Profiles in Diversity: Women in the New South Africa

“The Covenant is written out of the history books”

Joan Viljoen "The Covenant is written out of the history books" JOAN VILJOEN IS AN AFRIKANER who hails from the rural northern Transvaal. She is representative of the many Mrikaners who fear change, and who have few choices as to where they can go. The Afrikaners are not homogeneous in their outlook for the future within South Mrica, however. They are roughly divided among the mostly younger and relatively affluent, who are willing to go along with democratic rule, and the people of Viljoen's generation, who resist change. There is also an urban/rural divide, with rural Mrikaners in the northern Transvaal the most entrenched in old, outmoded cliches and traditions. With few exceptions, the Mrikaners supported the National Party when it came to power in 1948. The Mrikaners are a powerful force in pockets of South Mrica. The right wing is broken into several factions. Among the wide range of conservatives are those who adhered to the Conservative Party before it split in August 1992. Of those who split away, another segment later separated itself, and this group is aligned to those who supported a volkstaat. Although no resolution of the volkstaat issue has been made, a few Mrikaners set up a pseudohomeland, Orania, founded by Carel Boshoff, the son-in-law of the leading proponent of apartheid, Henrik Vorwoerd. As we shall see, Dr. Viljoen supports this concept ofa separate space for Mrikaners. Altogether the Mrikaners represent only about 8 percent of the population in South Mrica, but they believe that it was their ingenuity and prowess that built the country into the most industrialized nation in Mrica. History does not support this view. In fact, the independent spirit that caused the early Mrikaners to trek out of the Western Cape, and eventually across the Drakensburg Mountains, illustrates their singleness of mind-and of purpose. Most of them wanted to be free of the political constraints that characterized encroaching British rule. They wanted to pursue their religious beliefs through the Calvinist doctrine espoused by the Dutch 33 JOAN VIWOEN Reformed Church; raise their large families; and, with the help oftheir African servants (slaves, before the British abolished the institution in 1833) build their homesteads and enlarge their landholdings. The mineral revolution provided no economic base for the Afrikaners. Nor did the subsidiary occupations that developed in Kimberley, and later on in the Rand. The Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) left the Afrikaners devastated. Thousands of wives and children died from imprisonment in concentration camps. Homesteads were burned. Farmland was slashed and scorched. Many of the men who returned from the war were forced to begin life anew-but the memories oftheir loss remained and were passed down from generation to generation. Never again, the diehards argued, would they be forced to abandon their principles and their land. Forty-six years passed before the Afrikaners gained a dominant role in South Mrican politics. Then, with the government under their control, they set about helping their less fortunate brothers by providing jobs in all areas of the civil service . Furthermore, they were the mainstay of the old South African police force, as well as the leaders in the South Mrican Defense Force. The Mrikaners have referred to themselves as a "tribe," and in some respects they usurped the prerogatives of tribalism-our people take the spoils-that mark some of the postindependence Mrican nations to their north. It is difficult to exercise a modicum ofsympathy for the diehards, especially the right-wing extremists, whose racism takes precedence over their sense ofMrikaner nationalism. Among this group is the small militaristic contingent, the "Kappie Kommandos" (kappie for the sunbonnets they wore). These are the women who supported Eugene TerreBlanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (African Resistance Movement). Their roots go back at least as far as World War II, when their grandmothers marched on Pretoria and demanded that the government negotiate an honorable peace with Berlin. Ironically, among their opposition is the Mrikaner-dominated Nationalist Party, and their symbol-the swastika-remains tied to that period of hatred and fear. Joan Viljoen, however, represents a different kind of Afrikaner. Both Allister Sparks (Mind of South Africa) and Leonard Thompson (The Political Myth of Apartheid) have underscored that people like Viljoen are victims ofthe warped historical traditions that were thrust on them communally over their lifetimes. On the one hand, the glories of the past were exalted in home, church, and school. On the other, the victimization the Mrikaners experienced at the hands of...