DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism. Lindie Koorts
wrote to Preller with enthusiasm:
For many years – I can say, since I first began to think about our language issue – I have been resolutely convinced that only the elevation of Afrikaans to our written language in South Africa will be able to safeguard the continued existence of the Dutch language, in whatever form. Your important, engaging and convincing plea about this issue in your pamphlet has filled me with an exceptional amount of interest. The movement, which you have inspired anew, has my full sympathy.[25]
Preller was indeed devoted to the revival of the Afrikaans Language Movement. In December 1905, he established the Afrikaanse Taalgenootskap (ATG) in Pretoria, with D.F. Malan as one of its members. Through this organisation, Malan became part of a new generation of Afrikaner intellectuals and nationalists. The Afrikaner students of the 1890s – who had already demonstrated their distinctness from their elders – had come of age, and now took a clear stance against the older generation that still clung to Dutch and dismissed Afrikaans as too underdeveloped to replace an established language.[26] The new generation recognised the potential nationalist power of the Afrikaans language, and it was they who would develop it into a viable replacement for Dutch through what became known as the Second Afrikaans Language Movement.
During that same December of 1905, Malan was preparing for the next big move in his life – he had received a call from the parish of Montagu in the southwestern Cape to become its minister. This meant much soul-searching, as he had to face his doubts all over again: was he, as a young preacher, able to lead a congregation by himself?[27] Finally, Malan took the step and thereby crossed an important threshold in his life. He accepted the call to Montagu in much the same manner as he had accepted God’s call to the ministry as a young student in Stellenbosch: with intense uncertainty and fervent faith in God’s will. This was reflected in his acceptance letter:
Although I have no doubts that God Himself has called me to this work, yet, taking this decision was not an easy step. I am especially hesitant of accepting work of such importance and extent at this stage. I am clearly conscious of my own weaknesses and shortcomings. Therefore I want to state it here emphatically, that I am willing to take up this work, not because of who I am or can become, but trusting only in God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, and leaning on the tolerance and love of the Church Council and the congregation.[28]
So it happened that Malan bade Heidelberg and the Transvaal farewell, and returned to the Cape Colony to visit friends and family before moving to his new home.[29]
It was in the midst of the sweltering February heat of 1906 that D.F. Malan arrived in Montagu to a welcome that one might have thought would be accorded to visiting royalty, but which was the normal practice when a Dutch Reformed congregation welcomed its new minister. A procession of about sixty or seventy horse-drawn carts accompanied Malan into the town. Addresses were given by nearly every constituency within the church. There was a reception, a dinner, and an inaugural service. At the inaugural service, the church building was packed, which necessitated the church council to insist that only those over the age of fifteen would be allowed inside. Nevertheless, about 1 100 bodies managed to squeeze themselves into seats that were only built to accommodate somewhere between 700 and 800.[30]
The first challenge that Malan faced as minister of his own flock was that the addresses he had been given on his arrival included a petition from the English-speaking community in Montagu requesting that an English service be conducted one Sunday evening per month, as had been the custom in the past. Malan and his new church council had to consider the petition – which also carried the signatures of persons who were either Afrikaners or who were known to be able to understand Dutch. At the meeting, Malan unequivocally stated his opposition – in principle – to English services for the church’s own Dutch-speaking members, and his support for English services for English speakers – in a separate building.[31] Following the deliberations, Malan drafted two letters: one intended for the English-speaking petitioners, the other for their Afrikaner sympathisers. The English letter cordially refused the request in the interests of the town’s poor white community who, on account of their poverty, attended the evening services rather than the morning services, and who did not understand English.[32] The second letter, written in Dutch, was also cordial, but ever so slightly harder, and carried the stamp of its author’s nationalism. It reiterated the argument that the rights and the interests of the poor white Afrikaners were of the highest importance. In addition, Malan asserted that the nation’s language was Dutch, and that its use in the practice of its religion was closely tied to its sense of self-worth and independence as a nation. For the members of Montagu’s Dutch Reformed congregation, there would be no services in English.[33] In the eyes of Montagu’s new minister, language, religion and nationalism were inseparable.
Malan took up residence in the church’s enormous parsonage, which engulfed his newly acquired furniture. His parents, who were present at the auspicious occasion, stayed with him for a while, but as they (and with them, his stepmother’s cooking) were preparing to leave, the young bachelor began to wonder where his meals were going to come from. Cooking was beyond his area of expertise. Thankfully, it was arranged that he could take his meals with a lady who lived close to the parsonage.[34]
The women of Montagu soon discovered that their young minister was a man who possessed phenomenal powers of concentration, accompanied by astonishing absent-mindedness. His meals were prepared for him and sometimes a young girl would be sent to deliver them, neatly packed in a basket. She would usually find him hard at work at his desk, oblivious to her knocks on the door. Eventually she would be forced to tiptoe closer, place the basket on the table next to him, and tiptoe out again, her presence having gone unnoticed.[35] During these years, Malan never ate much. He had simple tastes, and enjoyed nothing more than a hard-boiled egg and some moskonfyt,[36] which his mother used to give to him as a treat when he was a child. His congregants also noticed that he consumed large quantities of coffee when he visited them.[37]
These mandatory house calls nearly overwhelmed him. By August of 1906 he reported to Nettie that his head was spinning from meetings and people, people and meetings. There were always more people for him to be introduced to, and visiting the 230 families in the town consumed all of his time and energy. Once that was done, he had to begin visiting the families scattered across the district. For this purpose, he owned a horse cart and two fine horses – and fortunately the services of a stable attendant to take care of them and the five chickens, as he felt certain that they would all have become emaciated if left only in his care.[38]
To Malan, house calls entailed travelling with his horse cart through the deserted landscape for days on end, sometimes for up to ninety hours.[39] It took him to all corners of the district, where he came into close contact with his human flock as they went about their daily lives. As he described it to Nettie, the area was truly Karoo: if one ever had the inclination to hurl something at a dog, there would always be a stone within reach, and if one had the wish to prick someone, there was never a shortage of thorns.[40]
Malan took his visits to the people of this dry, yet abundant land very seriously. He preferred to invest time and energy in each visit, instead of rushing from house to house like many of his colleagues from the neighbouring parishes. In a small notebook, he recorded details about every member of his congregation. When the various parishes met to report on their work, Malan was the only minister who had not managed to visit all of his congregants during the period of a year – to which he remarked drily that he had done thorough work.[41] Years later, he would write a plea to his fellow ministers not to treat these visits as a routine that satisfied their official consciences, but rather as an opportunity to spend sufficient time with those in doubt in order to lead them to the light. Hurried visits gave the impression of an annual spiritual inspection, with the minister being the spiritual tax collector or policeman from whom his victims hid their sins. Malan felt a true need to bring enlightenment and grace to people who were spiritually ignorant – and the best way, in his view, was to spend time with each person. It gave him a deep sense of fulfilment to provide answers to someone’s difficult questions, or to explain a complicated Bible verse.[42]
His flock regarded him as an intellectual. His sermons were often too difficult and complicated for them to follow, but his listeners were nevertheless in awe of his abilities. Malan continued to buy books, and studied late into the night.