South Africa Angst in Afrikanerdom

By SCOTT MACLEOD JOHANNESBURG

When Hendrik Verwoerd Jr. was a young man, his father served as South Africa's Prime Minister. During his years in office -- 1958 to 1966 -- Hendrik Sr. sought to implement "grand apartheid," a system intended to preserve a mighty white nation occupying 87% of the land, with blacks living in small "homelands" in the rest of the territory.

Today Hendrik Jr., 50, sits in a modest storefront in the dusty Transvaal farming village of Morgenzon, trying to persuade fellow whites, in essence, to cut their losses and establish their own small homeland. As a leader of an Afrikaner nationalist group called the Orange Workers, he advocates setting up a separate state, provisionally named Afrikanerland, on roughly 13% of South Africa's territory. Of his father's failed dream, Verwoerd shrugs and says, "People lost faith."

Afrikaners -- the 3 million descendants of 17th century Dutch, French and German settlers -- have seen their grip gradually weakening since 1976, when an uprising in the township of Soweto heralded a surge in black demands for political rights. But this year, by freeing Nelson Mandela, legalizing the African National Congress and pursuing negotiations with black leaders on a new constitution, President F.W. de Klerk has sent a profound shock through Afrikanerdom. Appearing finally to accept that they cannot maintain their near exclusive hold on state power for much longer, Afrikaners across the political spectrum are asking what role they should play if South Africa is ruled by the black majority.

For Afrikaners who do not share De Klerk's vision of a multiracial society living in harmony, the idea of an all-white ministate is gaining in appeal. The Orange Workers published a detailed map proposing a territory roughly covering the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. Earlier, Carel Boshoff, Verwoerd's brother-in-law, proposed setting up a homeland called Orandee in the desolate northern Cape Province.

The right-wing Conservative Party, which is supported by about 40% of Afrikaners, is demanding that De Klerk and his National Party call new elections. Though the National Party has ruled since 1948, the Conservatives believe they stand an excellent chance of gaining power because De Klerk's initiatives have been so unpopular among the country's 5 million whites. Conservative leader Andries Treurnicht last month rejected De Klerk's offer to join in negotiations and issued a veiled threat to take up arms against a white sellout. Privately, however, many Conservatives realize the days of white domination are over, and are considering adopting the idea of a separate homeland as well.

In religious and intellectual circles, debates about the past are as vigorous as discussions about the future. At a conference last month, Dutch Reformed Church theologian Willie Jonker declared apartheid a sin and confessed his guilt as well as that of the church and "the Afrikaner people as a whole." Although his declaration caused an uproar, his statements echoed a historic resolution adopted two weeks earlier at a church synod. Former President P.W. Botha briefly emerged from seclusion to express his anger. "The Afrikaners, my people, were not oppressors," he insisted. But progressive Afrikaners are advocating that the government take the matter further by actually apologizing to blacks and providing restitution for the damage done by apartheid.

Thus far, De Klerk has steered clear of confessions, apologies and reparations. Some of his advisers believe, however, that some sort of official apology might be forthcoming in the final stages of negotiations. The most outspoken comment from De Klerk's circle has come from Deputy Foreign Minister Leon Wessels. Last August he described apartheid as "a dreadful mistake" that did not take "human factors" into account. "An apology is on the minds of many Afrikaners," Wessels says, "but not on the mind of the government yet."

The antiapartheid movement has taken note of Afrikaner angst, but is not necessarily impressed. "No one in a high position has actually said they are sorry for all the hurt they have caused to victims of apartheid," says Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu. "We blacks, for our part, are ready to forgive. But the other party must be contrite and ready to do reparation. Your contrition will be demonstrated by your willingness to make amends. We cannot just say, 'Let bygones be bygones.' "

Afrikaner soul searching even extends to such a holy of holies as the Day of the Covenant, the annual Dec. 16 commemoration that marks the Afrikaner victory over the Zulus in the 1838 Battle of Blood River. Now that De Klerk is calling for the races to live together in one nation, some Afrikaners feel a national holiday glorifying the white man's victory over the black man is more inappropriate than ever.

Many Afrikaners are rethinking the very meaning of Blood River. "It has been seen as the victory of Christianity over savage Africans," says Max du Preez, editor of the influential Afrikaans weekly Vrye Weekblad. "Now it is seen rather as the point where Afrikaners became accepted as an African tribe and determined that they had a right to the soil." The survival of the nation will depend on whether Afrikaners fully accept that their black fellow countrymen share an equal right to the land of South Africa.