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Survival Politics: Afrikanerdom in Search of a New Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

IN his thorough sociological study of Afrikaner ideology, Dunbar Moodie has shown that the civil theology most adequate to the exigencies of the 1930s was an interpretation ‘which was tight enough to unite Afrikaners and yet loose enough to allow considerable difference of opinion on practical matters’.2 While the same functional needs for a proper ideology remain for the 1970S and 80s, ‘civil theology’ can no longer fulfil this task. This is mainly due to increased secularisation and value changes in an urbanised life, which has diluted traditional culture with the corruptive spoils of affluence. Moodie aptly concludes that the exigencies of Afrikaner power have changed the debate from one between rival metaphysical interpretations of Christian-Nationalism (Kuyperianism, neo-Fichteanism, Volkskerk) to that of ‘the very continuance of ideology itself’.3 Such considered findings are confirmed by similar observations of ‘outsiders’ who have returned after a lengthy exile. In the assessment of Ezekiel Mphahlele:

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

page 657 note 1 Bell, Daniel, ‘The Return of the Sacred?’, in British Journal of Sociology (London), XXVIII, 4, 12 1977, pp. 419–49.Google Scholar

page 657 note 2 Moodie, T. Dunbar, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: power, apartheid, and the Afrikaner civil religion (Berkeley, 1975), p. 104.Google Scholar

page 657 note 3 Ibid. p. 288.

page 657 note 4 Mphahlele, Ezekiel, ‘South Africa: two communities and the struggle for a birthright’, in Journal of African Studies (Los Angeles), IV, 1, Spring 1977, p. 39.Google Scholar

page 658 note 1 Beeld (Johannesburg), I 03 1978.Google Scholar

page 658 note 2 See particularly Theodor Hanfet al., Südafrika: Friedlicher Wandel? (Munich, 1978).Google Scholar In this most systematic and thorough survey, ethnic factors accounted for surprisingly high correlations on almost every attitude questioned.

page 658 note 3 Rapport (Johannesburg), 2 01 1977.Google Scholar

page 659 note 1 Financial Mail (Johannesburg), 15 04 1976.Google Scholar

page 661 note 1 Weekend Argus (Cape Town), 5 11 1977.Google Scholar

page 662 note 1 Editorial by Botha, Pik, in Rapport, 1 01 1978.Google Scholar

page 662 note 2 Richard, Dirk, Die Vaderland (Johannesburg), 22 08 1977.Google Scholar

page 662 note 3 Pik Botha, loc. cit.

page 662 note 4 Malan, General M., Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 13 03 1977.Google Scholar

page 662 note 5 Rapport, 26 February 1978.

page 663 note 1 Beeld, 28 March 1978.

page 663 note 2 Die Vaderland, 14 March 1978.

page 663 note 3 Ibid. 15 March 1978.

page 663 note 4 Connie Mulder as quoted in The Star Weekly (Johannesburg), 8 04 1978.Google Scholar

page 664 note 1 Ibid.

page 664 note 2 Current Affairs (Johannesburg), 2 12 1977.Google Scholar

page 664 note 3 Viljoen, Gerrit, The Star Weekly, 20 05 1978.Google Scholar

page 664 note 4 Surveys reveal that the majority of English-speaking white graduates contemplate career prospects abroad. This prompted some university officials to inform all newly admitted students that the institution is training professionals for service in South Africa. There is, of course, no way to stop this costly ongoing exodus, short of cutting all ties with the outside world through a Berlin wall. However, the loss of white South Africa does not always mean the gain others had hoped for. Declaring that ‘significant numbers’ of South African Jews had emigrated recently, Rabbi Norman Bernhard of Johannesburg assailed local Jews who identify themselves with Zionism and then go on a1iya to the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. Jerusalem Post, International edn. 21 April 1977.

page 665 note 1 On the concept, see the ‘landmark in critical social analysis’: Habermas, Jürgen, Legitimation Crisis (Boston, 1975),Google Scholar from which many of my own theoretical constructs and ideas are derived, though, hopefully, in a more readable form.

page 665 note 2 Viljoen, loc. cit.

page 666 note 1 Die Vaderland, 17 April 1978.

page 666 note 2 Current Affairs, 14 October 1977; South African Digest (Pretoria), 21 10 1977.Google Scholar

page 666 note 3 South African Digest, 24 February 1978.

page 666 note 4 Jacobsen, Dan, ‘Among the South Africans’, in Commentary (New York), 65, 3, 03 1978, pp. 3248.Google Scholar

page 667 note 1 When the U.N. passed its Zionism = racism equation, Israel found herself threatened with a similar ideological reversal. Her hysterical reaction to the resolution must be understood in this context. For complex reasons, Israel and her powerful lobby abroad quickly managed to overcome this attack on the very rationale for her existence.

page 669 note 1 Moore, Barrington, Injustice. The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (White Plains, N.Y., 1978), p. 504.Google Scholar