DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism. Lindie Koorts
his left.
Malan befriended his young stepmother’s sisters – especially Nettie, who became something of a female ‘chum’. He wrote to her about girls, teased her about her crushes (whom he would label her ‘tik’), and told her about his studies in Stellenbosch. As was the norm among educated Afrikaners, these early letters were written in English.
Malan matriculated with honours from the Stellenbosch Gymnasium,[57] and enrolled for a B.A. Mathematics and Science at the Victoria College. His academic endeavours were not always equally successful. A fellow student remembered how, after a particularly difficult mathematics test, Malan compared his test paper to that of a friend and, establishing that he had answered at least three questions correctly, jumped for joy. This act was so uncharacteristic that the said fellow student remembered the event for the rest of his life, for Malan was always calm and composed – as well balanced as ‘a small scale in the chemistry laboratory’. He did not play any sports, he proudly declared that he had never read a novel and, as far as his friends were concerned, he showed no interest in the opposite sex. ‘My mind to me a kingdom is’ was his motto.[58] Malan later confessed to being painfully shy during these years. His sense of inferiority could be so overwhelming that he often felt as if countless eyes bored into his back when he walked down the street.[59]
In spite of giving his male friends the impression that he was not interested in the opposite sex, to Nettie he felt free to describe the young lady of his dreams:
[M]y recipe states that my ‘tik’ wears her hair loose, has no ‘strikkies’ [frills] about her, is no slave of fashion, is very kind and good tempered, and has never yet flirted and has a true constant love for none else than for me. You see that my ‘tik’ is infinitely more difficult to be caught than yours, for women are almost all alike. If she has once disappeared among the millions of her sex, the task of extricating her is almost a hopeless one.[60]
Malan tried to call on a young lady named Berrie, but his attempts were frustrated by an over-protective chaperone. ‘I really don’t know why I may not see Berrie any more’, he lamented to Nettie:
It must be either imagination on my part that I have done something, or it must be imagination on Miss Hannay’s part that I have done something. I don’t think that it is expressly forbidden, but the old lady does not like it. I hear that she is displeased with calling in general, so that mine is no exceptional case.[61]
Three years later, Malan tried to take up correspondence with a girl named Maria. In these letters one can almost see the shy youth blushing as he stumbled over his words:
Have you made up your mind yet about what I asked you the evening before you left? If you do decide to consent, I would not expect you to write every week or every fortnight or even longer, for I am considerate enough to think that you may be wearied and that you have your work and other correspondence besides. If however you have any objection whatever, or any difficulty or even if you have no inclination to do so, you may certainly be so bold as to say so; I will not in any way be offended and will rest satisfied – not that I am at all indifferent and do not care; far from it! but because I can do it for your sake. I am very glad that you have taken some time to consider. If one does not think twice before you leap, you might afterwards have cause to regret the step you have taken, thereby perhaps grieving both yourself and others.[62]
He seemed to have received a positive reply, and in his next letter he jubilantly fumbled on:
I feel very highly honoured, to say nothing of being pleased. I fear that you will not always find me very interesting or entertaining. In letterwriting [sic], I suppose, as in all other things, experience is needed to bring to perfection and that is just what I cannot boast of. To my homepeople [sic], school and College chums I have of course often written, but whether being interesting to them means being interesting to ladies, I don’t know. However, you have been kind enough to take this new pupil into your school; he is a little older perhaps than most of your pupils are, and his faults are therefore perhaps a little more deeprooted [sic], but I sincerely hope that notwithstanding all the vexation he may give, you may have the satisfaction to see that he is at least progressing. I have one request to make and that is that you would never in any way trouble yourself so as to be able to write to me regularly. You need not write when you are tired or have anything else to do. Write when you feel inclined and have the leisure. Not that I am so presumptuous as to think that you will take trouble or make any sacrifice for my sake, but because you might, having made this engagement, think it your duty. In short, consider writing to me not a duty you have to perform, but a favour you bestow.[63]
His efforts must have run aground, as there is no further sign of correspondence with Maria. Malan eventually decided to keep himself aloof from the opposite sex. He still felt conscious of having a special calling, and decided that girls would only distract him from his life’s deeper purpose.[64]
A forum where he had more success in overcoming his feelings of inferiority was the Union Debating Society. During these years, nearly all of Stellenbosch’s students belonged to either one of the two rival debating societies: the College Debating Society and the Union Debating Society.[65] Immediately upon his arrival, Malan’s welcoming party at the station had used the opportunity to recruit him to the latter. In the formal procedure that followed, Pieter Stofberg proposed his membership and Jan Smuts seconded.[66]
The Union Debating Society was an environment where the younger generation of well-educated Afrikaners expressed not only the entrenched interests of their class, but also a new form of nationalism, which was less tolerant than that of their elders.[67] It was, essentially, a training school for aspirant politicians and orators.
For Malan’s first appearance, he chose to recite a poem called ‘The Death of Napoleon’, in which Napoleon, as he lay dying on St Helena, recalled the greatest moments of his life.[68] It was a reflection of the type of imagery that moved him, and he did his utmost best to recite it as fluently as possible.[69] The solemnity of his demeanour appeared comical to those in the back benches, who mocked his performance with glee. Jan Smuts recognised the utter dejection that was overwhelming the young Malan. He leaned over to the president of the society, P.J.G. Meiring – who would later become the editor of Die Kerkbode – to whisper in his ear that he knew the young man, who came from his home town, and that while he had a nimble mind, he also had a very sensitive personality.[70] Prompted by Smuts, Meiring sought out the new recruit after the proceedings to assure him that he had enjoyed his performance – and that it was best to ignore the taunts of his tormentors.[71]
The reassurance helped, and Malan did not give up. It was a crucial moment in which his later political opponent prevented his oratorical spirit from being crushed. In 1895 he took part in his first debate, entitled ‘That this meeting considers that the buying up of farms by a foreign syndicate will prove disastrous to the Cape Colony’. He won the debate,[72] which was hailed as a ‘brilliant success. The debating power of the Society has probably never appeared to such distinct advantage.’[73]
This debate provides the first glimpse of the young Malan’s mode of thinking, as he did not keep a diary and left hardly any letters dated prior to 1895. His words would have made any Afrikaner Bond member proud. The speech itself was well crafted and systematic. Malan made skilful use of metaphors and, instead of basing his speech on emotional and patriotic appeals to his audience, he provided a rational criticism of the possible involvement of foreign capital in the Cape Colony by drawing parallels with the Kimberley diamond fields. A foreign company, he told his audience, was interested solely in making profits for its European investors. It would take money out of the country and, like De Beers, churn out millionaires such as Cecil John Rhodes and Barney Barnato on the one hand, and desperately poor labourers on the other, which would land the Cape with the same problems that Europe had: anarchism and socialism. For that matter, a foreign company – intent on obtaining the cheapest labour possible – could decide to import labourers, which would saddle the Cape with a problem similar to Natal’s ‘Coolie question’ [sic].[74]
It is interesting to note that Malan was critical of Rhodes and his company, De Beers, at a time when the marriage between Rhodes and the Afrikaner Bond still seemed stable – on the surface at least. The disastrous Jameson Raid and the subsequent dissolution of the political