DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism. Lindie Koorts
by imposing the hegemony of a single culture, was directly opposed to God’s will. Christianity brought unity, but not at the expense of cultural diversity. Instead, Christianity honoured and elevated it. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to speak various languages – and the translation of the Bible into the local German vernacular was an integral part of Luther’s Reformation. Based on this evidence, Malan declared to his audience: ‘My nationalism rests, in the last instance, on a religious foundation.’[94]
Malan believed that, to realise these ideals, forceful personalities and men of character were needed. To Malan, manhood was synonymous with adulthood and a steadfast character. This was an ideal that he strove to achieve in his life, and that he used to inspire others. Years before, when he was a student at Stellenbosch, one of his professors, J.I. Marais, had lamented the dearth of true men. His words had set Malan thinking, and it was in answer to this that he formulated his description of a true man, which he included in the speech:
What is a man? A man is someone with inner strength, someone who is not like the tide, moved and swayed by every wind, but who can assert himself in any environment. A man is someone who can leave his mark on others, because he has his own character. He is someone who has convictions, who knows what he wants, who is aware that he stands for something. A man is someone who knows that there are principles he must hold on to no matter what the cost, and who would, if necessary, willingly give his life for these principles. That is a man.[95]
In reaction to the speech the chairman of the conference, Professor A. Moorrees, rose and pointed to Malan, exclaiming, ‘There is a man!’ To which the audience responded with thunderous applause.[96]
Malan appreciated the force of personality as a vehicle for historical change. He believed that the world was a better place because a Luther had brought about the Reformation[97] – or because an Elijah had defied an Ahab. Even though he did not maintain any contact with his acquaintances in the Netherlands, Professor Valeton’s voice was still echoing in Malan’s ears, and the image of the prophet Elijah was still in his mind’s eye. A mere two months after his moving description of a true man, he was back in Stellenbosch to expand on the ideal in an address entitled ‘De Profeet Elia en zyne beteekenis voor den tegenwoordigen tyd’ (The Prophet Elijah and his relevance to the present day).[98] The address bore a striking resemblance to Valeton’s ‘De strijd tusschen Achab en Elia’ (The battle between Ahab and Elijah).[99] Malan, like Valeton, recounted the power struggle between Ahab – the clever statesman who saved Israel through his shrewd alliances, but at a terrible cost – and Elijah, who would rather perish than compromise the truth as determined by God.[100]
The manner in which Malan recounted the tale resonated with his audience. Utilising the political catchphrases of the day, he transformed his address into a barely veiled criticism of the Botha government. Ahab’s political alliance with the nations around him was ‘conciliation politics’, and ‘racial hatred’ had to be dissolved by ‘forgiving and forgetting about the past’, glossing over cultural peculiarities and fundamental differences and instead focusing on commonalities. In Israel’s case, the cost of ‘conciliation’ was the destruction of its national religion and the loss of the nation’s moral compass, since conciliation necessarily encompassed the importation of foreign gods. This, according to Malan, was an extremely serious matter, as a nation’s god dictated the nature of its morals and ideals – and therefore its future. Malan believed that the future was determined by ideals – ideals ruled the world and shaped the history of both nations and individuals.[101] His emphasis on the importance of ideals was a powerful reminder of the idealist philosophy he had studied as a student – his words echoed those of Berkeley, Hegel and Fichte. It was to form an essential component of his political career: he would become a powerful transmitter of ideals – ideals that were never to be compromised. In Malan’s opinion, the Israelites under Ahab were a nation who had achieved political independence at the cost of their unique national character and personality, their God, and therefore their conscience. To Malan, such compromise was symptomatic of a weak character. In contrast to the spinelessness of the Israelites and their leader stood the prophet Elijah, whom Malan called the ‘man of steel’.[102] Alone and unarmed, he did not flinch in the face of Ahab’s power and Jezebel’s fury.[103]
To Malan, Elijah was a man who possessed greatness as only a child of the desert could. Malan believed that history preferred men of solitude, men who were taught by the desert’s empty plains and eternal sky to be silent and listen to God’s word, who were filled with a sense of eternity.[104] Thus said the minister of Montagu – who himself had spent countless hours traversing the Karoo, who as a child had spent endless hours in the veld, and who had longed for the ruggedness of this world while the cities of Europe bustled around him. It was inevitable that he identified with Elijah and admired the prophet’s fearlessness. He felt that his world was dominated by the spirit of Ahab: politicians were more concerned about public opinion and grabbing votes than they were about principles; his nation paid lip service to their principles and refused to assert their rights. What was needed was the reawakening of the spirit of Elijah – and, as he addressed his audience, he expressed the hope that it contained young men who were willing to pick up the prophet’s mantle.[105] Malan was not yet ready to take the mantle upon himself, and still clung to Valeton’s idea that politics – especially the politics of his own country – was devoid of principles.
Through these public appearances Malan’s prominence within the Afrikaner community was growing, and there were whispers that, in time, he would become a professor at the Stellenbosch seminary.[106] He was already proving himself to be an ardent patron of Stellenbosch and the ideals that the town represented.
During these years there was considerable restlessness within the ranks of the Victoria College. The Union government had received a considerable sum of money from two Randlords, Julius Wernher and Otto Beit, for the establishment of a teaching university in Cape Town, to be located at Groote Schuur, Cecil John Rhodes’s former estate. This was in keeping with a vision that Rhodes had expressed in the 1890s, but which had to be shelved as a result of his complicity in the Jameson Raid. The possibility of a university being established at Rhodes’s former estate was perceived as a direct threat to the Victoria College, which would be forced to close and hand all its students to the new institution. In order to prevent this, a vigilance committee was established in 1911 to keep an eye on any developments affecting the college, and to voice concern and opposition if these developments threatened the college’s existence.[107] Malan became a member of this committee and participated in deputations that visited the Minister of Education F.S. Malan – whose newspaper, Ons Land, Malan had devoured as a student – as well as the entire Botha cabinet. In 1913, the committee drafted a memorandum concerning the issue that drew a lot of press attention.[108] The memorandum carried Malan’s stamp: it asserted that there was much more than just an educational institution at stake. The true issue was the interests of the Afrikaner nation and the ideals that Stellenbosch represented:
Stellenbosch … has been intimately bound to the spiritual, moral and national life of the Dutch-speaking section of the nation for years. It is the place where the Afrikaner nation can best realise her ideals, and from whence she can exert the greatest influence over South Africa. She is the best fulfilment of a deep-seated need that the nation has found thus far. She represents an idea. Therefore, she has become not merely an educational institution, among other things, to the nation, but the symbol and the guarantee of its own powerful, growing national life, which seeks expression.[109]
This idealisation of Stellenbosch as a breeding ground for the Afrikaners’ nationalist ideals contained another dimension: the separation, even insulation of the Afrikaner youth in order to protect them from English influences. The same memorandum dwelt on the negative implications of forcing the Afrikaner youth to study in Cape Town where, at such a fragile stage in their lives, they would lack the supportive and nurturing environment provided by Stellenbosch and the Dutch Reformed Church, and be left to fend for themselves in an environment dominated by English speakers. This would disturb the balance between the two sections of the population, as the one would inevitably achieve an unfair advantage over the other.[110]
The definition of the broader South African nation, and the position of English and Afrikaans speakers within it, formed an important component of Malan’s thinking.