Abstract
This article is an attempt to highlight the foundations of the thought of the influential South African leader, H.F. Verwoerd, as implicitly contained in his published writings. Verwoerd has been characterised as the “architect of apartheid", but this is an exaggeration, since he found the basic principles of apartheid ready-made when he emerged as a leader. From Western tradition Verwoerd inherited a particular respect for rationality, which in his case became a stringent application of the principle of one people ("volk"), one state; conceiving of a people in organic terms reminiscent of the republicanism of Rousseau. In his views on development he appears to have been aligned to the dualistic theories of development, which accorded welt with the separation o f races. This view was complemented by a belief in inevitable progress reminiscent of 18th and I9th century Western tradition, which blinded him to the suffering his belief in apartheid as progress was causing. Education was also conceived of as serving the needs of the ethnic group; a totalitarian approach embedded in the idea of an organic unity of the people.
Highlights
A study of his way of thinking supports the understanding of a legacy with which present-day South Africa is struggling - the unravelling of the practical consequences of a philosophy about race and ethnicity which is being blamed for the large-scale oppression o f people of colour, the loss of human dignity, widespread poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, crime, etceteras
From the assumption of power by the National Party, a development policy very similar to dualistic policies of development elsewhere in the world; that is is why it could later be substituted with the term “separate development”
History, for him, implied inevitable progress; all obstacles and conflict only promotes progress; this blinded him for all suffering o f those subjected to his policies
Summary
It offers an attempt to clarify the philosophical (in the wider, not the technical, sense of the word) basis of Verwoerd’s thought Three o f his recurring basic concepts form the central focus of this analysis: rationality; the ideal o f a republic of the people (“volk”); and his views on development. Like so many Europeans in the 19th and early 20th century, Verwoerd believed in the inherent superiority o f Western culture In his younger days, this idea was concentrated in the Afrikaner, but in his later years he came to believe that white people (Afrikaner and English speaking) as a unity had to lead development. Even a focused discussion of Verwoerd’s general philosophy, like the present article, is a reflection on these traditions, and a reminder of a common responsibility for the outcome
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