TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121090/1210008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.7 KB | 124 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 66

SOUTH AFRICA

Angst in Afrikanerdom


The descendants of the founders of South Africa's apartheid
state debate their role in a black-ruled society

By SCOTT MACLEOD/JOHANNESBURG


    When Hendrik Verwoerd Jr. was a young man, his father served
as South Africa's Prime Minister. During his years in office
-- 1958 to 1966 -- Hendrik Sr. sought to implement "grand
apartheid," a system intended to preserve a mighty white nation
occupying 87% of the land, with blacks living in small
"homelands" in the rest of the territory.

    Today Hendrik Jr., 50, sits in a modest storefront in the
dusty Transvaal farming village of Morgenzon, trying to
persuade fellow whites, in essence, to cut their losses and
establish their own small homeland. As a leader of an Afrikaner
nationalist group called the Orange Workers, he advocates
setting up a separate state, provisionally named Afrikanerland,
on roughly 13% of South Africa's territory. Of his father's
failed dream, Verwoerd shrugs and says, "People lost faith."

    Afrikaners -- the 3 million descendants of 17th century
Dutch, French and German settlers -- have seen their grip
gradually weakening since 1976, when an uprising in the
township of Soweto heralded a surge in black demands for
political rights. But this year, by freeing Nelson Mandela,
legalizing the African National Congress and pursuing
negotiations with black leaders on a new constitution, President
F.W. de Klerk has sent a profound shock through Afrikanerdom.
Appearing finally to accept that they cannot maintain their
near exclusive hold on state power for much longer, Afrikaners
across the political spectrum are asking what role they should
play if South Africa is ruled by the black majority.

    For Afrikaners who do not share De Klerk's vision of a
multiracial society living in harmony, the idea of an all-white
ministate is gaining in appeal. The Orange Workers published
a detailed map proposing a territory roughly covering the
former Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
Earlier, Carel Boshoff, Verwoerd's brother-in-law, proposed
setting up a homeland called Orandee in the desolate northern
Cape Province.

    The right-wing Conservative Party, which is supported by
about 40% of Afrikaners, is demanding that De Klerk and his
National Party call new elections. Though the National Party
has ruled since 1948, the Conservatives believe they stand an
excellent chance of gaining power because De Klerk's
initiatives have been so unpopular among the country's 5
million whites. Conservative leader Andries Treurnicht last
month rejected De Klerk's offer to join in negotiations and
issued a veiled threat to take up arms against a white sellout.
Privately, however, many Conservatives realize the days of
white domination are over, and are considering adopting the
idea of a separate homeland as well.

    In religious and intellectual circles, debates about the
past are as vigorous as discussions about the future. At a
conference last month, Dutch Reformed Church theologian Willie
Jonker declared apartheid a sin and confessed his guilt as well
as that of the church and "the Afrikaner people as a whole."
Although his declaration caused an uproar, his statements
echoed a historic resolution adopted two weeks earlier at a
church synod. Former President P.W. Botha briefly emerged from
seclusion to express his anger. "The Afrikaners, my people,
were not oppressors," he insisted. But progressive Afrikaners
are advocating that the government take the matter further by
actually apologizing to blacks and providing restitution for
the damage done by apartheid.

    Thus far, De Klerk has steered clear of confessions,
apologies and reparations. Some of his advisers believe,
however, that some sort of official apology might be
forthcoming in the final stages of negotiations. The most
outspoken comment from De Klerk's circle has come from Deputy
Foreign Minister Leon Wessels. Last August he described
apartheid as "a dreadful mistake" that did not take "human
factors" into account. "An apology is on the minds of many
Afrikaners," Wessels says, "but not on the mind of the
government yet."

    The antiapartheid movement has taken note of Afrikaner
angst, but is not necessarily impressed. "No one in a high
position has actually said they are sorry for all the hurt they
have caused to victims of apartheid," says Anglican Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. "We blacks, for our part, are ready to forgive.
But the other party must be contrite and ready to do
reparation. Your contrition will be demonstrated by your
willingness to make amends. We cannot just say, `Let bygones be
bygones.'"

    Afrikaner soul searching even extends to such a holy of
holies as the Day of the Covenant, the annual Dec. 16
commemoration that marks the Afrikaner victory over the Zulus
in the 1838 Battle of Blood River. Now that De Klerk is calling
for the races to live together in one nation, some Afrikaners
feel a national holiday glorifying the white man's victory over
the black man is more inappropriate than ever.

    Many Afrikaners are rethinking the very meaning of Blood
River. "It has been seen as the victory of Christianity over
savage Africans," says Max du Preez, editor of the influential
Afrikaans weekly Vrye Weekblad. "Now it is seen rather as the
point where Afrikaners became accepted as an African tribe and
determined that they had a right to the soil." The survival of
the nation will depend on whether Afrikaners fully accept that
their black fellow countrymen share an equal right to the land
of South Africa.