Resumo

BOSMAN, Jan  e  DUVENHAGE, André. The Afrikaner-Broederbond and the establishment of a negotiated settlement: An historic and politically strategic perspective. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2023, vol.63, n.4, pp.781-803. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2023/v63n4a3.

The end of apartheid, coinciding with a negotiated settlement between political role players in the process of establishing the new South African political dispensation after 1994, is still widely regarded as a remarkable achievement. However, this process did not take place in a vacuum; other role players outside the political environment played a pertinent role in changing mindsets within the Afrikaner establishment, thereby ensuring a climate within which political reforms could take place. One of these role players was the Afrikaner-Broederbond (AB). The study highlights the role of this organisation from a historic perspective and is based on a systems-analytical model. Since its establishment, the Afrikaner-Broederbond has been part of the political arena at various junctures. Initially established as a cultural organisation representing Afrikaner interests, it increasingly functioned as an Afrikaner think-tank for the National Party and, after the 1948 election, also for the National Party in government. By the 1980s and early 1990s, the organisation was, in fact, an integral part of the South African political system. A political system is defined as the interaction through which values are authoritatively allocated to a community. Sometimes the demands on a system are of such a nature that they threaten the stability of the system, which was certainly the case in the 1980s. When it became evident in 1985 that the National Party's reform process was stagnating, the Afrikaner-Broederbond took the lead in influencing the Afrikaner mindset, thereby creating an environment within which the nature and extent of reform could gain momentum. During this period various policy documents were circulated. One of the more important, if not the most important, being the Afrikaner-Broederbond's contribution titled Basiese Staatkundige Voorwaardes vir die Voortbestaan van die Afrikaner / Basic Political Conditions for the Continued Survival of the Afrikaner, which was distributed to branches in November 1986. This document undoubtedly signalled a division in ways of thinking about the political direction. With this, the Rubicon was crossed. The Afrikaner-Broederbond perceived a formal role for itself in the political processes that constituted the journey towards a negotiated settlement. However, this role, as pointed out in the study, did not materialise, and the Afrikaner-Broederbond was in fact marginalised by the National Party and excluded from the settlement as well as the processes preceding it. For the purposes of this study, the Afrikaner-Broederbond's formal participation, which started in 1986, finally came to an end with its support of the 1992 referendum. This support was conditional, however, and the research shows that there were expectations from businesses as well as from significant segments of especially Afrikaans voters involving a follow-up referendum with a view to testing the white population's support for, and opinion of, a new constitutional dispensation resulting from the negotiated settlement. The research findings also indicate that the Afrikaner-Broederbond simply helped to create a more conducive climate for the Afrikaner establishment to dispose with apartheid by means of comprehensive political proposals. These proposals and preceding interactions with the ANC also helped to create a more encompassing political climate within which a negotiated settlement could be achieved. However, the Afrikaner-Broederbond, while helping to develop proposals to ensure certain conditions pertaining to the Afrikaner, was not itself officially involved in the negotiations and therefore had to depend on the National Party to represent Afrikaner interests. The research points out that some of the conditions for safeguarding specific Afrikaner interests, as proposed in 1986, were also abandoned during the negotiations. For a long time, there had been a particularly close relationship between the National Party and the Afrikaner-Broederbond. During the critical period of negotiations, the National Party, however, preferred to take sole responsibility for the negotiation process, refraining from officially involving expert role players from the Afrikaner establishment, or interest groups such as the Afrikaner-Broederbond. The respective leaderships of the AB and the political parties that represented mostly Afrikaner sentiments (including the NP), apparently in the end had come to prioritise different values and principles in their respective attempts to protect and promote Afrikaner interests as perceived by them. For the purposes of this study, access to internal documents, including minutes and other discussion documents, as well as interviews with role players both within and outside the organisation at the time, resulted in valuable insights and perspectives about such issues.

Palavras-chave : Afrikaner; Afrikaner-Broederbond; Afrikaner interests; settlement; basic political conditions for the continued survival of the Afrikaner; interest group; think-tank; negotiations; referendum; system analysis; negotiated settlement.

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