Friday, 19 December 1986: Stellenbosch University’s Apartheid Connections

April 17, 2023, Denver, Colorado

On Friday morning, I left Villiersdorp and drove northwest on Highway R45 over the scenic Franschoek Pass, then stopped in the town of Franschoek where there is a museum dedicated to the Huguenot immigrants – protestants who fled persecution in Catholic France in the late 17^th Century.  Many of them settled in the Cape Colony where they were welcomed by the Dutch settlers.  Many present-day Afrikaners can trace their lineage back to Huguenots.  

My route on December 19 got me back to Cape Town in time to take my cameras to a repair shop.

 

In the old French Quarter of Franschoek, I saw some coloured children playing in the street.  I wondered briefly why there is no monument to South Africa’s coloured (mixed race) people who are descendants of the Dutch and French immigrants and the native Hottentots who were living in the Cape when the white settlers arrived.  “You must be joking,” I answered myself.  “This is South Africa, remember.” 

From Franschoek, I continued west for a few kilometers, then turned southwest on R310 and past several wine estates to Stellenbosch.  This small city is home to Stellenbosch University, which some consider the “Harvard” of Afrikaans-medium universities. 

When I think of Stellenbosch University, two of its former students come to mind.  One of them, Hugh, was my best friend during my year in Botswana.  I’m glad I never met the other one, Hendrik Verwoerd, the so-called “Architect of Apartheid”.  However, I have been fascinated by Verwoerd ever since 1985, when I became interested in travelling to and writing about South Africa.  If you want to learn more about him, I’d recommend Verwoerd: Architect of Apartheid by Henry Kenney (1980) which was rereleased in a Kindle edition in 2016.

This building at Stellenbosch University is named for their most infamous alum and former professor.

 

If Nelson Mandela is the most revered South African, Verwoerd is likely the most despised.  Born in the Netherlands in 1901, he immigrated with his parents to South Africa as a child.  In 1925 he received his Ph.D. in psychology (he also studied philosophy) from Stellenbosch and subsequently did post-doctoral research in Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.A.  In 1928, he returned to Stellenbosch where he served as a professor of psychology.  It was there that he began developing his pseudo-scientific theories justifying the need for separation of the races.

In the 1930s, Verwoerd soon became involved in politics.  He became editor of the far-right Afrikaner newspaper, Die Transvaler, which has been accused of being a tool of Nazi propaganda in South Africa.  He used his editorial position to oppose the immigration of German Jews to South Africa to escape Nazi persecution as well as the entry of South Africa into World War II on the side of the Allies. 

With the victory of the right-wing National Party in the 1948 elections, Verwoerd soon became a senator and in 1950, he became South Africa’s Minister of Native Affairs.  From 1950 to 1953, he played a leading role in the passage and implementation of the Population Registration Act, Group Areas Act, Pass Laws Act, and Reservation of Separate Amenities Act which codified what had become known as Apartheid (“separateness”).  He wrote the Bantu Education Act of 1953 which ensured that blacks only had enough education to work as unskilled laborers. 

Verwoerd was chosen as Prime Minister in 1958 and continued to serve as the head of the government until his assassination in 1966.  Apartheid continued to be strengthened under his leadership, and in 1960-61, he led the effort to withdraw South Africa from the British Commonwealth which he felt was trying to interfere in South Africa’s internal affairs. 

Hendrik Verwoerd described Apartheid as “policy of good neighbourliness”.  He said that the races (including blacks) were happier being separated.  He attempted to give Apartheid a scientific and cultural justification based on pseudo-psychology and discredited sociological theory.  Can he be excused for simply being naïve and misguided?  I don’t buy it.  Verwoerd and his supporters knew exactly what they were doing.  Their aim was to ensure economic prosperity for the white Afrikaners (Boers) at the expense of non-white South Africans.  And the result of their elaborate system of racial segregation and oppression was the suffering and marginalization of millions of non-white South Africans.  Verwoerd should go down in history as a mean-spirited demagogue worthy of little more than scorn.

Of course from the start, many South Africans opposed Verwoerd and the National Party’s bizarre racist system.  These included many well-known white, as well as non-white, South Africans.  But there were also thousands of ordinary white South Africans who made “good trouble” (as U.S. Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis would have called it) for their segregationist government while risking potential difficulties with the authorities or even prison.  I have previously written about some of them such as my friends Joan and Tony MacGreggor who lived on a communal farm north of Johannesburg and allowed some black anti-apartheid activists to hide out there.

My friend, Hugh, was part of a large group of Stellenbosch students in the early 1970s who actively opposed Apartheid.  Yes, even at this esteemed center of Afrikaner nationalist thought, there were students who refused to go along with the program.  Inspired in part by anti-Viet Nam protests in the U.S.A., they pushed the legal limits of protest in South Africa and ridiculed the system.  In an email last year, Hugh described one such incident:

In 1972-3, the South African government had passed legislation prohibiting public gatherings of 12 or more, so 11 of us gathered around the flagpole outside the rector's office in silent protest. Half of the Stellenbosch student population quickly gathered around, polarising into supporters and decryers (thereby breaking the new law). The rector warned the students to disperse with a megaphone from his window, and the police soon arrived, waiting in the background. We got up after an hour and merged into the crowd.  The rector called me in saying one of the cleaners had seen me distributing pamphlets (which I denied). The university library also gained some new graffiti:  "Rectums should be obscene and not absurd!" and “It’s so nice to be white!”

A silent anti-Apartheid protest at Stellenbosch University.  Hugh is immediately to the left of the flagpole wearing a dark jacket.  The caption in Afrikaans says "Above: Eleven Maties (Stellenbosch students) brave the rain and cold to display their sympathy for the protesting neighbouring students (the Ikeys, from the University of Cape Town).  The UCT students had run afoul of the government for their anti-Apartheid protests.  According to Hugh, The building in the background of the flagpole is called Wilgenhof, a student residence that prided itself for providing most of the Afrikaner political leaders, including Verwoerd.  Photo from the Stellenbosch student magazine and English translation provided by Hugh.

Graffiti at the university library.  Hugh has admitted to me that “IT’S NICE TO BE WHITE” was his handy work.  If you wonder if this might be a statement of white superiority, you don’t understand Hugh’s sarcastic brand of humor.   Photo provided by Hugh from the Stellenbosch student magazine.

 

Hugh is quite an interesting character with an unusual background.  He grew up in Keetmanshoop, a conservative white community in South-West Africa (now Namibia).  As Hugh explained to me recently, “Coming from Keetmanshoop, many people I knew were very right wing, like Trump-loving Americans are, but without the weaponry. Some of them were childhood friends who saw me as a wayward aberration - they had subliminally normalised bigotry and racism.”

I should explain that South-West Africa had been a German colony which was “given” to South Africa as a “mandated territory” at the Versailles Conference following World War I.  It was a reward from the allies for South Africa’s participation in the war against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, etc.)  So, until Namibian independence in 1990, South-West Africa, which had a small white population, was treated as a South African colony where the rules of Apartheid applied.  

But getting back to Hugh, he is the son of a bi-lingual, part-Jewish father and English-speaking mother (a Scot born in Australia).  Being bi-lingual, Hugh could have attended either an English- or Afrikaans-medium university.  He explained to me that he chose Stellenbosch, "because my father feared I would be corrupted by more liberal campuses, and because I should follow in big brother's footsteps." Eventually, he married Margot, an English-speaking South African lass, and moved to Botswana.  At the time I met Hugh at a Botswana Photographic Society meeting in 1986, he was working for a computer company and Margot taught science at a secondary school.  They had two delightful small children, Jonathan (now a university professor) and Candice (now a rock musician).  A number of years ago, the family was able to immigrate to Ireland because Margot had an Irish-born grandparent.  I’ll have more to say about Hugh and his family in future posts including my trip with Hugh and Jonathan to Chobe National Park in northern Botswana in May 1987.