Ending Apartheid

Jack Spence, David Welsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138161610
• eBook ISBN: 9781317870012
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

The release of Nelson Mandela from twenty-seven years imprisonment in 1990 and the free elections which followed four years later were among the most dramatic events of the twentieth century.

David Welsh and J. E. Spence here examine the complex forces which lay behind that drama. They chart the rise and decline of apartheid ideology in South Africa, the internal insurrection and increased international isolation which characterised the 1980s and the political roller-coaster ride of the period after 1990 as constitutional negotiations got underway. Based on extensive interviews with those involved, Ending Apartheid traces the negotiating process in penetrating detail, noting the political skills of de Klerk and Mandela in keeping their potentially unruly constituencies in line and avoiding the major violence that many had predicted. Reaching agreement on a democratic constitution was a major achievement that surprised many sceptical observers, but the book ends on a more sombre note. Reviewing the period subsequent to the transition, it argues that while progress has been made, the future of South Africa's democracy is still far from assured.

Written by two eminent scholars with decades of experience teaching in the field, Ending Apartheid is an invaluable resource for all students of South African politics seeking a deeper understanding of a defining episode in recent history.

CHAPTER 1

The rise of apartheid

As many as 80 per cent of Afrikaners supported the National Party’s appeal to nationalism in the election held on 26 May 1948. Together with its smaller ally, the Afrikaner Party, the NP managed to win by the narrowest of margins – five seats. It was a surprise, not least to the Nationalists themselves.

The defeated United Party government, led by Field Marshal Jan Smuts, had been complacent. Its cabinet, with few exceptions, had been lacklustre. It had vacillated on the fundamental issue of racial policy, appearing to recognize that major changes were needed but not having the will to push them through. A further consideration, exploited by the NP, was that Smuts, who was 78 years old, would be succeeded by the relatively liberal J.H. Hofmeyr, who was also the most effective member of Smuts’s cabinet. Then there was the issue of ‘swamping’ by Africans who streamed to the cities during the wartime years, at the same time supposedly depriving white farmers (80 per cent of whom were Afrikaners) of labour. There was also the supposed threat of being swamped by immigrants from Britain, who were being encouraged by Smuts. This, the NP reckoned, could ‘plough the Afrikaners under’ by eliminating their majority in the white population.

A critical issue in racial policy was the status of urban Africans: successive governments had followed the recommendation of the Transvaal Local Government Commission of 1921 that:

… it should be a recognized principle of government that natives – men, women and children – should only be permitted within municipal areas in so far and for so long as their presence is demanded by the wants of the white population. (Para. 267)

Smuts himself recognized that this principle flew in the face of the reality that increasing numbers of Africans were urbanizing and putting down roots in the cities. The Natives Laws Commission, appointed in 1946, reported in 1948 that:

… the idea of total segregation is utterly impracticable; secondly, that the movement from country to town has a background of economic necessity – that it may, so one hopes, be guided and regulated, and may perhaps also be limited, but that it cannot be stopped or be turned in the opposite direction; and thirdly, that in our urban areas there are not only Native migrant labourers, but there is also a settled, permanent Native population. (Para. 28)

The UP accepted the findings of the Commission and would have acted on its recommendations had it been returned to power. What difference this would have made to the nature of the conflict is impossible to say; but creating stable urban living conditions for urban Africans and limiting the migrant labour system could have prevented some of the hardships that apartheid was to inflict.

The NP was quick to repudiate the findings of the Commission, and to incorporate them into its propaganda that UP policy would result in the ‘swamping’ of towns and cities by Africans. Its own programme reinstated the earlier policy that urban Africans were ‘temporary sojourners’ – the phrase that came to be officially used – and, moreover, did so with a vengeance.

Few outsiders knew what apartheid meant, but it was apparent that it would entail a far harsher enforcement of discrimination than previously. A party commission, chaired by Paul Sauer, a closer colleague of D.F. Malan, the NP leader and future Prime Minister, produced a report that spelled out what was intended, but without providing any detail of how the recommendations were to be achieved. It made, in summary form, nearly 30 policy recommendations, virtually all of which would be implemented. Given the absence of any supporting details, the report could hardly be described as a ‘blueprint’; but it did represent a crystallization of much of the thinking of pro-Nationalist organizations, the Afrikaner churches, individual scholars and think-tanks, including the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB), an influential secret society of mostly elite, male Afrikaners.

In the early years of its rule, the NP insisted that apartheid was essentially a continuation of South Africa’s traditional policies. In many respects this was partly true since for most of the apartheid legislation there had been at least partial precedents enacted by previous governments, and none had questioned the overriding principle that white supremacy was to be maintained.

Before analysing the unfurling of apartheid, it is necessary to examine the NP and its role in Afrikaner nationalism. As D.F. Malan described it, the Party was ‘organised Afrikanerdom’ in the political sphere; but it was no ordinary party:

We occupy a central position in our Afrikaner community life [volkslewe]. If we split, then our entire people split in all directions, as costly experience has taught us time and time again.… We can make or break the volk.¹

In the early 1940s, when Malan made these observations Afrikanerdom was, in fact, divided: it had split in 1934 when the NP’s first leader (and Prime Minister from 1924 to 1939), General J.B.M. Hertzog had split the NP from top to bottom by fusing it with Smuts’s South Africa Party to form the United Party, which, in turn, had split in September 1939 on the issue of South Africa’s participation in the Second World War, to which many Afrikaners, including Hertzog and Malan, objected. In the 1940s, the supposedly reunited NP, led by Malan, faced a major challenge from an extra-parliamentary paramilitary ‘movement’ called the Ossewa-Brandwag (OB, the Oxwagon Sentinel), many of whose leading figures were sympathetic to Nazi ideology. It claimed a support base of nearly 400,000. Malan stood firm, rejecting the OB’s repudiation of the parliamentary system and insisting that the fight for control of the country must eschew violence. By 1945 the OB was a spent force and, despite a bad beating in the ‘khaki’ election of 1943, Malan’s NP could legitimately claim to be the pre-eminent political force of Afrikaner nationalism.

Although the UP had gained big victories in the 1938 and 1943 elections, strong currents of a resurgent nationalism were flowing beneath the surface. The celebration of the centenary of the Great Trek in 1938 occasioned a huge outpouring of Afrikaner emotion, and the narrow (13 votes) margin by which parliament opted to go to war in 1939 angered many: the decision appeared to confirm that South Africa remained tied to Britain’s apron-strings. As important, Afrikaner preachers, teachers, professors and community leaders, many no doubt inspired by the AB as well as politicians, were crucial elements of the surge. Moreover, many of the Afrikaner supporters of Smuts, so-called Bloedsappe, were dying off or answering the siren call of nationalism. Perhaps 30 per cent of all Afrikaner adults were either Bloedsappe or followers of Hertzog, who, in the eyes of militants, had betrayed the cause by joining forces with Smuts. In the 1948 election the major focus of the campaign would be to bring these UP supporters into the NP fold.

Afrikaner nationalism was more than the NP, despite its central position in Afrikaner community life. Other spheres were, ideally, seen by nationalists as constituting an organic whole, a totality committed to furthering the cause. The spheres represented different activities or interests. Among the most important were:

1 The churches, of which the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) was by far the biggest. Critics often unkindly jibed that the NGK was ‘the NP at prayer’, which contained some truth since the Church provided theological legitimation of apartheid. Moreover, the churches encapsulated Afrikaners in an Afrikaans environment that had been of critical importance in ensuring that urbanization did not cause individuals to drift away from the volk.

2 Universities and schools were of importance in ensuring that students were educated in an Afrikaans environment, in their mother-tongue. Educational institutions were anchored in the life of the community and, therefore, important agents of socialization.

3 Business: it was recognized that political power without economic power meant a dangerous imbalance. Hence concerted efforts to redress the huge gap in wealth and income between English-speakers and Afrikaners by harnessing Afrikaner purchasing power and establishing companies that were rooted in the community.

4 Trade unions with a specifically Afrikaner orientation were either created or, as in the case of the Mineworkers’ Union, taken over. The critical issue was to prevent the leakage of Afrikaner workers into organizations that emphasized class, rather than ethnic, solidarity.

5 The press was of inestimable value as a source of news of interest to the Afrikaner community, but also for putting across the NP view to its readers. Die Burger, a Cape Town daily founded in 1915, served this role faithfully, and wielded considerable influence among its readers. It is no great exaggeration to say that for much of the apartheid era press and Party were in a symbiotic relationship.

The image of organic unity among the spheres suggested that cooperation was harmonious. This was only partly true: competition within spheres was common. Rivalry between Cape- and Transvaal-based firms and newspapers could be acrimonious, and competition among churches for congregants was not unknown. One of the principal functions of the AB was to achieve coordination, as well as to ensure that ‘right-minded’ people were appointed to key posts in the spheres, as well as in the civil service and other institutions such as the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

Apartheid literally means ‘apart-ness’, but in what respects did the new programme intend to force people apart? In 1947 the Sauer Commission had emphasized that total separation of the races, even if an eventual ideal, was practically impossible to implement. Consideration had to be given to the country’s needs and interests, with due care to avoid disruption of agriculture, industries and general interests. Indeed, it was stressed, every effort should be made to curb the movement of Africans from white-owned farms. As far as possible the number of so-called ‘detribalized’ urban Africans was to be frozen and henceforth preference would be given to migrant labour.

As it unfolded, the NP’s rule until 1990 comprised three broad and overlapping phases:

1 1948–58: The consolidation of Afrikaner power; establishing the legislative framework of apartheid, including tightening areas where segregation was supposedly failing or imposing it where it was not in place; and taking steps to impose restrictions on black opponents.

2 1958–66: This was the period of Dr H.F. Verwoerd’s premiership which featured the proscription of the main African political organizations and a major extension of security legislation. International opprobrium increased, especially after the shootings at Sharpeville in 1960 (described below). Verwoerd sought to defuse international hostility by offering a ‘new vision’, with apartheid now re-branded as ‘separate development’.

3 1966–89: The steady erosion of the apartheid ideal, accompanied by the dawning recognition among key strata of NP supporters that the policy was unworkable. P.W. Botha (Prime Minister from 1978 to 1982, State President from 1983 to 1989) made some significant reforms but could not bring himself to abandon the apartheid paradigm. A major split in the NP occurred in 1982 as a result of a new constitutional system.

Shocked at its defeat in 1948, the UP consoled itself with the belief that the NP’s victory was a temporary aberration that would be corrected at the next election. After all, many more votes had been cast for the UP than the NP, but distortions caused by the single-member first-past-the-post constituency system and a weighting in favour of rural seats had given the NP victory.

For their part, the Nationalists realized the precariousness of their position, and determined that the chances were that it would be a long time before it ever relinquished power. The historical paranoia of Nationalists was that the perfidious English would seek to compensate for their numerical deficiency vis-à-vis Afrikaners by the enfranchisement of increasing numbers of black voters and large-scale immigration from Britain. What was required was limitation on the numbers of immigrants and the insulation of ‘white’ politics from potential black voting power.

The first decade of Nationalist rule saw determined efforts to achieve the latter: legislation enacted in 1946 to give Indians limited representation (three white MPs) – a provision that was boycotted by the Indian community – was repealed; immigration was severely limited and the residential requirements for eligibility for the franchise were extended; six parliamentary seats were accorded to white voters in South West Africa (now Namibia), all of which were easily won by the NP in constituencies that contained far fewer voters than those in South Africa; the removal of Coloured voters from the common roll in the Cape Province; and finally, in 1958, the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, in recognition of the higher birth rate among Afrikaners than English-speakers.

The most urgent of these measures was the neutralization of Coloured voting power in terms of a right that qualified male Coloured people had enjoyed since 1853. Their voting power had been diluted by the countrywide enfranchisement of white women in 1930, and the abolition of qualifications for white voters in 1931. Nevertheless, there were 17 Cape constituencies where, in close-run contests, even the small number of Coloured voters was potentially decisive. Moreover, since only an estimated one-third of eligible Coloured males had registered as voters, the expansion of their numbers could spell disaster for the NP.

The problem was that the clause in the constitution (the South Africa Act of 1909) that supposedly protected the Coloured common roll vote was ‘entrenched’ (together with a provision for language equality between Afrikaans and English), and could be repealed or altered only by a two-thirds majority of a joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament. This procedure had been followed in 1936 when the common roll voting rights of Cape African males had been abolished, and replaced by the allocation of four (white) seats to be elected on a separate roll – a provision which the NP also sought to abolish, and succeeded in doing in 1959.

For five years the NP mounted a long – and squalid – campaign to force through legislation to destroy the Coloured common roll vote. The effort began in 1951, but the legislation was declared invalid by the highest court in the land, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which found that the constitutionally prescribed method had not been followed. The NP, insisting that parliament was sovereign and its will could not be thwarted by constitutional limitations, thereupon enacted the High Court of Parliament Act in 1952, which provided that in constitutional matters parliament could sit as a court. This, too, was declared invalid by the Appellate Division. Further efforts to obtain a two-thirds majority failed. Finally, in 1955, the Gordian Knot was cut by two radical measures: by enlarging the Appellate Division and requiring that in cases where the validity of an act of parliament was at issue, a quorum of 11 judges was necessary, 6 of whom had to support a judgment; second, the senate was ‘packed’ with NP supporters. Since most of the newly elevated judges and all of the new senators could be relied upon, the road was now clear for the enactment in 1956 of legislation validating the original Separate Representation of Voters Act of 1951. Provision was made for Coloured (including Indian) voters in the Cape to elect, on a separate roll, four white MPs.

What Nationalists described as the cornerstone of apartheid’s statutory basis was a system of racial classification embodied in the Population Registration Act of 1950. It was to be the definitive categorization of people into racial categories that would determine their status in society. According to the Minister of the Interior, Dr T.E. Dönges, the legislation was necessary to enable apartheid legislation to be implemented in, for example, schools, cinemas, sporting facilities and a variety of public facilities and amenities. It would also prevent ‘mixed’ marriages between whites and members of other racial groups (prohibited by law in 1949), as well as curb violations of the Immorality Act, which was amended in 1950 to make sexual relations between white and Coloured a criminal ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Prologue: the dramatis personae
• 1 The rise of apartheid
• 2 The decline of apartheid
• 3 The decline and resurrection of black opposition
• 4 Endgame
• 5 Negotiations and the founding election
• 6 South Africa and the world
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index