Apartheid

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and tried to fight back, they were seen as thieves and violent criminals in the eyes of the
Europeans, which further intensified the Whites’ negative perception of the ‘soulless
Africans’. Similar to the devious thuggery, laziness, etc., ascribed to Egyptians by the Greek
invaders of Egypt, Whites in Africa, two millennia later, were probably only able to steal
people’s countries and take their freedom, their cultures and sometimes even their lives, if the
latter were regarded as subhuman beasts. The following passage, written by the nationalist
Afrikaner author, Oordt, in 1898, illustrates this ideology.
According to the Boer idea, the Kaffer [Bantu-speaker], the Hottentot
[Khoikhoi], the Bushman [San] belong to a lower race than the
Whites. They carry as people once rightly called it, the mark of Cain,
God, the Lord, destined them to be ‘drawers of water and hewers of
wood,’ as presses [servants] subject to the white race . . . People can
only control a Kaffer or a Hottentot through fear, he must always be
kept in his place, he was not to be trusted, give him only a finger and
he will take the whole hand. The Boer does not believe in educating
him; yes, I do not believe that I go too far when I express my feeling
that the Boers as a whole doubt the existence of a Kaffer- or a
Hottentot-soul. 707
Religion is a near-constant factor that has to be involved by apartheid oppressors.
Apartheid is not able to work without religion. We shall return to the biblical reference in the
quote above in the course of the next chapter. Also at the end of the 19 th century, a Dutch
Reformed Church minister, S.J. du Toit, became the first South African intellectual to endorse
and build upon the myth of ‘the chosen people’, namely that: ‘Afrikaners...were...endowed by
God with the destiny to rule South Africa and civilize its heathen inhabitants.’ 708 Not only was
it permissible to kill, rape, dispossess, and hurt Africans in additional ways; it was often seen
as beneficial to the victims, as well.
As we observed in apartheid Egypt, there was in South Africa, too, a process of desecularization,
which resulted in it becoming the most Christian country in Africa in modern
times, mainly through missionary activities. The underclass was obviously easier to control,
exploit, and abuse if it embraced a religion that emphasized non-violence, mea culpa, and
rewards in the afterlife. After all, the same religion had served the late imperial Romans in
much the same way, and many others since then. In latter years, however, a kind of liberation
theology also developed in South Africa, through personalities like Luthuli and Tutu, but also
due to many grassroots linking religion with liberation. 709
During the 20 th century, the role of religion also diminished slightly, due among other
things to the success of natural sciences, including the theory of evolution. This was a global
development, against which South Africans could do little, whether black or white. Since the
end of the 20 th century also brought about the end of (political) apartheid, it is in my view well
worth considering secularization as one of the factors that helped bring about this end. 710
Yet on the whole, racism prevailed during the 20 th century, even intensifying in some
707 Quoted in Reader 1998 (1997): 481
708 Thompson 1990: 135
709 Biko 2004 (1978): 60ff. Biko preached (constructive) criticism of the Christian religion, not only to the
converted (anti-Christian leftists and black nationalists), but also to the black priests and ministers themselves. I
personally believe that Palestinian Christians, on the other hand, have largely avoided falling into the trap of
letting their religion serve as opium for their flock or lessen their resolve for liberation.
710 Ross 1999: 183. It is in my view also worth considering how lucky black South Africans were in this regard.
In the 1980s, de-secularization set in with vehemence in the USA (e.g. the ‘Moral Majority’ that helped Reagan,
or the evangelical and often Zionist Christians who helped George W. Bush, into power), in Israel (the new wave
of religious Zionist settlers), Iran (the establishment of the Islamic state), Palestine (Hamas), and elsewhere. By
this time, South African Whites were apparently too busy with their own problems and too late to properly notice
this new, global macro-trend and to profit from it.