The Black Peril would not exist if it were not for a white peril that is a hundred times greater': D.F. Malan's fluidity on poor whiteism and race in the pre-apartheid era, 1912-1939

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lsquoThe Black Peril would not exist if itwere not for a White Peril that is ahundred times greaterrsquo DF MalansFluidity on Poor Whiteism and Race inthe Pre-Apartheid Era 1912ndash1939Lindie Koortsa

a University of the Free State BloemfonteinPublished online 18 Nov 2013

To cite this article Lindie Koorts (2013) lsquoThe Black Peril would not exist if it were not for aWhite Peril that is a hundred times greaterrsquo DF Malans Fluidity on Poor Whiteism and Racein the Pre-Apartheid Era 1912ndash1939 South African Historical Journal 654 555-576 DOI101080025824732013858764

To link to this article httpdxdoiorg101080025824732013858764

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lsquoThe Black Peril would not exist if it were not for a White Peril that is ahundred times greaterrsquo DF Malanrsquos Fluidity on Poor Whiteism and Race in

the Pre-Apartheid Era 1912ndash1939

LINDIE KOORTS

University of the Free State Bloemfontein

Abstract

DF Malan is known as the prime minister who instituted apartheid in 1948His racial prejudice goes without saying Yet Malanrsquos perception of race wasrelatively fluid and was directly related to his development as a politician andhis concern about the poor white problem particularly his notions of poor whiteagency During his early career Malan regarded the poor whites as makers oftheir own fate and was concerned that their depravity threatened the racialhierarchy of the day His views of Africans reflected the paternalism of his timebut were relatively tolerant and supportive of African education However bythe 1920s Malan joined in a growing tendency to link poor whiteism to cheapAfrican labour and to plead for segregation Poor whites were now regarded asvictims of circumstance By the 1930s Malan who had since become leader ofthe National Party tapped into a widespread fear of miscegenation in the wakeof the Carnegie Commission and 1938 Centenary to depict Africans as a directthreat to the survival of the white race The segregationist measures his partyadvocated during this time would be reflected in the first apartheid laws to beinstituted in 1949 and 1950

Keywords DF Malan poor whites racism Afrikaner nationalism segrega-tion Carnegie commission apartheid national party miscegenation

Introduction

Danieumll Francois Malan has been fixed in history as one of the architects of apartheid andin particular as the man who instituted this policy in 1948 It has gone without saying thathis actions were informed by racial prejudice but hitherto there have been few attempts totrace this prejudice across his lifespan Yet doing so reveals a surprising fluidity in Malanrsquosthinking which evolved along with the various phases of his career and with the

Email koortslindiegmailcom

South African Historical Journal 2013

Vol 65 No 4 555ndash576 httpdxdoiorg101080025824732013858764

ISSN Print 0258-2473Online 1726-1686copy 2013 Southern African Historical Societyhttpwwwtandfonlinecom

development of one of his most persistent political concerns the poor white problem and itsimpact on Afrikaner nationalism

Between 1912 and 1938 Malan recorded his views on the poor white problem in a fewseminal texts and speeches It is of particular interest that these were the only texts in whichhe expressed his views on black Africans1 thereby tying the two together These earlyreflections can be differentiated from his and his partyrsquos attempts to systematise theirattitude and policy towards backs in the 1940s and 1950s (albeit with varying degrees ofsuccess)2

Malan first articulated his perceptions of poor whites and black Africans in 1912 in hisdescription of his journey to the two Rhodesias and the southernmost part of the CongoWhile editor of De Burger Malan wrote two series of articles on poor whites which wouldlater be published as booklets De Achteruitgang van Ons Volk (The Regression of OurNation) in 1917 and Die Groot Vlug (The Great Flight) in 1923 Concerns about poorwhiteism and race also formed an important part of his speeches in the 1930s Upon closerexamination these texts reveal a measure of consistency ndash and fluidity which defies easycategorisation Malan was consistent in regarding Afrikaner nationalism as his highestcalling ndash and in being concerned that the poor whites were the Afrikaner nationrsquos mostvulnerable members However as his career progressed from minister of the church tonewspaper editor and politician to the leader of his own political party his perception ofthe nature of poor whiteism and in particular the nature of poor white agency and itsrelation to black Africans also evolved This article traces this development through ananalysis of these texts in order to reveal a surprising measure of fluidity in Malanrsquosperceptions of race in the years before the formulation of the policy of apartheid

This article will as far as possible limit itself to DF Malanrsquos personal views asopposed to the broader discourse of the time Such work has been done by scholars such asDunbar Moodie and Deborah Posel who have written important syntheses of Afrikanernationalism race and apartheid and whose work informed this article3 The intention is notto present Malan in isolation from his context ndash far from it Instead in focusing on theviews of a single individual this article rests on greater specificity than is the case with amore general analysis and opts to tease out direct influences that emerge from the archivalrecord Such specificity serves to complicate our notions of Afrikaner nationalist discourseand the processes which shaped racial policy

1 The author notes that racial designation in post-apartheid South Africa is a contested terrain This articleapart from direct quotations uses the more recent terms lsquoblackrsquo and lsquoAfricanrsquo interchangeably to denoteSouth Africans who would have been classified as black according to apartheid-era racial categorisationThe word lsquoracersquo is also used in its contemporary sense to denote distinctions between black and white andnot to distinguish between English and Afrikaner as was the custom during the first decades of thetwentieth century

2 See for example D Posel The Making of Apartheid 1948ndash1961 Conflict and Compromise (OxfordClarendon Press 1991) D Posel lsquoThe Meaning of Apartheid before 1948 Conflicting Interests and Forceswithin the Afrikaner Nationalist Alliancersquo Journal of Southern African Studies 14 1 (October 1987) 123ndash139 L Koorts lsquoAn Ageing Anachronism DF Malan as Prime Minster 1948ndash1954rsquo Kronos SouthernAfrican Histories 36 (November 2010) 108ndash135

3 TD Moodie The Rise of Afrikanerdom Power Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil Religion (BerkeleyUniversity of California Press 1980) Posel The Making of Apartheid lsquoThe Meaning of Apartheidbefore 1948rsquo

556 LINDIE KOORTS

Those who hope to trace racial debates through the private collections of Afrikanernationalist politicians such as DF Malan JG Strijdom and their closest interlocutorswould be sorely disappointed to find that their correspondence was dominated by party-political matters and not debates about race This for one throws into question theinfluence and reach of Afrikaner intellectuals during this era as their presence in politicalcircles was much fainter than their voluminous publications on race apartheid andAfrikaner nationalism would suggest It also leads one to the assumption that the NationalParty leaders debated race verbally and not through correspondence There was a lot ofroom for such verbal debate and for the cross-fertilisation of ideas While provincialloyalties ran very deep National Party MPrsquos were drawn together for the parliamentaryseason in Cape Town for the first half of every year The second half of the year was takenup by travels to their constituencies and by annual provincial party congresses In Malanrsquoscase as a provincial leader under Hertzog he regularly toured the entire Cape Province andwhen he became a cabinet minister these travels took him further north Once he led theNational Party in the 1930s he traversed the entire country It provided opportunities forthe exchange of ideas However since these ideas did not translate into extensivecorrespondence the historian can only infer their content from the issues of the dayWhen focusing on the ideas expressed by a single person however such inference must belimited in order to prevent it from devolving into speculation

Malanrsquos views as distinct from those of his party also reveal the extent to which theNational Party was host to a myriad of interpretations of race While his voice was mostcertainly an influential one it cannot be said to have been the only Nationalist word onthe matter4 Nevertheless it can also be argued that Malanrsquos grappling with the matterreflects the erarsquos constant attempts at formulating an answer to the lsquocolour problemrsquo

This article is also limited to Malanrsquos views on the relationship between poor whites andblack Africans His attitude towards Coloureds and Indians bore similar fluidities but thescope of a single article will not do them justice

Naar Congoland Malanrsquos first reflections on race 1912

The origins of Malanrsquos perception of race should be regarded as a product of his time andenvironment Born in the Cape Colony in 1874 he was raised in a decidedly colonialVictorian society which subscribed to a Social Darwinist worldview The Victoriansappropriated Charles Darwinrsquos theories to affirm their hierarchical view of the world andits races ndash with themselves obviously at the top of the ladder The science of the day wasused to create a biological racism that confirmed the inherent inferiority of the subject racesthat according to the British lacked culture while their own lsquoinstitutions of civilisationrsquoserved as shining examples of their superiority5 Malan received a thoroughly Victorianeducation absorbing the Victorian worldview and manners to such an extent that his sonlater described him as a lsquoVictorian gentlemanrsquo6

4 Ibid5 C Bolt lsquoRace and the Victoriansrsquo in CC Eldridge ed British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century

(New York St Martinrsquos Press 1984) 126ndash1476 University of Stellenbosch JS Gericke Library Document centre DF Malan collection (hereafter

DFM) 1132689 Danie Malan Herinneringe aan my Vader 15

DF MALANS FLUIDITY ON POOR WHITEISM AND RACE 557

As was typical of Afrikaner families at the time and beyond into the twentieth centuryMalan was not only raised by his parents but also by their coloured servants who wereknown to the children only by their Christian names ndash their surnames have faded into thecolonial past During these early years on the farm with his parentsrsquo servants forming partof an extended albeit paternalistic family Malan believed that the only difference betweenwhite and coloured was to be found in their level of education Only later as his Victorianeducation overtook these childhood experiences in shaping his thoughts did he becomeconvinced that racial differences were inherent7

As a student of theology in the town of Stellenbosch this conviction would have beenstrengthened by his reading of George McCall Thealrsquos history books8 in which blacks wereportrayed as lsquofickle barbarians prone to robbery and unscrupulous in shedding bloodrsquo9However it was his travels beyond the borders of South Africa as a minister of the DutchReformed Church (DRC) which prompted him to pen down his reflections on race for thefirst time

In 1912 DF Malan who worked as a DRC minister in the Western Cape town ofMontagu left for the two erstwhile Rhodesias and the Congo following a request from theDRC to visit its congregations which were scattered across these territories It would be hisfirst journey beyond the Limpopo and with his preconceived notions of Africa in hand hefelt as if he was heading into a dark continent where uncivilised millions could not tell theirright hand from their left He fervently believed that these people were now theresponsibility of the European nations who had painted their colours on the continentrsquosmap10

In keeping with the Social-Darwinist prejudices of his childhood combined with histraining as a theologian Malan regarded racial differences as Godrsquos creation they wereinherent the natural order ndash and they were self-evident Racial conflict was the result of thenatural order being disturbed and could be avoided by maintaining the status quo Byvirtue of their skin colour and European heritage white Afrikaners belonged to theWestern civilisation and were therefore inherently superior to black Africans whomMalan considered primitive Malan also believed that blacks had a natural and deep-rootedrespect for the bearers of civilisation which was why they addressed white men as lsquobaasrsquo oreven lsquoinkosirsquo ndash the same name they used to refer to God In addition he thought that blacksrevered the Afrikaners even more than the English11 This meant that the Afrikaners had aspecial God-given calling

The Afrikaner has power over the Kaffir [sic] But truly we would not have possessed this power if ithad not been given to us from above Has God not embedded it with a high and holy calling for ournation

7 Ibid 4ndash58 DFM 11176 DF Malan ndash Nettie Fourie 13 February 19029 K Smith The Changing Past Trends in South African Historical Writing (Johannesburg Southern Books

1988) 3710 DF Malan Naar Congoland Een Reisbeschrijving (Stellenbosch De Christen-Studenten Vereeniging van

Zuid-Afrika 1913) 5ndash811 Ibid 13 51

558 LINDIE KOORTS

Malan asked12

Malanrsquos idealism about these race relations revealed a deep naiumlveteacute about the nature anddynamics of interracial relations Up to that point in his life the demographics of the eradictated that his interaction with people of other races were mostly limited to the colouredcommunity of the Western Cape It was a paternalistic relationship in which he was alwaysin a position of power His knowledge of black people had to come from books and thetales told by his older sister Cinie Louw who was a missionary in Southern Rhodesia andfriends who lived in the north In a world far removed from the racial tensions of theinterior Malan had built his ideal This ideal was confirmed as he travelled north since thetraveller is often insulated from the inhabitantsrsquo daily realities

Malan soon discovered that the north was beset by a number of challenges to the DutchReformed faith Among these was the poverty of the scattered Afrikaner communitieswhich he believed threatened the racial hierarchy The situation was particularly acute inthe Congo The Afrikaners whom Malan encountered at Elizabethville (present-dayLubumbashi) were different to those in the settled communities south of the LimpopoThey were always trekking not for any particular reason but because it had becomesomething of a religion to them To Malan it was a perversion of the Calvinist doctrine ofpredestination ndash the belief that whatever happens is Godrsquos will They justified their nomadiclifestyle by claiming that they were following the Spiritrsquos call into the interior Malan wassceptical as to whether this lsquoSpiritrsquo originated from God Trekking taken to such anextreme was nothing but detrimental Malan wrote

Here it is certainly not always easy to distinguish between the spirit and the flesh This at least iscertain that the trekker often suffers great almost irreparable damage to his most elevated interestsThey live completely beyond the influence of the Gospel for months and years the children grow upuneducated and the people gradually become averse to regular or hard work People even run therisk of losing the Bible and family devotions completely Because as someone said to us if one has totrek before daybreak in order to escape the heat and if in the evening the wind blows out the candlesin the wagon-tent soon there is no question of Bible study13

Malanrsquos disapproval dripped from every letter He regarded any spiritual labour amongthese people as an attempt to plug a leaking dyke using onersquos finger The Congorsquosuninhabitable jungles were no place for a white person and they had already sunk to thepoor white class14

To Malan poor whiteism was a cause for grave concern He believed that it impacteddirectly on the Afrikanersrsquo God-given calling ndash as well as their continued existenceMoreover it had the potential to disturb the precariously-balanced racial hierarchy Malanregarded poor whiteism not so much as a poverty of the flesh than as a poverty of spirit andmind when all sense of adulthood and even self-respect had been lost The only remedy asfar as he was concerned was to rebuild character15

The white poverty that he encountered in the two Rhodesias was different from that inthe Congo He dubbed it lsquopioneerrsquos povertyrsquo It was a temporary situation caused by

12 Ibid 14 (my translation from the original Dutch)13 Ibid 42 (my translation from the original Dutch)14 Ibid 37ndash4715 Ibid 48

disasters such as the rinderpest and East Coast Fever which had depleted cattle stocks orthe trial and error that accompanied the establishment of a new settlement Pioneerrsquospoverty did however pose the danger of converting to poor whiteism as such disastersprompted people to take up the nomadic lifestyle of transport riding or even worsehunting as a temporary remedy to their situation If the temporary remedy became apermanent one family life with its lsquotender and elevating influencersquo became lost onersquossense of responsibility was weakened children received no education ndash or if they did merelya smattering ndash and moreover people lost the habit of working hard and regularly on a dailybasis When transport riding no longer offered a living or when all the game had been shotthey found themselves unfit for anything else lsquoThere is no doubt that the poor whiteproblem was born in the back-tent of the transport wagon and mostly behind the butt-endof a Mauserrsquo Malan concluded16

Malan was convinced that it was essential to solve the poor white problem in order tofend off the lsquoSwart Gevaarrsquo (Black Peril) Those whites who tried to halt the advance ofAfricans by denying them the right to vote or by denying them access to education failedto grasp the essence of the problem The racial balance was based on Europeansrsquo inherentsuperiority and Africansrsquo inherent respect for them As long as Europeans acted in amanner that was worthy of that respect African advancement which was a naturalprocess did not have to be feared since whitesrsquo inherent superiority would always assurethem an elevated position But if this respect was destroyed by the appalling behaviour ofpoor whites denying education and political and social rights could not save the white racefrom what was to come

The violent exclusion of civil rights which even the most unworthy white may enjoy will in this casemake the eventual revolution only more inevitable and bring it about more rapidly with the outcomeeven more ill-fated If through his behaviour the white loses the respect of the native it means inany case for South Africa ndash the Deluge For this reason alone if for no other the South Africannation ought to have the highest spiritual and moral standing and be the most civilised nation in theworld From this point of view the solution of the poor white issue is also the solution to the nativeissue17

Malan implored his readers to shift their focus Instead of feeling threatened by blacksthey had to feel threatened by the degradations of their fellow whites

The Black Peril would not exist if it were not for a White Peril that is a hundred times greater whichundermines and destroys the blackrsquos respect for the white race That the Kaffir [sic] is wicked is inthe first instance not the Kaffirsrsquo [sic] fault it is in the least not the fault of mission work it is thefault of the many whites who live worse than Kaffirs [sic]18

Many whites complained that missionaries who educated blacks stirred up racialtensions as educated blacks had no respect for whites For this reason they were opposedto blacks receiving any education whatsoever Malan tried to make it clear to them that itwas inevitable that blacks would strive to elevate themselves

16 Ibid 49 (my translation from the original Dutch)17 Ibid 50 (my translation from the original Dutch)18 Ibid 51 (my translation from the original Dutch)

560 LINDIE KOORTS

But even if for the sake of the majority of the white race a hostile attitude towards the education ofthe Kaffir [sic] could be justified with the natives undeniably striving higher such opposition wouldin any case be powerless You cannot hold the waters of the Zambezi back with your hand Youcannot place a damper on Mount Etna The only remedy is more and especially better educationfor the white so that he can also without violence maintain his superiority Knowledge is power19

Malan did not feel threatened by or hostile to black education Instead he shifted thefocus back to the Afrikaners He tried to explain to his audience in the best possible termsthat there was nothing negative about blacks learning English Black missionaries whoworked among their own people in their own language also needed spiritual nourishment ndashand since there were no relevant books in their own language they had to be able to readEnglish in order to fulfil such an important need Furthermore speaking English enlargedAfricansrsquo earning potential and improved the manner in which they were treated

The English are as a rule no experts in learning foreign languages and therefore if he knowsEnglish he can earn more And besides if he can understand his master he can do what is expectedof him then he does not have to be cursed or beaten or kicked as so often happens20

These words were written without any reflection ndash but they were written to an audiencewho could empathise with the situation However Malan was also convinced that mereknowledge of the English language did not constitute an education and was openly hostileto American and British missionaries who laced the Gospel with a good dose of culturalimperialism As far as he was concerned the education that they provided was designed totear Africans away from their nature and their nation It would destroy their self respectand in doing so their character and ultimately their future Self respect was of crucialimportance as it was the only way to elevate a human being regardless of colourEducation therefore should not be aimed at producing black or coloured imitations ofEnglishmen21 but had to be tailored to each nationrsquos particular character and calling

What has to be done is that the governments of Southern Africa should not as has been the case upto this point leave the education of the coloureds to the whims of the Mission societies even lessshould they force a wrong and disastrous system on the Mission societies but taking account of thecolouredrsquos destiny as a labourer determine a particular native-education policy and embody it inlaw22

Malanrsquos paternalist view of blacks reflected the conventional wisdom of the timebut these conventions would become the staple of apartheid mythology and discoursemore than 30 years later ndash almost as if they passed from common knowledge to law ofnature

19 Ibid 76ndash77 (my translation from the original Dutch)20 Ibid 77 (my translation from the original Dutch)21 Ibid 79ndash80 These views were typical in DRC mission circles For more on this line of thought see H

Giliomee lsquoThe Weakness of Some The Dutch Reformed Church and White Supremacyrsquo Scriptura 83(2003) 212ndash244 H Giliomee lsquoThe Making of the Apartheid Plan 1929ndash1948rsquo Journal of Southern AfricanStudies 29 2 (June 2003) 373ndash392

22 DF Malan Naar Congoland 79ndash80 (my translation from the original Dutch)

After his return to the Cape Malan would not systematise his views on race any furtherInstead for the next few years his energies would be consumed by the political crisessurrounding the outbreak of the First World War and his entry into politics

De Achteruitgang van Ons Volk Racial perceptions circa 1916ndash1917

Malan entered politics in 1915 and found himself in charge of a powerful mouthpiece inthe form of De Burger newspaper which he used as a platform from which he could preachto the nation about the issues that prompted him to leave the church The poor whiteproblem was high on his list In June 1916 the Helpmekaar (Mutual Aid) organisation inthe Cape which was established to collect money to pay the fines of the men who hadparticipated in the 1914 Rebellion suggested that a conference be held on the poor whiteissue23 With this prospect in mind Malan published a series of articles on the topic thatwere later collated and printed as a booklet24

The articles drew on his encounters with white poverty while a minister of the churchand demonstrated his sense of urgency to bring the issue to the attention of a wideraudience Malan recounted a scene that he would have encountered during his isolatedpastoral visits to his rural congregationrsquos outlying districts

Anyone who is familiar with some of the larger parts of our country will also know the sight that sooften can be met on our dusty roads ndash the dilapidated half tent-wagon with the tatters fluttering inthe wind and harnessed to it a team of six or eight emaciated tottering donkeys After a few yearsrsquoexperience one does not need to enquire anymore to know that the white driver with his listlessposture and the neglected woman with her dull eyes are probably not members of a church and areeither completely unable to read and write or can only do so poorly and that the half-a-dozenuncombed and unwashed children have never seen a church from the inside ndash let alone a school []They are the nomadic wandering type Of every industry they know something They do not have afirm understanding of anything They are willing to do all kinds of work None of which they can dowell Thus they move from farm to farm complaining bitterly about anyone who gave them workand accommodation on his farm while the employer in turn complains bitterly about theirunreliability dishonesty and rudeness and assures you emphatically that he would rather work withcoloured people a hundred times over25

Such people were moeg geboren (born tired) always in search of jobs and trying to keepbody and soul together through begging26 Yet Malan insisted these people were lsquoour fleshand bloodrsquo27 They were Afrikaners fellow-descendants of the Beggars28 and theHuguenots The divisions between rich and poor however were becoming so stark withinthe Afrikaner community that in some places such people were not greeted by hand any

23 Helpmekaar Studiefonds Archive Kongresnotules Helpmekaarvereniging van die Kaapprovinsie 1916ndash1925 Notule Helpmekaar Kongres 28ndash29 Junie 1916 6

24 DF Malan De Achteruitgang van ons volk De oorzaken daarvan en de redmiddelen (Cape Town DeNationale Pers 1917)

25 Ibid 7 (my translation from the original Dutch)26 Ibid 727 Ibid 828 The original Dutch term is lsquoGeuzenrsquo Dutch Protestants who fought Catholic Spain during the Eighty

Yearsrsquo War

562 LINDIE KOORTS

longer and they were certainly never received in the houses of the wealthier Afrikaners ToMalan the poor white problem was an Afrikaner nationalist cause He fervently believedthat a nation was an organic whole ndash if one part of the body suffered the rest would also beaffected For this reason Afrikaner poverty had to be addressed29

Malanrsquos approach to the issue of poverty was relatively nuanced He distinguishedbetween different forms of poverty and proposed a variety of solutions ranging from thetangible to the intangible He classified the poor into three categories those who sufferedfrom physical disabilities illness or old age those who were unable to find employment dueto economic conditions beyond their control such as natural disasters war or fluctuationsin the economy and finally those who were poor due to their unwillingness to work Eachcategory necessitated different solutions those who were physically unfit had to be assistedthrough classic philanthropy those who wanted to work but could not had to be assistedto find employment coupled with job-creation while the only solution to those whorefused to work was coercion This latter group had to be rehabilitated in a number ofways through education and the teaching of skills through lsquospiritual upliftmentrsquo andthrough an adjustment in their attitude to work30

Where possible Malan believed that newly urbanised poor whites had to be resettled onthe land ndash to be provided by the government or even expropriated from large companies Itwas not however merely a case of leaving such people on the land since they had alreadyproven their inability to sustain themselves They had to be taught the necessary work ethicand skills to farm efficiently As the population was expanding though it was impossiblefor the land to provide a living for everyone Many Afrikaners had to be absorbed into theurban industrial labour force ndash and here also the necessary skills and work ethic wereimperative This however brought the Afrikaner poor into direct competition with thecountryrsquos black and coloured populations According to Malan blacks possessed what thepoor whites lacked willingness to work and eagerness to learn which meant that they werequickly climbing the ladder of civilisation while the poor whites continued to sink InMalanrsquos eyes this could only be detrimental to the finely-balanced racial order If theprocess was not reversed South Africa would no longer be a white manrsquos country31

Instead the resulting interaction would lead to disrespect on the part of the lsquolowerrsquo racewhich would give way to familiarity and finally miscegenation Poverty amongst SouthAfricarsquos whites was not merely a pitiful condition as it was in other countries but it was asocial issue with far-reaching repercussions32

The battlefield was in the labour market where blacks were undercutting whites becausetheir needs were fewer and because they were willing to work for less Malan believedhowever that this situation would not last Africans were becoming more lsquocivilisedrsquo andwould eventually claim higher wages in order to support their newly acquired Westernlifestyles33

29 Ibid 8 2930 Ibid 9ndash11 16ndash18 20ndash2131 Ibid 21ndash22 25ndash2732 DF Malan lsquoDe toestand van achteruitgang en de oorzaken daarvanrsquo in Inwendige Zending Kommissie

der Ned Geref Kerk KP Het arme blanken vraagstuk Verslag van het Kerkelik Kongres gehouden teCradock op 22 en 23 November 1916 12

33 Malan De achteruitgang van ons volk 27

The majority of the population earned their livelihoods by performing either skilled orunskilled labour The poor whites regarded the second category as lsquokaffir [sic] workrsquo andinstead tried to claim either positions where they could supervise black labourers or skilledpositions ndash for which they did not have the required training or competence ndash while blacksdominated the unskilled sector and were quickly advancing in the direction of the skilledsector as well Malan had only one solution the poor whites had to work no matter howmenial and no matter how small the wage They had to compete with blacks for bothskilled and unskilled employment at the same wages that blacks were being paid Malandid not doubt that the whites would triumph in such a competition In this instance hisSocial Darwinist mindset left him with little doubts about the white labourerrsquos inherentsuperiority He recommended only a single measure to advance the competition segregatedworkplaces Employers had to appoint either black or white workers As long as whiteworkers did not have to labour side by side with black workers their sense of socialsuperiority would not be threatened and they would be more efficient labourers and wouldeven be willing to perform tasks that they would otherwise have refused34

Malan felt vindicated in his argument by pointing to the American South According tohim the South experienced similar conditions to South Africa ndash where a black lsquomajorityrsquoperformed the manual labour that an impoverished white lsquominorityrsquo refused to touch Oncethe American poor whites had changed their attitudes to work so he claimed they wereable to claim the labour market for themselves and in so doing the poor white problemdisappeared35

At this stage Malan did not advocate a colour bar or differential wages He acceptedAfrican advancement and Westernisation as an inevitable reality which would in the longrun even out the skewed wage levels Insofar as it affected the Afrikaner poor he onlyadvocated segregation in the workplace education and training for the poor whiteslsquospiritual upliftmentrsquo which would be provided by the church and a new attitude towardswork What was needed was a fair competition which he believed the whites werepredestined to win

Following the publication of his articles Malan was asked to address the Cradockconference on the poor white problem which was convened by the DRC in October 1916Here he provided a summary of the articles that had been published in De Burger36

At the same conference the former president of the Orange Free State FW Reitz andMalanrsquos erstwhile professor of theology JI Marais delivered speeches in which theypleaded for comprehensive racial separation37 They did not use the word lsquosegregationrsquo asyet but pleaded for lsquoAfskeidingrsquo (secession or partition) ndash in schools churches workplacestrains and the laws of the land38 Both Reitz and Marais spoke of the American South in

34 Ibid 12ndash13 2735 Ibid 27ndash2836 Malan lsquoDe toestand van achteruitgang en de oorzaken daarvanrsquo 10ndash1437 FW Reitz lsquoDe arme blanke en de naturel ndash Toespraakrsquo in Inwendige Zending Kommissie der Ned Geref

Kerk KP Het arme blanken vraagstuk Verslag van het Kerkelik Kongres gehouden te Cradock op 22 en23 November 1916 15ndash18 JI Marais lsquoDe arme blanke en de naturel ndash Toespraakrsquo in Inwendige ZendingKommissie der Ned Geref Kerk KP Het arme blanken vraagstuk Verslag van het Kerkelik Kongresgehouden te Cradock op 22 en 23 November 1916 1917 18ndash19

38 Reitz lsquoDe arme blanke en de naturel ndash Toespraakrsquo 15ndash18

564 LINDIE KOORTS

glowing terms39 Malan was clearly not alone in tying the poor white problem to SouthAfricarsquos racial order Poverty threatened the Social-Darwinist racial hierarchy which SouthAfrica inherited from the nineteenth century Racial separation was the key to preserving itand so the matter became part of the political discourse

Die Groot Vlug Exchanging the racial views of a parson for those of apolitician circa 1923

The development of Malanrsquos views on race in the 1920rsquos should be viewed in the context ofhis progress as a politician In 1916 he was still in the midst of his transition from the pulpitto the podium and the National Party was still in its infancy There was little cohesion inthe party and little systematised policy to indicate its line on the various issues of the dayBy 1923 however this situation had changed JBM Hertzog had established hisleadership and Malan for one had learned to toe the party-line in the wake of ideologicaldisputes over the partyrsquos stance on republicanism Hertzog became an active proponent ofsegregation and Malanrsquos public statements on race did not wander too far away fromHertzogrsquos stated position It became difficult to distinguish between his personal stance andhis adherence to his leaderrsquos position

In July 1923 the DRC held a second conference on the poor white problem this time inBloemfontein Once again Malan attended and delivered a speech Hertzog did thesame40 Malan was indignant that unlike the previous congress in Cradock in 1916 not asingle Cabinet Minister was present41 The SAPs absence ndash and the NPs presence ndash at theconference meant that the latter had effectively positioned itself as the political patron ofthe poor whites

In contrast to 1916 Malanrsquos speech was not based on his own experiences as aclergyman By this time his ties to the churchrsquos upper echelons had faded as he consciouslysought to respect the division between church and state He did however remain a faithfulmember of the DRC and a deeply religious politician42 His speech was drawn from acareful study of the countryrsquos census-statistics It revealed a picture which shocked andgalvanised him Malan discovered that the migration of poor whites from the countrysideto the cities had turned from a trickle into a flood Between the years 1911 to 1921 70000whites left their rural existence behind to find refuge in the cities This was a clear sign ofeconomic desperation He was convinced that this trend had to be countered by improvingconditions in the countryside eliminating the exploitation of farmers and consumers bymiddlemen who made undue profits education for those who were already in the city and

39 Ibid 18 Marais lsquoDe arme blanke en de naturel ndash Toespraakrsquo 1940 University of the Free State Archive for Contemporary Affairs (hereafter ARCA) P307 Gesamentlike

Kongres oor die arme blanke vraagstuk in die Raadsaal te Bloemfontein op 4 en 5 Julie 1923 (BloemfonteinNasionale Pers Beperk 1923)

41 DF Malan Die Groot Vlug lsquon Nabetragting van die Arm-Blanke-Kongres 1923 en van die OffisieumlleSensusopgawe (Cape Town Nasionale Pers 1923) 6 Inwendige Zending Kommissie der Ned Geref KerkKP Het arme blanken vraagstuk Verslag van het Kerkelik Kongres gehouden te Cradock op 22 en 23November 1916 (Cape Town De Nationale Pers 1917)

42 See L Korf lsquoPodium andor Pulpit DF Malanrsquos Role in the Politicisation of the Dutch ReformedChurch 1900ndash1959rsquo in Historia 52 2 (November 2007) 214ndash238

addressing unequal competition between white and black by encouraging employers toemploy either one or the other43 These were to some degree the same remedies he hadadvocated seven years earlier

Other speakers however decided that the unfair competition with cheap black labourwas at the heart of the matter Hertzog advocated job reservation for white labourers infactories and mines44 while Dr NJ van der Merwe who believed that it was impossible toconvince employers to sacrifice cheap black labour advocated industrial segregation on allpublic works as well as a minimum wage for white workers45 After much heateddiscussion ndash as the issue of segregation was considered by some of those present to belsquodangerousrsquo ndash the conference decided to adopt the principle of industrial segregation basedon territorial segregation while acknowledging that blacks were human beings created inGodrsquos image and therefore the maintenance of Europeanrsquos rights and privileges could notbe conducted in a manner that could harm them46 The pattern of tying race relations towhite poverty which had also marked the Cradock conference in 1916 was taken furtherby the Bloemfontein conference of 1923

A week after the conference ended Malan began to publish a series of editorials in DeBurger in which he explored the issues raised by the conference47 His position on the causesof white poverty had changed since 1916 Where he had previously distinguished betweenthose who were poor as a result of circumstances beyond their control and those whosecondition was due to spiritual depravity his focus had shifted from the individual to thecollective and he now regarded all white poverty as the result of external circumstances48

The Bloemfontein conferencersquos decision to support the principle of segregation gaveMalan cause to reflect and led him to conclude that it was indeed situated at the heart ofthe matter In his mind Afrikaner urbanisation bore parallels to the Great Trek ndash and hearticulated it in such terms However he believed that the troubles accompanying this newtrek were far more acute and on a much larger scale The census figures showed that whiteswere lsquofleeingrsquo from the rural areas only to be replaced by even larger numbers of blacks InMalanrsquos opinion the flight was caused by a lack of fair competition since black people intheir lsquouncivilisedrsquo or lsquohalf-civilisedrsquo state had very few needs It was impossible forlsquocivilisedrsquo whites to compete against them Whites were faced with the options of eithersinking to the same levels of depravity or taking their wives and children and moving to thecities The flight from the countryside was essentially a flight away from hunger orlsquobarbarityrsquo ndash or both49 Even though none of them had been stabbed by an assegai and noshots had been fired Malan saw them in the same light as the lsquoblood-stained refugees inthe land of Dinganersquo of two or three generations ago50

43 DF Malan lsquoDorpwaartse Stroomrsquo in Gesamentlike Kongres oor die Arme Blanke Vraagstuk in dieRaadsaal te Bloemfontein op 4 en 5 Julie 1923 (Bloemfontein Nasionale Pers Beperk 1923) 6ndash9

44 JBM Hertzog lsquoWat die Staat kan doenrsquo in Gesamentlike Kongres oor die Arme Blanke Vraagstuk in dieRaadsaal te Bloemfontein op 4 en 5 Julie 1923 4ndash5

45 NJ van der Merwe lsquoKompetisie tussen blank en gekleurdrsquo in Gesamentlike Kongres oor die Arme BlankeVraagstuk in die Raadsaal te Bloemfontein op 4 en 5 Julie 1923 11ndash15

46 Ibid 1647 Malan Die Groot Vlug48 Ibid 11ndash1249 Ibid 5 7ndash850 Ibid 8 (translated from the original Afrikaans authorrsquos translation)

566 LINDIE KOORTS

The same lsquoblack tidal waversquo which flooded the countryside had also reached the citiesand was lsquoengulfingrsquo them one by one Whites fleeing from the lsquoadvancing assegai-lesshordesrsquo reached the cities only to run into another lsquoblack hordersquo51 Here they could notcount on finding employment in the mines the backbone of the economy as the minesavoided appointing whites Instead they had to compete for the remaining occupations forwhich they were ill-prepared in an unfamiliar environment and with unsympatheticemployers who were prejudiced against them The only solution to the problem wasterritorial and industrial segregation52

Malan countered fears that segregation clashed with the Christian conscience Itrevealed the extent to which he had absorbed racial segregation into his religiousworldview

The segregation of the native which is absolutely necessary if the white civilisation in South Africa isnot to go under in the near future does not have to offend our Christian feeling and cannot and maynot in our own interests mean that we simply chase the Kaffir [sic] back behind his own border andthen leave him to his own devices If it was the Lordrsquos intention that we never distinguish betweenpeople on the basis of race or nationality then he would have made all peoplersquos skin colour the sameand he would have allowed them to complete the Tower of Babel and to keep their single languageBut that would have been a monotonous world53

Malan believed that as long as there were whites in South Africa who wanted to remainthere and remain civilised segregation would be necessary This was however accom-panied by the obligation to provide Africans with a proper means of living to evangelisethem and to assist them to become lsquocivilisedrsquo According to Malan this was what the Bibletaught ndash and common sense made it clear that failing to do so would lead to the whitecivilisationrsquos own demise Blacks could not be removed from the white areas while theirown areas did not provide them with a decent existence and a future Malan insisted thatsegregation had to be implemented gradually and it had to be accompanied by agriculturaltraining in order to make farming in the Reserves sustainable as traditional farmingpractices exhausted the soil It was according to Malan little wonder that economicpressure compelled Africans to search for a living elsewhere ndash and in so doing to flood thelsquowhite areasrsquo Countries like Denmark which possessed limited agricultural land hadsucceeded in increasing its output through effective farming methods Malan was convincedthat the same could be done in South Africa where the Reserves ndash some of which containedpieces of South Africarsquos most fertile soil ndash had the potential to support their populationsthrough better education and methods54

Malan still believed that African education was a crucial matter For the sake of thewhitesrsquo preservation general education and civilisation had to be promoted amongst theblacks It would generate new occupations in their own areas and in so doing createopportunities for educated blacks who due to the lack thereof otherwise tended to becomelsquoagitatorsrsquo Malan asserted that it was the lack of education that constituted the greatestthreat to white civilisation As he explained to his readers

51 Ibid 9 (my translation from the original Afrikaans)52 Ibid 9ndash10 1253 Ibid 20-1 (my translation from the original Afrikaans)54 Ibid 21

the Kaffir [sic] as such is not the enemy of the white man and his civilisation Neither are hiseducation and his civilisation the enemy insofar as he is capable of appropriating it to himself Tothe contrary it is precisely his lack of civilisation and as a result his limited needs and his Kaffir [sic]wage that is impoverishing degrading and driving the white man away55

Malanrsquos reasoning was clear He had drawn his hierarchical perception of race into theeconomic arena Africansrsquo lsquolack of civilisationrsquo enabled employers to pay them low wageswhich whites would not accept since these wages could not sustain their Western lifestylesThe solution was two-fold provide landless whites with land and eliminate wagedifferentiation by removing cheap black labour through segregation Segregation wouldthen be used to transform African society and thereby render low wages unacceptable toAfricans as well The transformation of society was the most powerful and effective meansto eliminate capitalist exploitation

Malanrsquos scheme to educate and lsquocivilisersquo Africans until they no longer posed a threat towhites begs the question whether he regarded segregation as a temporary or a permanentmeasure Malan did indeed draw his argument to its logical conclusion and in doing soreiterated his arguments of 1912 and 1916

There is still a group of whites who seek the welfare of their race in placing obstacles on the Kaffirrsquos[sic] road to education and civilisation Therefore they curse the missionary Such people do notknow what they are doing They cannot hinder it By thwarting the missionary they choose ndash

through their deeds ndash a civilisation for the African that is devoid of God instead of a civilisation onthe basis of Christianity They fight their peace and curse their own salvation For if the native livesin his own area as a civilised man and cannot compete with the white in the labour market orthrough cheap production in an unfair manner then he has truly ceased to be a threat to the whiteAnd then if needs be the segregation-borders might even be thrown open again without the whitehaving to move an inch56

It is significant that Malan was able to contemplate an end to segregation However thiswas so vague and shrouded in the mists of the very distant future as to remove it fromreality It is interesting that Malan in envisioning the expansion of lsquocivilisationrsquo did notmention the question of miscegenation ndash it was something that he had condemned in hisearlier writings but at this crucial point it was absent It is possible that he assumed thatnationalism would maintain the God-ordained boundaries within a civilisation ndash as theWestern civilisation for example was composed of various different nationalities At thiscrucial point blood was not the issue

Malan did not shy away from the question of whether segregation was practicallyfeasible As an opposition politician it was easy for him to ignore the mundane realities ofgovernance when devising such a scheme and to condemn SAP politicians who shruggedtheir shoulders when faced with the matter As far as Malan was concerned it was a matterof principle There were only two options segregation on the one hand or murder andsuicide on the other They had gotten to the point where lsquoBolshevist Kaffir [sic] labourrsquo hadbrought the whites into a competition with each other the one was murdering his own race

55 Ibid (my translation from the original Afrikaans)56 Ibid (my translation from the original Afrikaans)

568 LINDIE KOORTS

by dismissing the other or forcing him to live on black wages This could only lead to theDeluge57

Malan did not foresee any difficulties with regards to territorial segregation Industrialsegregation could be built on measures which the Smuts-government had already institutedthere was a colour bar on the mines which dictated that black workers were not allowed torise above a particular level This colour bar could be expanded across other industries ndashand would not be unfair as long as whites were excluded from similar occupations in thenative areas58 It bore a striking similarity to the later apartheid reasoning behind thehomelands Malan did not dwell on the reality that South Africarsquos industries were clusteredin the so-called white areas there were hardly any industries in the so-called native areasfrom which whites could be excluded in the first place ndash and furthermore the number ofwhites in these areas was so negligible as to render his argument unrealistic

Malan also approved of the system that dictated that mines needed a licence in order torecruit black labour He advocated the expansion of both these regulations and the passsystem as determined by the Urban Areas Act of 1923 which Parliament had passedearlier that year The principles enshrined in this legislation could be expanded so as toensure that no employer could appoint a black person within the white area without alicense59

The fact that Malan advocated the expansion of existing measures was significant It wasthe first time that he had formulated a systematic proposal for segregation and it was builton an established order which revealed a measure of continuity with regards to racialdiscrimination rather than attempt to re-engineer South African society There was also astartling continuity between the first poor white conferencersquos plea for Afskeiding the secondconferencersquos resolution in favour of segregation and the formulation of the policy ofapartheid

It would be another decade before Malan recorded his views on the relationship betweenpoor-whiteism and race again Following the Pactrsquos victory in the 1924 election Malanrelinquished his position as editor of Die Burger to take up a position in Hertzogrsquos cabinetWhile he held the portfolios of Health and Education which contributed to theestablishment of South Africarsquos welfare state60 his ideological energies were mostlyconsumed by nationalist issues tied to his portfolio of Internal Affairs most notably theFlag crisis followed a few years later by the Fusion crisis which would see him depart fromHertzog in 1934 to lead the lsquoPurifiedrsquo National Party

From the Carnegie Commission to the Centenary Celebrations Malanrsquos stance on race in the1930s

After he took his place at the head of his own party in 1934 Malan took special care toposition the NP as the party for the poor whites It had been one of his priorities since hisentry into politics and he carried it into the new organisation When a third poor white

57 Ibid58 Ibid59 Ibid60 See J Seekings lsquoldquoNot a single white person should be allowed to go underrdquo Swartgevaar and the Origins of

South Africarsquos Welfare State 1924ndash1929rsquo Journal of African History 48 (2007) 375ndash394

conference was held in October 1934 to discuss the findings of the Carnegie Commission onthe Poor White Problem Malan was in attendance as a speaker However he refrainedfrom providing another analysis of the poor white problem (presumably it had been doneby the lsquoexpertsrsquo) and instead limited himself to a moral argument He appealed to hisaudience to remember that the poor whites were members of the Afrikaner nation thosewho wanted to help them had to learn to identify with them instead of approaching suchpersons as the objects of study or charity61

The Carnegie Commission and the resultant conference had a significant impact onMalan and the NP It added the coloured community to the list of threats to the poorwhites and argued that coloureds along with Africans were crowding the poor whites outof the labour market To make matters worse according to the commissioners the poorwhites were being forced to live in racially mixed slums with blacks coloureds and Indianswhere miscegenation was the inevitable result62 The implication was that all people ofcolour were a threat to the poor whites and it would mark a sea change in Malanrsquosapproach to racial policy The poor white issue had always been one of Malanrsquos mostconsistent concerns but he and his party now took a new turn when it came to the positionof coloureds Indians and Africans

By the time the Nationalists took their seats on the Opposition benches in January193563 Hertzog had spent more than eight years trying to get his segregationist legislationthrough Parliament The legislation in its final shape aimed at placing blacks on a separatevotersrsquo roll having special Nativesrsquo representatives in Parliament and the Senate as well asa Nativesrsquo Representative Council while the government would buy more land to enlargethe Reserves and invest funds for the development of these areas64

Even though the NP voted for Hertzogrsquos native bills which were finally passed byParliament in 1936 its support was given grudgingly The billsrsquo final shape was inevitablythe result of compromises made between members of the Fusion-government To theNationalists these compromises which softened the billsrsquo sharpest edges diluted thesolution to what they regarded as a pressing issue especially in the face of the poor whiteproblem The NP now took the segregationist mantle upon itself by advocating a morerigid and uncompromising segregationist policy than Hertzog and even lobbied for itsexpansion to include measures against coloureds and Indians65

When Malanrsquos new partyrsquos Federal Councilrsquos committee drafted its programme ofprinciples its policy concerning Africans remained unchanged The new party retained theprinciple of white Christian guardianship which had been a part of the NPs constitutionsince its inception as well as its opposition to miscegenation which was also contained inthe 1914 constitution The belief that Africans had to be allowed to develop on their ownaccording their own natural abilities was also preserved The new constitution kept the

61 DF Malan lsquoToespraak deur Dr DF Malan LVrsquo in P du Toit ed Report of the National Conferenceon the Poor White Problem held at Kimberley 2nd to 5th Oct 1934 (Cape Town Nasionale Pers 1934)122ndash125

62 Coetzer and Le Roux Die Nasionale Party Deel 4 Die lsquoGesuiwerdersquo Nasionale Party 1934ndash1940(Bloemfontein Instituut vir Eietydse Geskiedenis 1986) 59 89ndash91 94

63 Ibid 2464 Ibid 43 W Beinart Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford Oxford University Press 2001) 123ndash12465 Coetzer and Le Roux Die Nasionale Party Deel 4 42ndash53 57ndash58 68ndash72

570 LINDIE KOORTS

principle that the local population ndash which included whites blacks and coloureds ndash had tobe protected from Asian immigration and the expansion of Asiansrsquo rights66 Howeversegregation now became part of the new partyrsquos programme of principles The partylsquodeclare[d] itself in favour of the territorial political and industrial segregation of the nativeand the separate political representation of the colouredrsquo67

The Nationalists capitalised on the publicrsquos sympathy for racial segregation In theaftermath of the Carnegie Commission the issue of miscegenation was an exceptionallyprominent one and Malan incorporated it into his speeches68 This appealed in particularto the DRC especially as its Free State Synod had since 1935 unsuccessfully lobbied theMinister of the Interior to introduce legislation that would ban mixed marriages69

As his party embarked upon its first general election in 1938 Malan undertook that theparty would remain neutral in the event of war it would oppose Jewish immigration itwould remove all representation of Africans in Parliament halt the purchasing of land forAfricans leaving it to Africans to purchase their own land according to their own initiativeand needs and it would implement segregation between all whites and lsquonon-whitesrsquo TheNP promised to introduce legislation that would provide for separate residential areaslabour unions and if possible separate workplaces It would implement a colour bar andprovide separate representation for enfranchised coloureds Finally it would expand theImmorality Act of 1925 in order to make it applicable to all lsquonon-whitesrsquo (the ImmoralityAct of 1925 only banned intercourse between whites and blacks) it would prohibit mixedmarriages and it would end the employment of whites by non-whites70

The election was characterised by a particularly dirty campaign71 The Transvaal NPgave the partyrsquos opponents the most ammunition when they distributed a poster of a poorwhite woman languishing in an urban slum while her black husband watched her and theirmixed-race children at play The UP lambasted the poster as an affront to the dignity of thewhite woman and it soon became a public relations nightmare72 The events that tookplace later that year however made it clear that the issues of poverty and miscegenationhad struck a chord

When the results were announced Hertzog and Smuts had won by a landslide Theygained 111 seats as opposed to Malanrsquos 27 seats It was a grave disappointment to the

66 ARCA Cape National Party collection PV 27 file 82111 lsquoDe Nationale Partij Beginsels ConstitutieStatuten Uitgegeven namens lsquot Bestuur daartoe benoemd door Speciaal Kongres gehouden teBloemfontein 7ndash9 Jan 1914rsquo 8 ARCA Cape National Party Collection PV 27 file 82121 lsquoDieNasionale Party van die Kaapprovinsie Program van Beginsels en Konstitusie (1930)rsquo 8 ARCA CapeNational Party collection PV 27 file 82122 lsquoDie Nasionale Party van die Kaapprovinsie Program vanBeginsels en Konstitusie (1934)rsquo 9ndash10 DFM 111111 lsquoKonsep Program van Beginsels van die NasionalePartyrsquo [1935] The programmes of principle cited here are representative of the collection of such documentsin the Cape National Party Collection at ARCA From 1914ndash1934 the principle with regards to AfricansIndians and coloureds remained unchanged

67 DFM 111111 lsquoKonsep Program van Beginsels van die Nasionale Partyrsquo [1935] 4 (my translation fromthe original Afrikaans)

68 DFM 111189 lsquoDie wekroep van ons leierrsquo 22 September 193669 DFM 111236 PH van Huyssteen ndash DF Malan 2 September 193770 DFM 111280 lsquoEleksie-Manifes van die Nasionale Partyrsquo [1938]71 For a detailed discussion on the 1938 election and the broad range of issues that were debated see Coetzer

and Le Roux Die Nasionale Party Deel 4 126ndash17872 Ibid 144 149ndash150 151ndash153 168 170ndash171

Nationalists who had been overly confident about their chances However the NP madesignificant gains in the Cape Most tellingly was the fact that it did not gain any urbanconstituencies73 Its strength was in the countryside where 17 of its 20 seats were located inareas where according to the Carnegie Commission the numbers of white familiesclassified as lsquovery poorrsquo exceeded the national average74

The NPrsquos growing popularity and the fortunes of the poor whites would explode ontothe scene during the second half of 1938 It was 100 years after the Battle of Blood Riverand it was decided to commemorate this event by re-enacting the Great Trek Nine oxwagons left Cape Town in August 1938 to make their way north One group was headed forPretoria while the other went to Blood River These wagons caught the imagination of theAfrikaners who clad themselves in Voortrekker costumes and joined in the processions thataccompanied the wagons as they rolled through towns and villages With each turn of thewagonsrsquo wheels the enthusiasm gained momentum and swelled into a phenomenon thatcould only be described as mass hysteria75

The emotional outpouring did not remain unharnessed The theme of the commemora-tions was soon broadened beyond a mere celebration of Afrikaner heroes and theresurrection of their nemeses the British and the Africans Prominent Afrikaners ndash mostnotably the Dutch Reformed cleric Dr JD (Vader) Kestell ndash called on the nation to rescueits poor These calls were entangled with concerns about the racial order and miscegena-tion which was regarded as a looming threat to the poor white Afrikaner Audiences weretold by speaker after speaker that the Voortrekkers had kept their blood pure and that itwas the present generationrsquos duty to honour and uphold the morality of their ancestors76

Shortly after the 1938 election Malan decided to call a Union-wide conference at whichthe NP could discuss broad policy issues He hoped that such an event would enhance thepartyrsquos unity ndash and alert the north to the looming danger posed by the racial status quoThe Cape NP believed that its province where coloureds remained on the common votersrsquorole and where Africans still possessed some form of parliamentary representation facedthe greatest threat Malan wanted to orchestrate a large and impressive event which wouldput these matters on the nationrsquos agenda77

The conference which would eventually focus exclusively on the matter of race was heldin Bloemfontein in November 1938 while the Centenary celebrations were almost at theirheight and headed towards their final climax lsquoWe have gathered here with one great aim inmind and it is to safeguard South Africa for the white race and to preserve the white racepure and conscious of its calling for South Africarsquo Malan told his followers78 In thecontext of 1938 when Afrikaners heard endless tales of British animosity and Africanatrocities to defenceless women and children Malanrsquos words carried a heightened tone of

73 Ibid 172ndash17374 NM Stultz The Nationalists in Opposition 1934ndash1948 (Cape Town Human amp Rousseau 1974) 5775 See D Mostert ed Gedenkboek van die Ossewaens op die pad van Suid-Afrika Eeufees 1838ndash1939 (Cape

Town Nasionale Pers 1940)76 Ibid 64ndash70 79ndash80 101 381ndash38977 Free State Archives NJ van der Merwe Collection A 110 Volume 25 DF Malan ndash NJ van der

Merwe 18 June 193878 DF Malan lsquoDie Groot Beslissingrsquo in SW Pienaar and JJJ Scholtz eds Glo in u volk Dr DF Malan

as Redenaar 1908ndash1954 (Cape Town Tafelberg 1964) 110 (my translation from the original Afrikaans)

572 LINDIE KOORTS

fear and paranoia which had hitherto been absent from his rhetoric on race It was a matterof survival and self-preservation more than ever before

Malan argued that the Afrikanersrsquo preservation could not be solved by legislationLegislation remained a dead letter unless the will to implement it existed Instead heappealed to the nation to take the matter to heart He regarded it as imperative sinceinaction would leave them to drift downstream ndash lsquoif we do not want to be swept away wemust be willing to swim and to use all of our powers to swim upstreamrsquo he declared79

The Afrikaners were according to Malan already threatened by the force of Africannumbers He was not afraid of the possibility of violence ndash under lsquomodern conditionsrsquo sucha scenario was unthinkable Instead he feared the psychological social and inevitably thepolitical impact which majority-status would endow on the Africans they would be incontrol of the atmosphere in which whites had to breathe In stark contrast to his stanceduring the previous decades Malan now regarded the education of Africans as a threat tothe white population An educated white minority could still hold its own against anlsquouncivilised and uneducatedrsquo black majority but an educated black majority which insistedon equal status with whites was an entirely different matter80

During the preceding decades Malan maintained that both blacks and whites respectedthe lsquonaturalrsquo racial hierarchy But the rise of educated and politicised Africans such as DDJabavu who headed organisations such as the All African Convention (AAC) which wasestablished with the aim of opposing Hertzogrsquos native bills81 would have destroyedMalanrsquos faith that each group knew its lsquonatural placersquo and that education would not upsetthe order

The threat of African advancement was coupled with the threat of urbanisation andracially mixed residential areas where poor whites were the sole representatives of the whiterace thereby making them a racial floodwall ndash and an unreliable one at that Malanbelieved that in the battle for survival the future of the white race depended on the poorwhite which was a cause for grave concern

The battleground has been moved and the task to keep South Africa a white manrsquos land which hasbecome ten times heavier than before rests on the shoulders of those who are the least able to bear itOur Blood River lies in the city and our Voortrekkers are our poor who in the most difficult ofcircumstances have to take up the cudgels for our nation against the swelling dark tidal wave82

If the competition between white and black in the labour market was fair Malancontended there would not have been any reason to be concerned Poor whites howeverwere expected to maintain a lsquocivilisedrsquo lifestyle while the same was not demanded of blacklabourers Poor whites were forced to live in mixed slums and were crowded out of thelabour market by black workers who were imported from beyond the countryrsquos borderswhile the existing policy of segregation was not implemented consistently83

79 Ibid (translated from the original Afrikaans authorrsquos translation)80 Ibid 11381 WK Hancock Smuts II The Fields of Force 1919ndash1950 (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1962)

264ndash26682 DF Malan lsquoDie Groot Beslissingrsquo 116 (my translation from the original Afrikaans)83 Ibid 117ndash118

Malan was convinced that the only way to turn the tide was for the Afrikaner nation toawaken and unite their energies to procure and safeguard the continued existence of thewhite race Nationalism was his solution

Malan was headed for the crest of the wave of resurgent nationalism The conferencedrew up a petition to lobby Parliament to pass legislation that would forbid all mixedmarriages between whites and non-whites to make all miscegenation between whites andlsquonon-whitesrsquo a punishable offence to put an end to racially-mixed residential areas and toimplement both economic and political segregation between whites and lsquonon-whitesrsquo WhenMalan submitted the petition to Parliament on 1 June 1939 it had been signed by 230619white adults ndash just over 17000 signatures shy of the total number of votes the NP had wonduring the 1938 election The UPs chief whip refused to allow for any parliamentary time todiscuss the petition and the outbreak of the Second World War soon thereafter meant thatthe NPs segregationist campaign would be moved onto the backburner for the next sixyears84

When the matter was revived in 1943 it took a new direction that purported to haveshed the paranoia of the 1930s and instead claimed to be a new lsquopositiversquo approach torace which nevertheless bore some striking resemblances to the segregationist discourse ofthe 1920s

Conclusion

Contrary to his stark and rigid persona DF Malanrsquos perceptions of race were surprisinglyfluid It is clear that they narrowed with time in response to his development as a politicianand in reaction to the political climate of the day The most consistent determining factor inshaping his notions of race was his concern about the poor white problem which in turnstemmed from his even more consistent devotion to Afrikaner nationalism As hisinterpretation of the causes of and solution to poor whiteism fluctuated along with hispolitical environment so too did his approach to the lsquocolour problemrsquo

Malanrsquos initial approach to poor whites and Africans reflected his church backgroundWhile a Dutch Reformed minister he regarded blacks as the objects of mission workwhich also entailed the Dutch Reformed approach to African education while the solutionto the poor white problem was of a spiritual nature He regarded poor whiteism as thegreatest threat to the racial order hence his identification of a lsquowhite perilrsquo instead of alsquoblack perilrsquo During the first years of his political career he retained this mission-orientedfocus on white poverty and African education but also reflected a growing trend to draw alink between black labour and white poverty

The 1920s could be regarded as a turning point It was the era of segregation even if thepolicy itself was rather vague and the legislation frustrated by Parliament85 By the time

84 Coetzer and Le Roux Die Nasionale Party Deel 4 71ndash7385 On the matter of segregation Patrick Duncan wrote to Lady Maud Selborne that lsquoHertzog [hellip] has begun

to talk vaguely about segregation [hellip] What he means by it no one knows ndash possibly himself as little as anyone It is an attractive word however the very sound of which seems to relieve the minds of people who arevaguely troubled about the present state of thingsrsquo Patrick Duncan ndashMaud Selborne 7 October 1912 in DLavin ed Friendship and Union The South African letters of Patrick Duncan and Maud Selborne 1907ndash1943 (Cape Town Van Riebeeck Society 2010) 136

574 LINDIE KOORTS

that Malan formulated his views on segregation he had been away from the church foreight years His shift from theology to politics could be seen in his approach to whiteagency Whereas before he had analysed poverty on the frontiers and prescribed differentsolutions to the different categories of white poverty (the most significant of which boileddown to lsquospiritual upliftmentrsquo) he now regarded poor whites as victims of blacksrsquo lowwages both in the city and in the countryside Malan echoed the principle of territorialsegregation but at the same time he tried to reconcile it with his mission-inspired belief inblack lsquoadvancementrsquo and education

This final semblance of tolerance was gone by the end of the 1930s The NP of the 1930sof which Malan was now the leader was an opportunistic animal which pandered to thepolitical climate of the time During this period Malan and his followers toyed with anti-Semitism (some more seriously than others) but even more so they tapped into the anti-miscegenationist climate of the 1938 Centenary As was the case in 1912 Malan regardedthe poor whites as the key to preserving the racial hierarchy In contrast to 1912 howeverblacks who brought with them the spectre of miscegenation were now regarded as a directthreat to the survival of the white race as they rubbed shoulders with its most vulnerablemembers and due to their accumulation of education and skills Malanrsquos solution to thisperceived threat was a mixture of segregationist measures and nationalist pride By now hehad become a consummate politician

The 1940s would be the decade during which the Nationalists sought to systematisetheir racial policy86 However it differed from the preceding decades in that poorwhiteism was downplayed in the quest for a coherent racial policy The emphasiswould shift to the developmental aspects of the lsquonewrsquo policy of apartheid which servedas a moral justification to white voters However most of the first apartheid lawsreflected the priorities of the 1930s and in particular the NPs 1938 election manifestoand its 1939 petition to parliament which called for an end to mixed marriagemiscegenation mixed residential areas and political and economic segregationInterracial marriage was the first to be outlawed through the Mixed Marriages Act(1949) while miscegenation became punishable through an amendment to theImmorality Act (1950) Residential segregation would be enforced through the GroupAreas Act (1950) while political segregation was tackled through the long andprotracted battle to remove coloureds from the common votersrsquo roll Apartheidlegislation in general aimed to cement political and economic segregation During theMalan era at least the developmental aspects of the policy received more in the orderof lip-service than political drive87 Malanrsquos own views of apartheid would be a jumbleof his fluctuating notions of race and his rejection of Total Apartheid in the 1950s incontrast to his advocacy for the Reserves in the 1920s would see him shifting back andforth between what Deborah Posel has labelled the lsquopuristrsquo and lsquopracticalrsquo approach toracial separation88

86 Deborah Posel has demonstrated that this attempt at systematisation was nevertheless fraught withcontractions See Posel lsquoThe Meaning of Apartheid before 1948rsquo 123ndash139

87 See Koorts lsquoAn Ageing Anachronismrsquo88 D Posel The Making of Apartheid 62ndash75

This demonstrates the need for a nuanced approach to the study of race and racism inSouth Africa Far from an inevitable march to apartheid racial policy as reflected by oneof its main proponents was developed as an adjunct to white political priorities and wassubject to seasonal changes in the white political climate The result was that the first half ofthe twentieth century and even the early years of apartheid would be marked by a fluidapproach to blacks subject to a consistent concern for the white electorate

576 LINDIE KOORTS

Abstract

Introduction

Naar Congoland Malans first reflections on race 1912

De Achteruitgang van Ons Volk Racial perceptions circa 1916-1917

Die Groot Vlug Exchanging the racial views of a parson for those of a politician circa 1923

From the Carnegie Commission to the Centenary Celebrations Malans stance on race in the 1930s

Conclusion

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Abstract

Introduction

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Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Conclusion

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Introduction

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Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Introduction





Conclusion

Malan asked12

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Yearsrsquo War

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Conclusion

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Abstract

Introduction





Conclusion

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Yearsrsquo War

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Conclusion

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Abstract

Introduction





Conclusion

Yearsrsquo War

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Abstract

Introduction





Conclusion

Yearsrsquo War

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Introduction





Conclusion

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Conclusion

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Conclusion

Documents

The Black Peril would not exist if it were not for a white peril that is a hundred times greater': D.F. Malan's fluidity on poor whiteism and race in the pre-apartheid era, 1912-1939