seats to 29).

Two Nations. "Great is Malan's victory," crowed Die Vaderland. "The brutal reality is that we are two nations . . ." said the Cape Argus. Cunningly, Daniel Malan tried to close the white ranks to his own political advantage. He offered a coalition with "all those who accept apartheid in full sincerity," hoping thereby to gain the two-thirds majority which he needs, but does not have, to 1) disenfranchise 48,000 half-caste voters in Cape Province, 2) eliminate English as an equal official language, 3) snap the last tenuous threads that bind South Africa to the Commonwealth.

Slaves at the Bottom. Strong-willed Daniel Malan, returned to power for another five years, is now 78. His heir apparent is even more fanatic: Johannes Gerhardus Strydom, 59, the Nationalist Minister of Lands. The so-called Messiah of Waterberg is hailed by his supporters as "First President of the coming South African Republic." His program seems to call for a stratified New Boer Jerusalem not very different from Plato's Republic: at the bottom, black slaves to hew wood and fetch water; in the middle, alien (i.e., British) traders to deal with petty commerce; at the top, the Boer elite, settled on the good earth and ruled by their priests (the predikants). Top of the pile would be the philosopher-President: Johannes Strydom.

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