Hello Hivers and Book Clubbers,
I'm back with part 2 of my review. The book in question is titled 'D.F. Malan; Prophet of Apartheid', written by Lindie Koorts. In the first part, I did a lot of background on South Africa, to set the stage for the next parts (I don't think this one will be the last either), also because Malan was still not as involved in the story as he will become later on. Let's get into it.
Theological battles
Malan would study theology in the Netherlands, more specifically Utrecht, from 1901 until 1905, receiving his doctorate at the end of this period. Theology was a field of conflict in the Netherlands. Protestantism has always been known for its sectarianism, and early 20th century Holland wasn't different.
It can be generalized into two big groups, which I'd call Progressive vs. neo-Calvinist. Malan's mentor and supervisor, as was a good majority of the Theology-faculty at Utrecht, belonged to the more progressive view. This meant that the Bible was not seen as literally correct anymore, in the view of things learned from the natural sciences, history, archeology etc., i.e. the secular sciences.
This led to several issues with the bible; was the world really only 6.000 years old, as the more rigid theologians said? How did the snake talk with Eve in Genesis (a BIG controversy in the Netherlands), and how did Jonah survive for days in the belly of a whale (a BIG controversy later on in South Africa)? The progressive-inclined thus concluded that these stories were allegories, and not strictly true.
To the neo-Calvinists, mostly centered around Abraham Kuyper and the Free University of Amsterdam, this attitude was bordering on heresy and/or atheism. Their view was hard-line and dogmatic: the Bible, as the Holy Word of God, was literally true. God is all-mighty; if he wishes for Jonah to survive for days in the digestive system of a whale, he could make it so.
Abraham Kuyper, who thus could be seen as an opponent of Malan at the time in theological terms, would play a big posthumous role in South Africa through his political ideas. But more on that later. Malan returned to his homeland in 1905, to work as a vicar. His country was going trough turmoil and change, however.
Formation of the Union
The treaty of Vereeniging in 1902 meant the end of the Second Boer War, and also the end of the indepentend Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. South Africa ended up in a period of amalgamation, where the two British colonies of the Cape and Natal were fused with the two old republics, into the Union of South Africa in 1910. This Union has the borders South Africa has today.
The position of the Afrikaners in this new South Africa was tenuous. The old Republics were destroyed; the amount of farms burned was massive. The British did a certain first in history; the use of concentration camps. 27.000 Boer women and children died there over the course of the war, while their men fought on. The English promised aid to help rebuild, but this would be a steep hill to climb.
The Treaty included amnesty for all Boer combatants, including the Generals. Many of these, as natural leaders of the Afrikaners, became politicians, and thus remained central figures in South African history for decades to come.
Reconciliation?
Two Boer generals, Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, would become leaders of the South African Party, which would rule the Union for its first years of existence. Their platform consisted of reconciliation; the English and Afrikaans-speaking peoples would have to forgive and forget, and slowly but surely be welded into one people.
But wouldn't the Afrikaners lose everything, were this to occur; their culture and their language foremost? Language was a touchy issue from the formation of the Union. It had two official languages; English and ... Dutch. The language that, strictly taken, the Afrikaners wrote but did not speak.
And here, a rift appeared between the generations. While the older generations thought that their heritage was secure, the younger didn't. There, a movement was started to replace Dutch with Afrikaans, and most importantly as a step, to turn Afrikaans into a written language. Malan quickly got involved in this movement, not because he was a linguist, but because he understood well the essence of how important a language is to the independence and sovereignty of a people.
Case in point: when he started as vicar in Montagu, his congregation came to him with the request to preach once a month in English. This had become a custom, and the English-speaking people there, and even some Afrikaners, wished for it to continue. He refused to do so; if the English wanted to hear the Word in English, they would have to do so in a seperate congregation, and a separate building. The denomination wasn't called the Dutch Reformed Church for nothing.
Intermission
Here, Malan's vision for South Africa as a whole, at least for the whites, was shining through already. South Africa would exist out of two people, English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking (not Dutch), who would be able to cultivate their own language and culture in their own spaces, yet would unite in a form of 'South Africa First' patriotism. An Englishman could be a South African, certainly, but not an Afrikaner.
Malan's star would rise further in the early 1910s, and the relation between English-speakers and Afrikaans-speakers would be further tested in the years to come. But I leave that part of the story for the next part of this review; it deserves to be explained with more words, and I'd liek to keep this articles readable in terms of total amount of words. I'll see you all in the next installment,
-Pieter Nijmeijer
(Top image; self-made photo of book cover)