Abstract
The reportage of Robert Kennedy’s visit to South Africa in 1966 by the Afrikaans press reflected the incipient fractures within Afrikaner identity even as apartheid was at its zenith. This paper focuses on how Kennedy was portrayed in the Afrikaans press during the course of four days in South Africa, as both a potentially constructive as well as a destructive force for social and political change. It argues that the more conservative Afrikaans newspapers allied themselves with the state in their unequivocal hostility to the senator. Yet, newspapers such as Die Burger and Die Beeld, and Afrikaner journalists such as Piet Cillié and Schalk Pienaar, were influenced by the spirit of change that permeated the latter part of the decade in South Africa and abroad. Kennedy’s visit became a means by which to engage with the idealistic senator and the aspirations of liberal and black South Africans in an attempt to adapt and reform an increasingly insular and outdated Afrikaner nationalism.
Highlights
In 1966 in the wake of Robert Kennedy’s four-day visit to South Africa, the South African newspaper, The Cape Argus assessed the impact of Kennedy on the country: “Like a meteor, Mr Kennedy has flashed across the South African sky, and has SJCH 45(1) | June | 2020 gone...South Africa remains as it was”.1 Robert Francis Kennedy’s visit provoked unparalleled enthusiasm amongst those who opposed the draconian measures of the Verwoerdian state.[2]
The reportage of Robert Kennedy’s visit to South Africa in 1966 by the Afrikaans press reflected the incipient fractures within Afrikaner identity even as apartheid was at its zenith
This paper focuses on how Kennedy was portrayed in the Afrikaans press during the course of four days in South Africa, as both a potentially constructive as well as a destructive force for social and political change
Summary
In 1966 in the wake of Robert Kennedy’s four-day visit to South Africa, the South African newspaper, The Cape Argus assessed the impact of Kennedy on the country: “Like a meteor, Mr Kennedy has flashed across the South African sky, and has SJCH 45(1) | June | 2020 gone...South Africa remains as it was”.1 Robert Francis Kennedy’s visit provoked unparalleled enthusiasm amongst those who opposed the draconian measures of the Verwoerdian state.[2]. The president was suspicious of Kennedy’s motive in visiting South Africa, believing that it was a possible criticism of his administration’s anti-apartheid stance as well as a political ploy, allowing Kennedy to increase his support among black voters in the United States. His administration emphasised that Kennedy’s visit was not officially sanctioned. By 1966, the Rand Daily Mail became an increasingly radical newspaper with Allistair Sparks (who accompanied Kennedy) as one of its editors and more “integrated” news reportage with the employment of black journalists as well as a broad black readership.[20]
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