Towards an Understanding of the Afrikanerisation of the South African State
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1993
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Africa
Africa: Journal of the International African Institut
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Cambridge University Press
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University of Cape Town
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Faculty
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Abstract
With President F. W. De Klerk's speech of 2 February 1990, and the dramatic changes subsequently evident in South African politics, many scholars have aptly turned their eyes on the state. If a transition towards some form of majority rule is at hand, as most observers believe, the questions are: what is the condition of the state to be inherited by the new governors, and how did it acquire this condition? We know, for example, that the state has almost 1.7 million employees, more than 1 million of whom are black (SAIRR, 1989: 395-7), and who work in sectors known as the central, provincial, local and homeland authorities and the semi-state. Also known are some of the process affecting these employees, ranging from regulations governing service (dating back to the Staatsdiens en Pensioenwet of 1912) to the enduring imperial tendencies of the central authorities and, more recently, policies of privatisation. But perhaps the best-known process is the afrikanerisation of the state, occurring through most of the twentieth century and especially after the (Purified) National Party Victory of 1948. The discussion, first, identifies beliefs and habits members of the bureaucratic elite acquired during their ascent through Afrikanerdom and, second, analyses the attempt to institutionalise these beliefs and habits within the state. This article is thus about the actions of an Afrikaner bureaucratic elite, ensconced in leading positions in all sectors of the state over at least the last forty years.
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Seegers, A. (1993). Towards an Understanding of the Afrikanerisation of the South African State. Africa, 63(4): 477-497.