There are times when a country finds itself in swirling waters and only two options seem possible. The vessel can shatter itself against the sharp rocks or at the last moment it can make its turn and dart artfully through a narrow gap. For a moment, it seems to passengers as if everything is lost; the next moment as if tremendous opportunities are there for the taking. It is the equivalent to the best and the worst of times, to paraphrase Dickens.
South Africa was at this point in 1922-24, 1931-33, 1960-61 and 1986-90. Once again we are at this point, but instead of being shattered against the rocks, the boat threatens to run aground into a sand bank. I could sense the growing sense of crisis when I started working on a second, extended edition of my book The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, whose first edition appeared in 2003. In the updated edition, which has just appeared, two chapters explore the the profound change in the relationship between the Afrikaners and the ANC between 1987 and 2009.
A book is written in the shadows of the present. After I had completed the first edition in 2001, it was still not possible then to think that our government would go so far as to look on with bland approval as Robert Mugabe's gangs plundered white farms. Corruption amongst state officials was not yet completely out of hand. And people had not expected that problems of crime, delivery, unemployment and xenophobia would take on even more serious dimensions. No one would believe that the number of people receiving welfare allowances from the state would rise from three to 15 million and that the tax burden would become heavier.
The three most important developments of the past five years were the re-emergence of the ANC-Alliance's policy of the "National Democratic Revolution" (NDR), the declining trust among minorities in the constitution's ability to protect their rights, and Afrikaners' repositioning of themselves.
In the first edition of The Afrikaners, the term NDR does not appear in the register; in the second edition if occupies a prominent position. Suddenly, symbolic issues such as nationalization of the mines and the Reserve Bank are back on the agenda.
The NDR has a long history, but actually it was invigorated in the South African Communist Party policy document of 1962, "The Road to Africa Freedom." According to this document, the "white oppressor class" siphoned off for itself all the riches the oppressed black nation had produced. The ANC-alliance, through the NDR, should acquire "popular control" (communist control, actually) over the government and the economy. On the civilian level, African hegemony had to be established in every possible symbolic manner, including through name changes.