Afrikaners and the Making of a Radical Survival Plan

Abstract

The debate over modern South Africa has been dominated by the question whether continuities between apartheid and segregation existed. Much of apartheid was a tightening or an elaboration of segregation, but there were also features that made it unique. The one was the systematic classification in statutory groups of the entire population, including people of racially mixed origins, which resembles the rule of the Cape by the VOC or Dutch East Company that distinguished among legal status groups. The other distinctive feature of apartheid was its concern with the rehabilitation of subordinate communities up to the point where they could become nations. Using the terminology of German romantic nationalism and mission doctrine rather than that of British indirect rule, apartheid substituted culture and ultimately nation for race.

Propagating Afrikaner nationalism: The Voortrekker stamps as icons of an ideology, c.1933–1949

“…For a path-breaking collection of essays on Afrikaner nationalism's visual culture, seeFreschi, Schmahmann & Robbroeck (2020).4 See, for example, Wilkens & Strydom(Wilkins & Strydom, 1978) Giliomee (2003). reckons that the AB's political influence has been overstated, but this is dismissed byKriel (2010).5 The 1931 Statute of Westminster accorded the Dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) full legislative independence with direct access to the monarch-a privilege previously reserved for British governments.…”