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INTRODUCTION

‘Afrikaner nationalism’, ‘apartheid’ and ‘white supremacy’ are not simply dissimilar terms for a single phenomenon. Rather, although they have a number of features in common, they refer to discrete features of the convoluted South African landscape. The view, unfortunately widely held, that they are different names for the same thing, while having a deceptive modicum of truth, is sufficiently crude to blunt the cutting edge that each term has when it is used separately.[1]

This story begins with an ending. During his final days, D.F. Malan, then in retirement in Stellenbosch, suffered a series of strokes that weakened him considerably. Those around him knew that it would only be a matter of time before he departed from this life. It was during this time that one of his admirers, the historian and rector of Stellenbosch University, H.B. Thom, who would later write a biography of Malan, paid a visit to his sickbed. Sensing the gravity of the occasion, Thom decided to ask the former premier one final question: What, in his view, was the most important service that he had rendered during his long political career? For a while there was silence, and then, his voice audibly strained, Malan answered: ‘That I could serve my nation; that I could unite my people. The Lord had granted me that.’[2] It reflected the essence of Malan’s politi­cal faith. He was an Afrikaner nationalist in the fullest sense of the word, and uniting the Afrikaners was his greatest political mission. Hence, the memoirs he penned during his last years were titled Afrikaner volkseenheid en my ervarings op die pad daarheen (Afrikaner national unity and my experiences on the road towards it).[3]

This scene could not be further removed from the image that survives of the apartheid leaders today, in a post-1994 South Africa that is still scarred by the divisions sown by centuries of racial inequality. Grim-faced photographs of Malan and his successors have become synonymous with a rigid system of racial oppression, which dehumanised the majority of South Africa’s population. Yet, twenty years after apartheid ended, a space has opened up for a new generation of historians to explore the past in its own right, and to challenge both Afrikaner and African nationalist stereotypes, without the constraints of yesteryear.

Biographers, like their subjects, are children of their own times. Their context frames the questions they ask, and this biography is the product of a post-apartheid environment. Yet, it is also the biographer’s duty to consider the questions of another era, and to understand the subject on his or her own terms. That is what this biography strives to achieve: to enable a contemporary reader to share in this understanding of the past, disagreeable though it may be at times, without any attempt at apology or justification. Instead, the discomfort of biography helps one to appreciate the intricacies of history, and to face the sometimes uncomfortable truth that the past was shaped by complex individuals who share in a common humanity – and inhumanity. By writing about a man who was at the forefront of the Afrikaner nationalist movement for much of the first half of the twentieth century, I hope to contribute to an engagement with these complexities.

Biography, in particular, offers a unique window into the past. Through this biography, the reader will not only be introduced to D.F. Malan, but also to the Afrikaner nationalist movement. This is not, however, the story of a movement by using a man’s life as a lens. It is the story of a man; and it is through his story that one inevitably becomes acquainted with a movement – a movement which was riddled by its own divisions and conflicts, and which often placed personal rivalries ahead of ideology. This book therefore offers a behind-the-scenes account of Afrikaner nationalist politics that belies popular perceptions of its homogeneity.

In doing this, the book seeks to interpret the archival record – in particular, the papers of the men who headed the National Party during the first half of the twentieth century. It essentially paints a picture of the world through their eyes, especially Malan’s, whose version of events is central to this account. Yet, the observer will be struck as much by what is absent than by what is present. When people choose to preserve their correspondence, or to write their memoirs, these documents echo those persons’ foremost priorities. In the case of D.F. Malan and the Afrikaner nationalists, the archival record reveals a predictable preoccupation with Afrikaner nationalism and a concern with party politics.

The contemporary reader might be surprised to discover that these issues took precedence over matters of race. The Afrikaner nationalists did not discuss black politics in their letters, and they were not in contact with black politicians. It is also clear that African political organisations did not direct themselves at Malan and his Nationalists before their entry into power. Documents pertaining to Africans are almost completely absent from the wide range of archival collections that were consulted during the course of researching this biography, and those that are present are of limited value. It reveals the extent to which politi­cised Africans and Afrikaner nationalists moved in separate realms – and it demonstrates the lack of importance the Afrikaner nationalists attached to African politics, and vice versa. As Albert Luthuli noted about the 1948 election, ‘For most of us Africans, bandied about on the field while the game was in progress and then kicked to one side when the game was won, the election seemed largely irrelevant. We had endured Botha, Hertzog and Smuts. It did not seem of much importance whether the whites gave us more Smuts or switched to Malan. Our lot has grown steadily harder …’[4]

When the Afrikaner nationalists discussed Africans, they did so in abstract terms, and this is reflected in the text. To insert African resistance movements into this narrative would amount to putting words into D.F. Malan’s mouth. Their absence should not be interpreted as a neglect of black politics, or as a failure to appreciate the rise and the importance of African nationalism during this period. Instead, it should be seen as a reflection of the Afrikaner nationalists’ insulation from the majority of South Africa’s population, which will enable the reader to understand how a world-view that centred on quintessentially ‘Afrikaner matters’, such as the poor white problem, contributed to the policy of apartheid.

This book remains, essentially, the story of a man – one whose face may be both famous and infamous, but whose life has remained surprisingly unknown. His own vulnerabilities and internal contradictions, coupled with his fervent belief in Afrikaner nationalism as an integral part of his faith, tell the tale of a fallible human being. By understanding this individual, one not only begins to grasp his world, but one also begins to comprehend how his personality and his actions could shape a people and a country. Engaging with D.F. Malan’s humanity is an unavoidable part of the endeavour to understand the past.