Grundlingh Slabbert

Man on a Mission
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77619-038-6
Verlag: Jonathan Ball
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten

Frederik van Zyl Slabbert was a man on a mission, whether as an academic, an opposition politician, a democratic facilitator or a businessman. Perhaps this was a product of his restless, probing intellect, or his early ambition to become a dominee in the Dutch Reformed Church. When he famously led a delegation of leading Afrikaners to Dakar in 1987 to meet the exiled ANC, many saw it as a breakthrough, while others felt he had been taken in. And yet his reputation - for honesty, integrity, wit and courage - still towers above many of his contemporaries. Slabbert was always different. As an academic turned politician, the charismatic Slabbert brought unusual intellectual rigour to Parliament, transforming the upstart Progressive Federal Party into a force that challenged the National Party government. But disillusioned by the paralysis of formal white politics, and by the growing polarisation of South African society, he resigned in 1986 to explore democratic alternatives to the impasse into which the country had been led under apartheid. Largely side-lined during the democratic transition, he continued to pursue a broad range of initiatives aimed at building democracy, empowering black South Africans and transforming the economy. Albert Grundlingh's penetrating biographical study offers sharp insights into the thinking and motivation of this most unlikely politician. Concise but wide-ranging, Slabbert: Man on a Mission provides new perspectives on a figure who even today remains something of an enigma.

Professor Albert Grundlingh holds an MA and Doctorate from the University of South Africa and was the Head of the History Department at the University of Stellenbosch. He is the author, co-author and editor of a number of books, and has published numerous articles in international academic journals. He specialises in social and cultural history with a particular interest in war and society. His major works deal with the so-called 'Handsuppers' and 'Joiners' during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902, and black South African troops during the First World War. He is also the co-author of a book on the history of rugby in South African society. He retired in 2018.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grundlingh, Albert

Leseproben

2
BECOMING A POLITICIAN Precursors Although Slabbert’s decision to enter politics obviously rested with him as an individual, there were some earlier developments that, it can be argued, primed him, or at least predisposed him, to consider such an eventuality. Some of these had taken place on an informal level at Stellenbosch, while others had a wider basis. During the 1960s and 1970s, select university staff members regularly organised various informal discussion groups, which became long-standing and regular features of off-campus academic life. These discussions were marked by considerable intellectual ferment, and critical engagement was encouraged through open debate. The politics of the day and its wider ramifications were closely scrutinised. The local Catholic priory also participated, and some of the brothers contributed to the intellectual mix. Guests from outside were often surprised by the progressive nature of these discussions and the way in which certain Afrikaner participants positioned themselves on the left.1 Slabbert was prominent in these discussions, and they provided him with selective but challenging company in which to cut his political teeth. He was quick to point out discrepancies and duplicity. At one off-campus meeting, an academic who was also a Broederbonder argued that even if one had reservations about apartheid, one should still pretend to be loyal to the National Party with a view to promoting reform by stealth. Slabbert’s response was simple: ‘But then you are taking everyone for a ride.’2 Another precursor to his formal political career was a grouping called Synthesis, which operated in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Participation was by invitation. It hovered on the fringes of formal politics, involved a number of top-level individuals, and cut across racial lines. The group was started by a Flemish-Belgian physician, Dr Louis van Oudenhove, who was keen for South Africans to learn more about population groups other than their own. Synthesis drew in people such as Japie Basson of the United Party, Colin Eglin of the Progressive Party, the Zulu leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, educationalist Dr Richard van der Ross, who was involved with the coloured Labour Party, and MT Moerane, the editor of The World. Slabbert joined this exalted company as early as 1970 and acted as secretary-treasurer. Synthesis not only served as an important networking group but also allowed face-to-face interaction between people who in the ironclad racial demarcations of apartheid South Africa would hardly have had the opportunity to discuss matters of common interest. For Slabbert, who later in his career put great store by the positive chemistry that meetings under favourable circumstances between opposing groups could generate, Synthesis was an early exposure to the potential of such occasions. It was, however, an initiative that raised the ire of Prime Minister John Vorster, who sought to cast the group in a sinister light as a secret and pernicious influence.3 Slabbert’s involvement with discussion groups had an unexpected spin-off. At Stellenbosch one of the groups was addressed by the National Party’s Dr Piet Koornhof, deputy minister of what at the time was called ‘Bantu affairs’. Koornhof reassured his audience that the government’s homeland policy was having the desired effect and that urban black people were satisfied with the arrangements. Ever the academics, Slabbert and Jannie Gagiano thought that such an assertion needed to be tested. Coincidentally, Slabbert had to be in Johannesburg for Marcia’s wedding, and thought he could visit Soweto at the same time with view to testing Koornhof’s claim. Through the good offices of MT Moerane, arrangements were made for him and Gagiano to meet some prominent Soweto locals. Their strategy was to convey Koornhof’s ideas and policies, pretending that they supported these, and then to note the result. They were not prepared for the outcome. Slabbert later recalled: ‘We experienced abuse, threats, hysterical anger and inarticulate frustration. It washed over us, wave after wave.’4 The fury was such that one of the locals feared that the two Afrikaners might actually be killed.5 It was only after they had explained what their real purpose was in coming to Soweto, and that they were not actually Nationalists, nor pro-apartheid, that the mood subsided. They were then made to feel welcome, and there was even a sense of appreciation that young Afrikaners from Stellenbosch were prepared to undertake such a venture. The meeting had a profound effect on Slabbert. Initially he felt a mixture of negative emotions, yet in retrospect he regarded it as a ‘very, very important occasion’.6 This kind of engagement underscored Slabbert’s scepticism that government policies were in accord with the wishes of the majority, and that to claim it was so was misleading in the extreme. It was a realisation that he would carry with him well into the future. The legendary Percy Qoboza, who took over from Moerane as editor of The World in 1974, was also involved in the arrangements that day. In 1979, when Slabbert was chosen as leader of the parliamentary opposition, Qoboza reflected: ‘[W]hile Soweto cannot entirely take credit for the shaping of Van Zyl Slabbert, it contributed in no small way in making Van a sensitive man …, the night … was something of a baptism by fire for the young Afrikaner intellectual. His soul was cleansed … You are going to hear a lot about this guy. You can surely take that as a prediction.’7 Besides such almost Damascus-road experiences, there was also a more analytical side to the gradual sharpening of Slabbert’s political awareness. Part of this related to wider developments in Afrikaner society. During the 1960s South Africa experienced an unsurpassed economic growth rate of six per cent, and Afrikaners were the main beneficiaries of this windfall. The middle class expanded rapidly and, fuelled by a new consumer culture, shifts in Afrikaner world-views became readily apparent. There occurred a gradual loosening of the ties to volk and Afrikaner culture, and politically the possibility of a more differentiated, open society appeared slightly less remote than before.8 In the first half of the 1970s, Slabbert picked up on these developments in an academic article that first appeared, in shortened form, in the press. He argued that the ruling National Party now had to deal with increased internal tensions in mediating between expanding elite groupings and traditional working-class formations. With the opening of new opportunities in business and commerce, young Afrikaners were increasingly asserting themselves outside traditional occupations such as teaching and the ministry. Being less dependent ideologically on time-honoured political and cultural scaffolding prompted a greater sense of indifference, though Slabbert cautioned that apathy should not be equated with major political change. Nevertheless, he predicted that material progress and concomitant adjustments in world-views would vie to a greater extent than before with old-style allegiances. ‘The majority of young Afrikaners,’ he argued, ‘are preparing for a petty-bourgeois existence where they will become the Babbitts of Bellville, Benoni and Bloemfontein.’9 With these developments, the possibility also existed that with the right strategic approach, their political allegiances could also be shifted. Slabbert’s broad observations were supported by empirical opinion surveys, which in 1971 indicated that almost 20 per cent of the Afrikaner elite were open to other political messages than those of the National Party.10 At the same time, there emerged from within Afrikaner ranks what was called a verligte (enlightened) grouping, which positioned itself in opposition to those considered arch-conservative Afrikaners, labelled as verkramp (reactionary). The verlig-verkramp struggle generated considerable heat, but overall verligtes fell short of embracing the kind of liberalism touted by the Progressive Party, led by Colin Eglin. In broad terms, verligtes still believed that gradual and effective change could best be initiated from within party structures rather than from outside. It was these Afrikaners that the Progressive Party started to target as potential dissidents in the early 1970s. The party realised that in trying to make headway, it should try and shed its image as an almost exclusively English-speaking faction, amounting to little more than a pressure group often viewed as anti-Afrikaner in its outlook. In order to broaden the party’s electoral base, it was essential to draw Afrikaners into the fold. Eglin launched a bold programme to rejuvenate the party, and a deliberate attempt was made to woo select Afrikaner groupings. An Afrikaans-language party journal, Deurbraak, was launched to encourage debate and open up lines of communication with Afrikaners. A concerted effort was also made to organise symposia in which members of the party could interact with prominent verligtes and subject the party’s policy to scrutiny with a view to possible adjustments that would attract more voters. At one such symposium Slabbert attended in Pretoria in 1972, he was particularly attentive and...