Afrikaner Nationalism

Afrikaner Nationalism, movement based on the idea that the Afrikaners (Boers) of South Africa were a chosen people. It was promoted by Stephanus Jacobus du Toit, founder of the Afrikaner Bond, who created an Afrikaner nationalist mythology in his newspaper Die Afrikaanse Patriot. Afrikaner nationalism was further stimulated by the defeat of the Afrikaners in the South African War (Boer War) and by the strong reaction against the main promoters of British rule in South Africa, namely Joseph Chamberlain and Cecil Rhodes.

In 1907 the Afrikaners in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State won self-governing elections. Between 1910 and 1939, the problem of race segregation in South Africa led to a divide between Afrikaners and the British. During World War I some Afrikaners rebelled because the government of Prime Minister Louis Botha was prepared to assist the British. In the years 1924-1933 the Nationalists under the leadership of James Barry Munnik Hertzog promoted the policy of bilingualism in English and Afrikaans (the language of the Afrikaners), which opened up the civil service to Afrikaners; in 1925 a constitutional amendment replaced Dutch with Afrikaans as an official language. Thus, Afrikaners concentrated upon the promotion of cultural nationalism, especially their language, and the Purified National Party, with the help of the Afrikaner Broederbond (a secret Afrikaner organization that succeeded the Afrikaner Bond), ensured that they controlled—for propaganda purposes—the 1938 centenary celebrations of the Great Trek. By this time Afrikaner nationalism had established strong ties with the Dutch Reformed Church, was opposed to any mixing of the races, and stood for Afrikaner solidarity in the face of British influence.

The events of World War II split the Afrikaner community, many of whom opposed supporting Britain and discovered affinities with the racial policies of National Socialism in Germany. For example, Balthazar Johannes Vorster, a future prime minister, was imprisoned in the early years of the war because of his overt Nazi sympathies. In 1948 the National Party under Daniel François Malan won a convincing victory fought on the issue of the separation of the races and immediately implemented the racially discriminatory policy of apartheid. The final step in the segregation of the races was taken in 1951 with the creation of the first Bantustan, a separate and independent homeland for black South Africans. Afrikaner nationalism grew until 1978, when mounting internal and external pressures led to the recognition that Afrikaner nationalism could not suppress the anti-apartheid movement and that power had to be shared. The apartheid system was finally dismantled in 1992 by the Afrikaner president F. W. de Klerk. Afrikaner nationalism has persisted as a small-scale right-wing fringe movement in the South African white community, but with little influence on events in the new multiracial system inaugurated by Nelson Mandela and his government of national unity.