Hello Hivers and Book Clubbers,
Let's do some more reviewing. I'll stay in the realm of non-fiction again, this time with a biography. The title is 'D.F. Malan; propet of Apartheid'. Originally written in 2014 by Lindie Koorts in English titled 'D.F. Malan and the rise of Afrikaner Nationalism', it also has translations into both Afrikaans and Dutch by now. I have the 2020 Dutch edition as a hard-cover, but I read the English one on a PDF.
And I read that three times already over the past few years. I find South African, and more specifically Afrikaner history fascinating. Perhaps it is because they are in a way descendants of the Dutch, originally stemming from them etc. The fact that a Dutchman can read Afrikaans with little practice also helps in this regard.
The book proper is about 420 pages, so on the more lengthy side of things. I , for one, already know that this is going to be a multi-part series on this book. I, like Koorts in the book, will be doing a lot of side-stepping to tell about the background of Afrikaner society and the South African situation overall, while following Malan's story in the book.
Afrikaner people, British Subjects
Daniel Malan was born in 1874 on a farm in Riebeek-Wes, in the Cape Colony. The colony belonged to the British Empire at the time, who had gained it from the Dutch after the fall of Napoleon and the French Empire. The vast majority of the whites there were not Englishmen, however, but Afrikaners, or described as 'Cape Dutch' at the time. The same goes for Malan's family.
The Afrikaners as they are now are a mix of three European ethnic groups: the Dutch, German Lutherans, and French Huguenots. Malan, as can be heard in his surname, had Huguenot ancestors. All groups would, over the centuries, start to speak a bastardized form of Dutch, which is now Afrikaans. Also, Afrikaners are Calvinists, a specific form of Protestantism that was brought over from both the Netherlands and France through the Dutch and Huguenots.
All these things clashed with the British Empire in some way. The British, naturally, ruled the Cape Colony in the English language, which the Cape Afrikaners slowly but surely picked up. In the West of the Cape, that is. In the East, their control was much weaker, and other grievances with the state (compensation for the abolishment of slavery, an uncertain frontier with black tribes/peoples like the Xhosa) led to the Great Trek from 1836 onwards. About 10-12.000 Afrikaners/Boers went into the South African interior, to look for a place to live free from British rule.
This led to the establishment of two (though there were far more tries) Boer Republics, that of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (also known as the Transvaal). These states offered a clear contrast to the way the Afrikaners in the Cape were living. Here, Dutch as a language ruled supreme, with Afrikaans being spoken too. There was no English language, whereas the Cape Afrikaners were slowly becoming Anglicized. Pro-Afrikaner politics were slow to form in the Cape at the time when Malan grew up.
Gold, Jewels and the like
The geopolitical situation in South Africa would change drastically at this time, through multiple discoveries that were of clear interest to the British Empire. The discovery of Diamonds at Kimberley in 1870 led to a three-way border dispute between the British, the Orange Free state, and the Coloureds who lived there too (''Coloureds'' being the Afrikaans-speaking mixed-race people of South Africa; it's not a slur, they still call themselves Kleurlingen to this day). Long story short, the British got their way, and Kimberley was added to the Cape Colony.
The pattern would repeat by the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand in 1886, a hill-range right in the middle of the Transvaal Republic. This was a whole other matter, since the Transvaal was an independent Boer Republic, outside of British authority in every way. However, the gold rush brought people from all over the Empire to the Transvaal to try their luck at becoming rich.
Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal, and his Boers were not happy with the situation. The burgeoning mining town of Johannesburg became a town filled with ''Uitlanders'' (foreigners) right in the middle of their state. These people soon asked for representation and influence in the affairs of the Republic's Volksraad (People's Council, i.e. House of Representatives). Kruger would only grant it to people who had stayed in the Transvaal for over 10 years.
Not too bad an offer, but it wasn't enough for the English capitalist class, whose gold-profits were staggering. In 1895, Cecil Rhodes (governor of the Cape Colony at the time) was willing to risk an invasion. He sent out Leander Starr Jameson with a force to attack from Bechuanaland (Botswana), to ignite a rebellion in Johannesburg and overthrow Kruger and the Boers. This failed; the invasion was discovered quickly, an opposing force of Boers was assembled, and they won the fight.
Intermission
This was a prelude to all-out war, both sides realized. A diplomatic struggle ensued between the two Boer Republics and the British for a few years, until war was declared by the Boers after the British refused the ultimatum to leave their lands alone, and to acknowledge the integrity and independence of the Republics.
This was the South Africa which Malan grew up in. He did well in school, proved to be a good debater from a young age, and was interested in political issues as well. For his higher education, which his parents could afford, he had narrowed his choices down to two: law or theology. To be an attorney (a surefire way into politics) or a vicar.
He chose the latter, and to follow his university education (no universities in South Africa yet) he departed for the Netherlands, specifically Utrecht, in 1901. As the Second Boer War was raging, he left his homeland, with some pain, to follow his studies.
This seems a good place to leave things for now. As mentioned at the start, this will be a multi-parter, and I hope that there will be more room to talk about Malan specifically in the next parts. For this one, it is important to set the stage, so to speak, to carry the story forwards. Malan's role in the South African/Afrikaner story would only increase with age, as we will see. I'll see you all in the next part of this review,
-Pieter Nijmeijer
(Top image; self-made photo of book cover)
Greetings friend, sounds quite interesting this book that also you detail very well in your review, this historical context is part of the things of the modern world that many are unaware of the part of the world so distant where they occurred and that were hidden by the iron curtain.