DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism. Lindie Koorts
embraced Kuyper’s Neo-Calvinism. But even more important, under Valeton’s guidance, he embraced the practice of Higher Criticism, which set him apart from Kuyper and his Dopper adherents.[96] Back in South Africa, the tension between Neo-Calvinism and Higher Criticism would later erupt into the Johannes du Plessis case, which scarred the Dutch Reformed Church and the Stellenbosch seminary in the early 1930s.[97]
Valeton’s assertion that all knowledge of God was the product of his revelation found resonance in the topic that Malan chose to pursue for his doctoral thesis. In April 1903, Malan could write to his parents to inform them that he had passed his doctoral exams with flying colours and that he was now a doctorandus – the latter part of the word meant that he was not yet a Doctor, but he was well on his way.[98]
With his eyes always fixed on South Africa, Malan had hoped to write a thesis on South African church history, but this was impossible for two reasons: firstly, because similar work was already being undertaken in South Africa, and, secondly, because all of the archival material that he would have needed to consult was in South Africa. Instead, he settled for a philosophical topic: Bishop George Berkeley’s philosophy of idealism. Even though he had always enjoyed philosophy, the prospect of writing a doctoral thesis on such an abstract concept was a daunting one. He was apprehensive of the task ahead of him,[99] but nevertheless set about to work on the topic. His first step was to visit London, where he collected material. The city and its people filled him with revulsion:
The city is large and bustling, but dirty. I don’t want to live here. Otherwise, there was enough to see that would infuriate an Afrikaner. I have never seen greater audacity from this nation, which believes itself to have a calling to rule, civilise, and Christianise the world. Thus they have, among other things, a museum where they display their loot. There one also finds an S.A. collection. A great part of this consists of family Bibles, which they have stolen from our homes … At the Crystal Palace there are more hideous images, Steyn, Kruger, and Mrs Kruger as ‘South African knock-them-downs’, the target of common Englishmen. Indeed, they forgive and forget.[100]
It was a stark contrast to the euphoric adoration of the Boers that he had witnessed in the Netherlands. To Malan, British imperialism represented all that was detestable. It was the opposite of cultural pluralism, which he regarded as the ideal. This ideal was cemented in his mind by what he experienced at the World Conference of the Students’ Christian Association, which he attended in Denmark in August 1902 as the representative of the South African branch.[101] The conference made a profound impression on him, as he described it to his sister:
As far as nations and languages are concerned, it is a true Babel, but not a Babel that separates and drives apart, but one that reunites under the banner of Christ. The Chinese and Japanese travelled halfway around the world to attend the conference. Among others we also have such specimens of humanity as Hungarians, Portuguese, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Italians, a Syrian, a Bulgarian, a few Fins, and even an Icelander. The languages that are spoken most are English, German, French, Danish and Swedish. To me, this meeting is such a beautiful promise for the future of humanity. Every nation is allowed here, and it is also expected from each to follow its own methods, to preserve its own national peculiarities. No dominance by the stronger, or trampling or denying the rights of the weaker. No imperialism or dead uniformity, but federation and rich variety. In this way, God’s kingdom of righteousness and peace will come when every nation is itself and no other, and thereby fulfils its God-given place and calling. Yet, all are together and are also bound to one another in the acknowledgement of God’s Kingship and in loyalty to him and his service. There is no other unbreakable bond between the nations than this one.[102]
Decades later, when Malan was explaining the apartheid policy to his supporters, it was precisely this ideal that he evoked. Malan’s interpretation of the conference was in keeping with the South African Dutch Reformed Church’s approach to mission work. It was founded on the notion of a volkskerk (national church), a church that would take cognisance of its members’ linguistic, cultural, and social peculiarities. It followed this route through the institution of segregated worship in 1857, and the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church for coloured congregants in 1881, thereby contributing to the social order that characterised twentieth-century South Africa.[103]
The Dutch Reformed Church was influenced by the assertions of German missionary societies that the nations of Africa and Asia had to be given the opportunity to become Christians within their own cultural framework. This belief, that separate national churches – which respected and preserved their members’ mother tongue and traditions – had to be established, can be traced back to the influence of German Romanticism.[104] Respect for the cultural distinctiveness of every nation and the preservation of the mother tongue was the hallmark of the German Romantic philosopher Herder. Malan never made any reference to Herder himself, but he admired the work of Fichte, who echoed Herder’s ideas about language. In this context, language was not merely a means of communication but an expression of the national soul. It was seen as the key to human happiness, as it united those who understood it, and enabled the self-definition of both the group and the individual.[105]
To Malan, language became all-important. He fiercely resented British cultural hegemony and the dominance of the English language, which he believed was intended to smother the Afrikaners. In his view, the solution was twofold; it lay in language and education:
If we are going to have any chance at keeping our nationality, then first of all we need to busy ourselves earnestly with the question of education. The English are focusing precisely on that matter in order to deal us the final blow. They will see to it that English is the only medium of instruction in all government schools, and Dutch will only be tolerated as a foreign language. There is no surer way to achieve our anglicisation. If the situation of the past continues in our Colonial government schools, the extinction of our language is as certain as two times two is four. The best we would then be able to be are English Pro-Afrikaners – but that is not what we want. We want Afrikaners. If we can’t have Dutch as the medium of instruction in our Afrikaner government schools, then it is high time that our schools tear themselves away and stand on their own feet. It will be difficult, but our nationality is worth it. Such Afrikaner schools, independent of the state, with Dutch as the medium of instruction, is what the Transvalers want to establish.[106]
In his belief that the nation’s key to survival was education, Malan was echoing Fichte, who had the same conviction. Malan’s focus on language and culture was typical of classical nationalism, since most nationalisms start out as cultural crusades long before they are political in the sense of having the means to form their own governments.[107]
To Malan, the key to Afrikaner identity did not lie in the Dutch language. For the time being, Dutch was far better than English, and the Afrikaners could use it to hold their own, but the true future lay in Afrikaans. Afrikaans belonged to the nation; it evoked its love like no other language could.[108] Malan was adamant that Afrikaans had to be elevated to the position of a national language, even if there were many who did not even regard it as a real language and condescendingly referred to it as ‘Kitchen-Dutch’. In a letter to a Dutch newspaper editor, he wrote:
Give Afrikaans the status it deserves, as mother tongue of the nation, the language that can express like no other that which is in the heart of the nation, the language which mirrors the national character. Teach the nation its language, not to despise its own language, not to regard it as a kitchen language, not to be ashamed to write her, to speak her in the kitchen and in parliament, in the stable or in the drawing room, to appreciate her and to love her as an all-important part of its national possessions.[109]
In the same letter, Malan also stipulated how the relationship between the English and the Afrikaners ought to be:
One can point to the fact that there exists a broad basis – love of South Africa as fatherland and the maintenance of her interests above those of all other countries – on which English speakers and Afrikaners can work together … What I mean is this: that the government has to acknowledge that S.A. is a country inhabited by two white nationalities who stand independently alongside each other, and that both are free and do not reign over one another … together, Afrikaner and English South Africans form a South African nation on the broad basis of ‘South Africa my fatherland’.