Andrew Kenny

Another form of racism

Andrew Kenny says that the National party has met its logical end — in the bosom of the racist ANC

Andrew Kenny says that the National party has met its logical end — in the bosom of the racist ANC

Last week an Afrikaans man with a plump face, large spectacles and the nickname of ‘Kortbroek’ (Short Pants) announced that he was joining the ANC. Thus ends the 90-year history of the most radical and notorious political party in the history of South Africa. Thus ends the National party of apartheid.

The writer J.G. Farrell once said that the greatest phenomenon of his age was the decline of the British empire. The greatest political experience of my life in South Africa has been the decline of Afrikaner power, which saw its zenith under apartheid. I grew up under National party rule, felt intimidated and oppressed by it, imagined it would last for ever, and then watched, fascinated, as it faltered and fell. And now Marthinus van Schalkwyk, better known as Kortbroek, its last leader, has flounced up, sounded its death knell and departed unabashed to a cosy position in the ANC. History ends not with a bang, not with a whimper but with a pout.

The National party was formed by Barry Hertzog in 1914. It stood for Boer republicanism. It opposed South African entry into the second world war (as it had into the first) and regarded Smuts as a traitor and a lackey of British imperialism. It came to power in 1948 and proceeded to implement apartheid.

Apartheid was a 20th-century paradox. It left the strongest economy and highest paid black workers in Africa, yet it was the most reviled system in the world. It was a triumph and a tragedy for Afrikanerdom. Afrikaners, who had had a noble history of liberty, self-reliance and resistance to domination, now trampled on the liberty of others and surrendered themselves to state control.

The truth about the fall of apartheid is being carefully buried in the new South Africa, but let me sum it up briefly.

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