Resumo

STRAUSS, PJ. The reform of apartheid in the 1980's: The political approach of PW Botha and the ecclesiastical contribution by JA Heyns. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2023, vol.63, n.2, pp.402-419. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2023/v63n2a13.

This article takes a closer look at ways in which the apartheid policy of the National Party in South Africa was increasingly being questioned by prominent political as well as clerical leaders in the 1980's. In particular, the views of two well-known leaders, namely those of Mr. PW Botha, prime minister and later president of the Republic of South Africa and prof. Johan (JA) Heyns, moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, are considered. Both men opted for reform as a method with which to bring about change in apartheid South Africa: For Botha political reform was on the cards, while Heyns tried to contribute in a theological and ecclesiastical way. This article investigates and compares the opinions and proposals of both men, be it from an ethical political and an ecclesiastical angle respectively. The effect of such initiatives within the South African community is also attended to. It is argued that in Botha's support for political reform as opposed to a revolutionary stance, he was theologically supported by Heyns. In the acceptance of the document Church and Society 1986 by the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, a document in which Heyns had played a decisive role with his critique against apartheid, the latter propagated the reform of this policy from an ecclesiastical angle - he did so both locally in South Africa and abroad for the benefit of an international audience. As a result, critics started to refer to him as "the priest of the court of the president of South Africa". One may well ask: To what end must the views of both a political and a clerical leader be comparatively analysed? The answer would be that it is hoped that the points of departure of a relevant "ethics of reform" may gradually emerge from such a scrutiny. As illustrated in the initiatives of both Botha and Heyns, it is shown that a politician and theologian have something to tell each other when it comes to the reform of apartheid. Pieter Willem Botha (often referred to simply as "PW") was the prime minister of South Africa from 1978 to 1984, before becoming president from 1984 to 1989. Already in his speech of acceptance on 28 September 1978, he succinctly articulated his intention to reform apartheid. Ten years after this introductory speech the well-known journalist and author, JJJ Scholtz, deemed it fit to collect some political remarks in Botha's speeches in a book titled Vegter en hervormer ("fighter and reformer"). Similarly, in outlining the main issues of Botha's time as the leader of the government, the historian Pieter Kapp emphasised Botha's most important reforms. He regarded his attempts at reform as the flag which defined Botha's leadership. In Botha's view transforming apartheid South Africa was integral to his Christian beliefs. Such transformation entailed improving the country's structures of state, as well as the relationships between groups in the population in general. By the mid 1980's he was convinced that the holistic aim of apartheid to restructure state and country in such a way as to ensure separate but equal rights for the entire population, had failed. He therefore got rid of laws that prohibited racially mixed marriages, or controlled the influx of blacks in so-called white urban areas, the latter making it impossible for blacks to obtain membership of trade unions and ownership of property. Instead, Botha initiated a Three Room Government (legislative) for respectively the whites, coloureds and Asians without, in practice, sharing political power with them. Botha was willing to open up South Africa to all without letting political power slip from white hands. It would appear that apartheid as a method to achieve justice and equality had failed in the eyes of the majority. It was, in fact, a method which the National Party as the government had failed to implement successfully. As a result the positive spirit in the Party as a governing party started to decline. According to Botha's view a government should aim at justice and human dignity for all, listen to the political aspirations of all members of the population and create and support the spiritual, physical and human development of everybody. In his opinion, as he thought to have learned from his mentor, the late former Prime Minister DF Malan (1948-1954), reform was a method to achieve or implement principles such as justice, human dignity and the total development of the entire population. Hence the method of reform, like the failed political method of apartheid, should never become an unchangeable principle which - in the end -could derail a country. Unlike some critics of apartheid, Botha did not use his reform to abolish every aspect of apartheid in South Africa. He continued to aim at consultations with all, and human dignity and justice for everybody, but was not prepared to accept that whites should share their political power with other populations or racial groups. Botha saw reform as a method to achieve goals like justice and dignity and not to destabilise the country. And as far as he was concerned, white power was a condition for stability: a stability that was necessary for a successful implementation of reform. In his opinion the ideal of justice and dignity for everybody would be in jeopardy in a destabilised South Africa. It should be clear that Botha did not want to destroy the community, but to lead it to higher levels. He openly resisted signs of a revolutionary approach in political methods that could destabilise the country, but also resisted a negative approach to any change. In his view reform was synonymous with effective change. Johan (JA) Heyns was professor of Theology at the University of Pretoria in the time of Botha's rule. As a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church, he was an advocate of reform. He chose reform in South Africa because he was a spiritual heir of the Reformation of the 1500's with reform as, in principle, the method used for change in life as a whole. He saw in a revolutionary approach the same danger of destabilisation as his prime minister and strongly advocated the Bible as the foundation or first norm for acceptable change. To Heyns and Botha, both Reformed Christians, reform was a continuing, evolutionary change. A preferred change for improving the circumstances of black, white and coloured in South Africa. Heyns chose to remain a prophet of God or being bound by the Bible as the norm for his contribution and as a spokesman of the church as a spiritual body of the Reformation. Being a reformer who criticises apartheid, not from a political stance, but from the viewpoint of the Christian faith, Heyns's viewpoint was eagerly picked up by the media and had to be taken note of. PW Botha, in fact, had noticed the viewpoints propagated by Heyns before the latter became the moderator of his church in 1986. Already in 1985 Botha asked Heyns to form a small informal advisory committee of theologians to advise the president himself. Heyns reached out to well-known reformers like himself: Tjaart van der Walt from Potchefstroom and Willie Jonker from Stellenbosch. Botha thus contacted Heyns personally for his help rather than the Dutch Reformed Church officially. At that stage Botha was a member of a Dutch Reformed congregation. Round about 1985 -1988 Botha's initiatives for reform seemed to peter out and led to a perception that a new initiative, not that by PW Botha, was needed in South Africa. Botha's so-called Rubicon speech in August 1985 in which he did not announce an expected radical reform, in the view of many commentators, underlined this. From an ecclesiastical angle Heyns broadly supported these critics. To summarise, this article investigates and compares attempts to reform apartheid South Africa as propagated by PW Botha in his political and JA Heyns in his ecclesiastical approach respectively. The focus is on reform as their method for change from their accepted angles. Such an analysis remains relevant in an historical look at and study of these issues.

Palavras-chave : fighter and reformer; failure of separate but equal policy; lack of enthusiasm within the National Party; politics and justice; human dignity and development; stabilisation effect of white power.

        · resumo em Africaner     · texto em Africaner     · Africaner ( pdf )