Hendrik Verwoerd
This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2018) |
The Honorable[1] Hendrik Verwoerd | |
---|---|
6th Prime Minister of South Africa | |
In office 2 September 1958 – 6 September 1966 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II (until 1961)[a] |
President | Charles Robberts Swart (from 1961) |
Preceded by | Johannes Strijdom |
Succeeded by | Eben Dönges (acting) Johannes Vorster |
Minister of Native Affairs | |
In office 19 October 1950 – 3 September 1958 | |
Prime Minister | Daniel François Malan Johannes Strijdom |
Preceded by | Ernest George Jansen |
Succeeded by | Michel D. C. de Wet Nel |
Personal details | |
Born | Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd 8 September 1901 South African |
Political party | National |
Spouse | |
Children | 7 |
Alma mater |
|
Occupation | Professor, politician, newspaper editor |
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (Afrikaans pronunciation:
Verwoerd was an
Verwoerd became prime minister in 1958. His desire to ensure white, and especially Afrikaner dominance in South Africa, to the exclusion of the nonwhite majority, was a major aspect of his support for a republic. To that same end, Verwoerd greatly expanded apartheid.[citation needed] When attempting to justify apartheid to international audiences, he branded it as a policy of "good-neighbourliness", stating that as different races and cultures have different beliefs and values, they could only reach their full potential if they lived and developed apart from each other.[4] He stated that the white minority had to be protected from the nonwhite majority by pursuing a "policy of separate development" and keeping power in the hands of whites.[5] Apartheid saw the complete disfranchisement of the nonwhite population.[6]
Verwoerd heavily repressed opposition to apartheid during his premiership. He ordered the detention and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people and the exile of further thousands, while at the same time greatly empowering, modernizing, and enlarging the white apartheid state's security forces (police and military). He banned black organizations such as the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress, and it was under him that future president Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for life for sabotage.[7][8] Verwoerd's South Africa had one of the highest prison populations in the world and saw a large number of executions and floggings. By the mid-1960s Verwoerd's government to a large degree had put down internal civil resistance to apartheid by employing extraordinary legislative power, draconian laws, psychological intimidation, and the relentless efforts of the white state's security apparatus.
Although Apartheid began in 1948 with
Early life
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was born in
In 1917, the family moved back to South Africa, since the congregation in Bulawayo had appointed a second minister of religion. His father took up a position in the church in Brandfort, Orange Free State. Due to the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic, the younger Verwoerd only sat for his matriculation exams in February 1919, achieving first position in the Orange Free State and fifth in country.[12]
Verwoerd studied at Stellenbosch University, where he was regarded as a brilliant social science academic, and it was widely claimed that he possessed a photographic memory. Verwoerd was fluent in Afrikaans, Dutch, English and German. He obtained his B.A. with distinctions in Sociology, Psychology and Philosophy, and then completed his Masters cum laude. He then went on completing his Doctorate in Psychology in 1925 at Stellenbosch University. Verwoerd's over three hundred page Doctorate thesis titled "Die Afstomping van die Gemoedsaandoeninge" (Afrikaans: The numbing of the Emotion) was at the time regarded as a monumental academic achievement in field of Applied Psychology in South Africa.
Due to the work undertaken by Verwoerd in his doctoral thesis[
Verwoerd's fiancée,
Return to South Africa
Verwoerd returned with his wife to South Africa in 1928 and was appointed to the chair of Applied Psychology and Psycho Technique at the University of Stellenbosch where, six years later, he became Professor of Sociology and Social Work. During the Great Depression, Verwoerd became active in social work among poor white South Africans. He devoted much attention to welfare work and was often consulted by welfare organizations, while he served on numerous committees.[citation needed]
Afrikaans politics from 1910 to 1948 were divided between the "liberals" such as Jan Smuts who argued for a reconciliation with Britain vs. the "extremists" who expressed anti-British sentiments due to the Boer War.[18] Both the "liberals" and the "extremists" believed that South Africa was a "white man's country", though the latter were more stridently committed to white supremacy.[18] Verwoerd belonged to the anti-British faction in Afrikaans politics who wanted to keep as much distance as possible from Britain.[18]
In 1936, Verwoerd joined by a group of Stellenbosch University professors protested against the immigration of German Jews to South Africa, who were fleeing Nazi persecution.[19] His efforts in the field of national welfare drew him into politics and in 1936 he was offered the first editorship of Die Transvaler, a position which he took up in 1937, with the added responsibility of helping to rebuild the National Party in the Transvaal.
Die Transvaler was a publication which supported the aspirations of Afrikaner nationalism, agricultural and labour rights. Combining republicanism, populism and protectionism, the paper helped "solidify the sentiments of most South Africans, that changes to the socio-economic system were vitally needed."[20] With the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Verwoerd protested against South Africa's role in the conflict when the country declared war on Germany, siding with its former colonial power, the United Kingdom.[21]
In 1943, Verwoerd, editor of Die Transvaler, sued the English-language newspaper
Government service
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2017) |
The South African general election of 1948 was held on 26 May 1948 and saw the Nationalist Party together with the Afrikaner Party winning the general elections. Malan's Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP) concluded an election pact with the Afrikaner Party in 1947. They won the elections with a very narrow majority of five seats in Parliament, although they only got 40 percent of the voter support. This was due to the loaded constituencies in cities, which was to the advantage of rural constituencies. The nine Afrikaner Party MPs thus made it possible for Malan's HNP to form a coalition government with the Afrikaner Party of Klasie Havenga. The two parties amalgamated in 1951 as the National Party, although Havenga was not comfortable with NP policy to remove coloured voters from the common voters' roll.
Running on the platform of self-determination and apartheid as it was termed for the first time, Prime Minister
Verwoerd was elected to the Senate of South Africa later that year, and became the minister of native affairs under Prime Minister Malan in 1950, until his appointment as prime minister in 1958. In that position, he helped to implement the Nationalist Party's programme.[20]
Among the laws that were drawn and enacted during Verwoerd's time as minister for native affairs were the
The Bantu Education Act ensured that black South Africans had only the barest minimum of education, thus entrenching the role of blacks in the apartheid economy as a cheap source of unskilled labour. In June 1954, Verwoerd in a speech stated: "The Bantu must be guided to serve his own community in all respects. There is no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. Within his own community, however, all doors are open".[24]
One black South African woman who worked as an anti-apartheid activist, Nomavenda Mathiane, in particular criticized Verwoerd for the Bantu Education Act of 1953, which caused generations of black South Africans to suffer an inferior education, saying: "After white people had taken the land, after white people had impoverished us in South Africa, the only way out of our poverty was through education. And he came up with the idea of giving us an inferior education."[24]
Prime minister
Prime Minister
Verwoerd gradually gained popularity with the Afrikaner electorate and continued to expand his political support. With his overwhelming constituency victory in the 1958 election and the death shortly thereafter of Prime Minister J. G. Strijdom, Verwoerd was nominated, together with Eben Dönges and C. R. Swart from the Orange Free State, as candidates to head the party. Verwoerd got the most votes in the second round and thus succeeded Strijdom as Prime Minister.
Apartheid
Part of a series on |
Apartheid |
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Hendrik Verwoerd is often called the architect of apartheid for his role in shaping the implementation of apartheid policy when he was minister of native affairs and then prime minister.[25][26][27] Verwoerd once described apartheid as a "policy of good neighbourliness".[28][29]
At the time that the NP came to power in 1948, there were factional differences in the party about the implementation of systemic racial segregation. The larger baasskap faction, while favouring segregation, also favoured the participation of black Africans in the economy as long as black labour could be controlled to advance the economic gains of Afrikaners. A second faction were the "purists", who believed in "vertical segregation", under which blacks and whites would be entirely separated, with blacks living in native reserves, with separate political and economic structures, which, they believed, would entail severe short-term pain, but would also lead to independence of white South Africa from black labour in the long-term. Verwoerd belonged to a third faction, which sympathised with the purists, but allowed for the use of black labour, while implementing the purist goal of vertical separation.[30]
Verwoerd's vision of a South Africa divided into multiple ethno-states appealed to the reform-minded Afrikaner intelligentsia, and it provided a more coherent philosophical and moral framework for the National Party's racist policies, while also providing a veneer of intellectual respectability to the previously crude policy of baasskap.[31][32][33] Verwoerd felt that the political situation of South Africa had become stagnant over the past century and called for reform.[34]
Under the Premiership of Verwoerd, the following legislative acts relating to apartheid were introduced:[35]
- Promotion of Bantu Self-government Act, 1959
- Bantu Investment Corporation Act, 1959
- Extension of University Education Act, 1959
Republic
The creation of a republic was one of the National Party's long-term goals since originally coming to power in 1948. In January 1960, Verwoerd announced that a referendum would be called to determine the republican issue, the objective being a republic within the Commonwealth. Two weeks later, Harold Macmillan, then British Prime Minister, visited South Africa.[citation needed]
In an address to both Houses of Parliament, Macmillan gave his famous Winds of Change speech. The speech, which implicitly criticized apartheid, together with the worldwide criticism following the Sharpeville massacre, created a siege mentality in South Africa. Verwoerd seized upon this to booster his case for a republic, presenting Elizabeth II as the ruler of a hostile power.[36]
Verwoerd also ensured that South African media gave generous coverage of the breakdown of society in the Congo in the summer of 1960 following independence from Belgium as an example of the sort of "horrors" that allegedly would ensue in South Africa if apartheid was ended. He then linked the Congo situation to the criticism of apartheid in Britain, arguing the Congolese "horrors" were what the British government was intent upon inflicting on white South Africans (via their opposition to apartheid), fanning the flames of Anglophobia.[37]
In order to bolster support for a republic, the voting age for whites was lowered from 21 to 18, benefiting younger Afrikaans speakers, who were more likely to favour a republic, and the franchise was extended to whites in
The
After South Africa became a republic, Verwoerd refused to accept black ambassadors from Commonwealth member states.[39] Verwoerd's overt moves to block non-whites from representing South Africa in sports—starting with cricket—started the international movement to ostracise South Africa from international sporting competition. The last Olympic Games in which the country participated—until the abolition of apartheid—was in 1960. South Africa was expelled from FIFA in 1976, and whenever South African teams did participate in sports, protests and disruptions were the result. When supporters of South Africa decried their exclusion, the usual response was: "Who started it?", in reference to Verwoerd.
First assassination attempt
On 9 April 1960, Verwoerd opened the Union Exposition in Milner Park, Johannesburg, to mark the jubilee of the Union of South Africa. After Verwoerd delivered his opening address,
Colonel G. M. Harrison, president of the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society, leapt up and knocked the pistol from the gunman's hand. After the pistol fell to the floor, Harrison, with the help of Major Carl Richter, the Prime Minister's personal bodyguard, civilians and another policeman overpowered the gunman. He was taken to the Marshall Square police station and later transferred to the Forensic Medical Laboratory due to his peculiar behaviour.
Within minutes of the assassination attempt, Verwoerd—still conscious and blood gushing from his face—was rushed to the nearby Johannesburg Hospital. Two days later, the hospital issued a statement which described his condition as 'indeed satisfactory—further examinations were carried out today and they confirm good expectations. Dr. Verwoerd at present is restful. There is no need for any immediate operation.' Once his condition stabilised, Verwoerd was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. The neurologists who treated Verwoerd later stated that his escape had been 'absolutely miraculous'.[40] Specialist surgeons were called in to remove the bullets. At first, there was speculation that Verwoerd would lose his hearing and sense of balance, but this was to prove groundless. He returned to public life on 29 May, less than two months after the shooting.
David Pratt was initially held under the emergency regulations, declared on 30 March 1960, nine days after the Sharpeville massacre and shortly after Verwoerd received a death threat with a red note reading, "Today we kill Verwoerd".[41] Pratt appeared for a preliminary hearing in the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court on 20 and 21 July 1960, once it was clear that the attempt was not fatal.[42]
Pratt claimed that he had been shooting 'the epitome of apartheid'. However, in his defence, he stated that he only wanted to injure, not kill, Verwoerd. The court accepted the medical reports submitted to it by five different psychiatrists, all of which confirmed that Pratt lacked legal capacity and could not be held criminally liable for having shot the prime minister. On 26 September 1960, he was committed to a mental hospital in Bloemfontein. On 1 October 1961, his 53rd birthday, he committed suicide, shortly before parole was to be considered.[43] His cause of death is disputed, since many suicides during the apartheid era were actually murders and killings by police.[44]
Solidifying the system
In 1961, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld visited South Africa where he could not reach an agreement with Prime Minister Verwoerd.[45] On 6 November 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 1761, condemning South African apartheid policies. On 7 August 1963, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 181 calling for a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and in the same year, a Special Committee Against Apartheid was established to encourage and oversee plans of action against the authorities.[46]
From 1964, the US and UK discontinued their arms trade with South Africa.[47] Economic sanctions against South Africa were also frequently debated in the UN as an effective way of putting pressure on the apartheid government. In 1962, the UN General Assembly requested that its members sever political, fiscal and transportation ties with South Africa.[48]
1966 general elections
The National Party under Verwoerd won the 1966 general election. The election marked a major strengthening of power for the ruling NP, which gained a two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time. During this period, the National Party government continued to foster the development of a military industrial complex, that successfully pioneered developments in native armaments manufacturing, including aircraft, small arms, armoured vehicles, and even nuclear and biological weapons.[49]
Three days before his death, Verwoerd had held talks with the
Assassination
On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was assassinated in Cape Town, shortly after entering the
Verwoerd's state funeral, attended by a quarter of a million people,[53] was held in Pretoria on 10 September 1966, during which his South African flag-draped casket was laid on an artillery carriage towed by a military truck. He was buried in the Heroes' Acre in Pretoria.[54] The still blood-stained carpet where Verwoerd lay after his murder remained in Parliament until it was removed in 2004.[55]
Over the days that followed the assassination, Tsafendas was questioned by the police while in custody, while the police turned every possible stone in order to obtain as much information as possible. Under questioning, Tsafendas made coherent statements explaining that he had committed his act in the hope that after Verwoerd's "disappearance" "a change of policy would take place." He added, "I wanted to see a government representing all the South African people. I do not think the Nationalist Government is representative of the people and I wanted to see a different government … I did not care about the consequences, for what would happen to me afterwards. I didn't care much and didn't give it a second thought that I would be caught. I was so disgusted with the racial policy that I went through with my plans to kill the prime minister."[56]
At the same time, the South African police gathered a plethora of evidence of Tsafendas's long history of political activism, from his membership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) between 1936 and 1942 to his time in London in the early 1960s, when he had attended meetings of the Committee of African Organizations and had held "the posters up" at "anti-colonial", "anti-apartheid" and "anti-racial" meetings; in South Africa from 1939 to 1942, he had "engaged actively in Communistic propaganda"; he had fought on the Communist side in the Greek Civil War of 1947–49; and in London he had been a close associate and assistant of the ANC's local representative, Tennyson Makiwane. In short, and according to his own words, he was "anti-colonial, against slavery and in favour of all colonies which were controlled by Belgium, France and Portugal to be afforded self-government."[56]
Nevertheless, none of these became known during a summary trial where Tsafendas escaped the death penalty on the grounds of insanity. Judge Andries Beyers ordered Tsafendas to be imprisoned indefinitely at the "State President's pleasure"; in 1999 he died aged 81 still in detention.[44]
Legacy
This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source.(August 2018) ) |
The town of
In 1992, Verwoerd's widow,
On the 50th anniversary of Verwoerd's assassination in 2016, some in South Africa argued that Tsafendas should be regarded as an anti-apartheid hero.[24]
Many major roads, places and facilities in cities and towns of South Africa were named after Verwoerd; in post-apartheid South Africa, there has been a campaign to take down statues of Verwoerd and rename buildings and streets named after him.
Journalist Daniel A. Gross proposed that the campaign against Verwoerd as the "architect of apartheid" was going too far in the sense that it was too convenient to blame all the wrongs and injustices of apartheid on one man who was designated as being especially evil, stating that many people were involved in creating and maintaining the apartheid system.[24] Gross concluded that blaming everything on Verwoerd was in effect excusing the actions of everyone else who supported apartheid.[24]
Depiction on coins
Verwoerd is depicted on the obverses of a pair of .800 fine Silver 1 Rand coins dated 1967, which was struck to commemorate him.
Footnotes
Notes
- ^ As the head of state of the Union of South Africa. Replaced by State President Charles Robberts Swart.
Citations
- ^ Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Circumstances of the Death of the Late Dr. The Honourable Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd. Government Printer, South Africa. 22 January 1966.
- ISBN 978-1-86842-716-1.
- ISBN 9789042017481.
- ^ "Apartheid: "A Policy of Good Neighborliness"". 11 May 2015.
- ^ "Commanding Heights: South Africa | on PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
- ^ "Hendrik Verwoerd | prime minister of South Africa". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- ^ "Obituary: Long-jailed assassin of South African premier", The Guardian, 11 October 1999. Retrieved 8 July 2009. Archived 3 October 2015 at archive.today
- ^ "South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid". overcomingapartheid.msu.edu. Archived from the original on 1 December 2016. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- ^ "24 Hours Special – Verwoerd Assassination". BBC Archive. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
- ^ Grobbelaar, Pieter Willem (1967). This was a Man. Human & Rousseau. p. 13.
- ^ Grobbelaar (1967). This was a Man. p. 14.
- ^ Beyers, C. J. (1981). Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol. 4, Durban: Butterworth, pp. 730–740; P. W. Grobbelaar, Man van die Volk, 13–15 (1966).
- ^ Burke, A. (2006). "Mental health care during apartheid in South Africa: An illustration of how 'science' can be abused" (PDF). In Gozaydin en Madeira (ed.). Evil, law and the state. Oxford: Inter-disciplinary Press. pp. 117–133.
- ISBN 0-520-03943-2.
- ISBN 978-0-85745-076-0.
- ISBN 1-86859-037-2.
- ^ "Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd | South African History Online". www.sahistory.org.za. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
- ^ a b c Brogan, Patrick (1989). The Fighting Never Stopped Vintage Books. p. 87.
- ^ Bunting, Brian (1964). Rise of the South African Reich. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 60–63.
- ^ ISBN 0-89950-926-6.
- OCLC 49834339.
- OCLC 3902668325.
- ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Gross, D. (14 September 2016). "How Should South Africa Remember the Architect of Apartheid?". Smithsonian. Retrieved 29 May 2008.
- ISBN 978-0-253-22145-2.
- ISBN 978-0-415-97662-6.
- ISBN 0-8223-3060-1.
- ^ "Culture, Communication and Media Studies – Freedom Square – Back to the Future". Ccms.ukzn.ac.za. Archived from the original on 22 August 2009. Retrieved 16 December 2009.
- ^ Hendrik Verwoerd Defines Apartheid, retrieved 22 March 2023
- ISBN 978-0-230-37373-0.
- ^ Sparks, Allister (12 May 2015). "Verwoerd and his policies appalled me". News24. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
- ^ Giliomee, Hermann (6 September 2016). "Remembering Verwoerd –Opinion | Politicsweb". www.politicsweb.co.za. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
- ^ du Toit, Pieter (6 September 2016). "Afrikaner domination died with Verwoerd 50 years ago". News24. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica 1963, p. 354.
- ^ "Apartheid Legislation in South Africa". Africanhistory.about.com. 13 April 2012. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 6 September 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Brogan, Patrick (1989). The Fighting Never Stopped Vintage Books. p. 88.
- ^ Brogan, Patrick (1989). The Fighting Never Stopped Vintage Books. p. 92
- ^ Osada, Masako (2002). Sanctions and honorary whites: diplomatic policies and economic realities in relations between Japan and South Africa. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 54.
- ^ Anthony Sampson, "His Cherubic Smile Seemed To Say, 'It's All So Simple". Life International, 3 October 1966
- ^ Allan Bird, Bird on a wing, 205 (1992).
- ^ "Verwoerd knew of threats but did not withdraw." The Star, 11 April 1960.
- ^ "Aanslag: Nuwe stap met gearresteerde. Aangehou kragtens noodmaatreëls. Was nie in hof." Die Transvaler, 11 April 1960; "No news of Pratt in court." The Star, 11 April 1960; "Verwoerd saved from ordeal at the Pratt inquiry – 8 subpoenaed." Sunday Times, 10 July 1960.
- ^ I. Maisels, A life at law: The memoirs of I.A. Maisels, QC., 102–107 (1998).
- ^ OCLC 1049908753.
- ^ Feron, James (24 January 1961). UN Chief Faces Apartheid Snag; Hammarskjöld Says He Got No Accord on Race Policies During South Africa Trip. The New York Times.
- ^ International Labour Office (1985). Special report of the Director-General on the application of the Declaration concerning the policy of "apartheid" of the Republic of South Africa, Volumes 17–22. International Labour Office.
- ^ Johnson, Shaun (1989). South Africa: no turning back. Indiana University Press. p. 323.
- ^ Jackson, Peter; Faupin, Mathieu (2007). The Long Road to Durban – The United Nations Role in Fighting Racism and Racial Discrimination. UN Chronicle.
- ISBN 978-0192893185.
- ^ National University of Lesotho. Institute of Southern African Studies. Documentation and Publications Division (1966). Lesotho clippings. Documentation and Publications Division, Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho.
- ^ Goodman, David; Weinberg, Paul (2002). Fault lines: journeys into the new South Africa. University of California Press. p. 154.
- ^ Havens, Murray Clark; Leiden, Carl; Schmitt, Karl Michael (1970). The politics of assassination. Prentice-Hall. p. 47.
- ^ "South Africa: Death to the Architect". Time. 16 September 1966. Archived from the original on 24 April 2007. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
- ^ Goodman; Weinberg (2002), p. 155.
- ^ "Verwoerd carpet replaced". News24. Cape Town. 28 July 2004. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
- ^ a b Dousemetzis, Harris (2018). The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The Life of Dimitri Tsafendas. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.
- ^ Betsie Verwoerd, Apartheid Ruler's Wife, 98
- ^ "Beloved Country Repays Mandela in Kind". The New York Times. 23 March 1999. Retrieved 9 August 2017.
- ^ Gross, Daniel (14 September 2016). "How Should South Africa Remember the Architect of Apartheid?". Smithsonian. Retrieved 29 May 2008.