Afrikaner Dissidents: Bram Fischer and Beyers Naudé

Yvonne Malan and Christoff Pauw*

"However strange it may sound today, it is not impossible that one day we may work for the Afrikaner people together." — Letter of Bram Fischer to Beyers Naudé.

In his speech at the first Bram Fischer memorial lecture former president Nelson Mandela declared, "[i]n any history written of our country two Afrikaner names will be always remembered. Happily one is still with us, dear comrade Beyers Naudé. The other is Bram Fischer." Fischer and Naudé are often cited as beacons of hope, as heroic figures who went against their 'own people' in the struggle for non-racial South Africa. One should guard against treating these two figures as anomalies, as resisting Apartheid despite being Afrikaners. On the other hand it can in no way be claimed that the majority of Afrikaners resisted Apartheid. Rather, when Fischer and Naudé's contributions are examined closely matters are more complex: Both resisted injustice, but in different ways and influenced by different understandings of identity. In both cases their identity as Afrikaners (in Fischer's case, Afrikaner 'royalty' and in Naudé's case nationalist Afrikanerdom) and the expectation that they would achieve great heights in the Afrikaner establishment seem to stand in contradiction to the routes their lives did take.

Abram (Bram) Fischer was born on 23 April 1908 into a prominent Afrikaner family. Bram was the grandson and namesake of the last prime minister of the Republic of the Orange Free State and his father, Percy, was a respected lawyer, judge of the Free State Supreme Court and Judge-President of the Free State. He attended Grey College in Bloemfontein and Oxford University as Rhodes Scholar. Bram Fischer was born into a life of privilege and a family legacy that assured him contacts at the highest level of society, which would have made any number of prominent positions, including a political career, possible. He was an outstanding lawyer and could have easily followed in his father's footsteps in becoming a judge. Fischer, however, chose a different route and died as political prisoner serving a life sentence for treason.

Beyers Naudé came from a different background to Fischer and his decision to resist Apartheid came along another route. The decision that Naudé took in 1963 to quit the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) and to take up the directorship of the non-racial, ecumenical Christian Institute came after years of doubt and fear. Fifteen years earlier, in 1948, he followed the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB), of whom he was a member, by fully supporting the rise to power of DF Malan's National Party, but his unease with the biblical justification of apartheid grew increasingly stronger. At that stage, however, to take a public stand in direct opposition to the race policies of his government, his church and the AB was a bridge too far. He had encountered enough warnings from colleagues in the church and the AB to realise that speaking out would place his future in grave jeopardy.

Naudé's father, Jozua, was a Dutch Reformed minister and an Afrikaner freedom fighter. Naudé frequently drew parallels between his father's struggle for the liberation of Afrikaners and his own struggle for the liberation of black South Africans. When war broke out between Britain and the Boer republics in 1899, Jozua fought side-by-side with the famous Boer general Christiaan Frederik Beyers and ministered to the Boer forces. In 1914 when the same General Beyers and others rebelled against the newly instated South African Union government's call to fight alongside the British Army against the German forces in German South West Africa (today's Namibia), Jozua came out in full support of the rebels. General Beyers had to flee and drowned while crossing the Vaal River in December 1914. Jozua was deeply shocked by his friend's death and honoured his memory by naming his second son Christiaan Frederik Beyers Naudé.

In 1932 Beyers and his elder brother Joos left their home in Graaff-Reinet to study at Stellenbosch University. Although he wanted to study law, he had little choice but to study theology since ministers' sons qualified for a theology bursary. He envisaged switching to another degree after three or four years. After his B.A. he enrolled for an M.A. in literature (Afrikaans en Nederlands) and wrote a thesis on Afrikaans poetry. When the time came to decide about his future he nevertheless felt drawn to complete his theological training and entered the Theological Seminary of the DRC in 1936. During his studies he devoted much of his time to other student activities such as the debating society (where one of his main opponents was John Vorster who would later become Prime Minister) and the Berg- en Toerklub (the mountain hiking club). He was also primarius (head student) of his residence Wilgenhof and president of the Student Representative Council.

Beyers entered ministry in the DRC in 1940 in the congregation of Wellington, subsequently moving to Loxton and then to Pretoria. It was especially during the 1950's that Naudé's reservations about the policies of the Nationalist government were to grow increasingly stronger. An important difference between Naudé and Fischer is their different understandings of their Afrikaner identity, which had an influence on their decision to resist Apartheid as well as the form that their resistance took.

Fischer might have been the grandson of Abraham Fischer, but he grew up in an environment that fostered a fairly open-ended view of identity. For example: While Beyers Naudé's father had strong views on the promotion of Afrikaans, Fischer spoke and corresponded with his family members in both Afrikaans and English. The time he spent at Oxford also gave Fisher a fresh perspective on South Africa - unlike Naudé who studied only at Stellenbosch University - especially at a time when fascism was a growing threat in Europe. A visit that he undertook to the Soviet Union also broadened his worldview, even though it did not turn him into a Communist. Apart from his family one of the earliest influences on Fischer was Leo Marquard, his teacher at Grey College. He exposed the young Fischer to multiracial gatherings and critical political debate, encouraging him to question the route that Afrikaner politics was taking even at an early age.

Since his youth Fischer had strong anti-imperialist sentiments. As a pupil at Grey College he led a (successful) rebellion against the school's planned involvement with the visit by a member of the British royal family, and also refused to take part in the cadet activities. These sentiments, however, never translated into a narrow view of identity that needed a hostile other (e.g. English or Black). After matriculating at Grey College, Fischer attended the English-dominated University of Cape Town and not, as Naudé, the neighbouring Afrikaner bastion of Stellenbosch University.

Fischer's anti-imperialist sentiments where channelled in a different direction that made his membership of the Communist Party a continuation of the views he had since youth. To him there was no contradiction between Abraham Fischer's involvement in the Anglo Boer War, his father's role in the Rebellion and his own involvement in South Africa's struggle for liberation. His family shared this view: When he was arrested for the first time his mother assured both him and Molly not to worry since "we've been here before". As his biographer Stephen Clingman points out, "[t]he experience of being on the receiving end for your political beliefs was familiar and respectable for the Fischer family".

The Afrikaner establishment saw Fischer's choice as both betrayal and tragedy. In a book by Gerard Ludi, a security policeman, published shortly after Fischer's imprisonment, he writes that Fischer "dedicated his life to a political ideal which fills every thinking South African with revulsion … I believe that never before has so much treason and subversion been revealed in a single court case as that of Bram Fischer". Die Burger called Fischer a lost son. Shortly after his sentencing Die Burger ran a special supplement on the "Tragedy of Bram Fischer", trying in disbelief to find reasons for his "betrayal". After his death Die Burger's editorial (by Piet Cillie) lamented: "Ons wat van sy bloed is, maar sy politiek verfoei kan by sy heengaan nie ontkom aan 'n gevoel van groot jammerte oor 'n verlore seun wat nie teruggekeer het nie" [We who share his blood, but who abhor his politics, cannot with his passing away escape from a feeling of great sorrow about a prodigal who did not return]. And yet for Fischer himself it could not be more different. His daughter, Ilse, recalls, "[h]e saw his commitment to change as a natural progression from Afrikaner nationalism … That was the family history - the Boer War and the Rebellion … it was a whole anti-imperialism struggle. And Bram saw it as a continuation of the struggle, just extending beyond the Afrikaner to include all people". Fischer came from 'Afrikaner nobility' yet he was never a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond. He harboured strong nationalist sentiments and was a Hertzog supporter, but he never viewed his involvement in liberation politics as turning his back on his Afrikaner heritage. Although Fischer therefore grew up in an environment that fostered a more open-ended idea of identity, this does not mean that his journey was without struggle. In his statement from the dock, which he delivered at his trial, Fischer recalls, "I was a Nationalist at the age of six, if not before … remained a Nationalist for over twenty years thereafter and became, in 1929, the first Nationalist Prime Minister of a student parliament … I never doubted that the policy of segregation was the only solution to this country's problems until the Hitler theory of race superiority began to threaten the world with genocide and with the greatest disaster in all history.

There was also an incident, while he was still in his twenties, that had a profound effect on him: In his statement from the dock he recalls his hesitation, even revulsion, at shaking the hand of a black man at meeting of the Joint Council. This event had a deep effect on Fischer and caused him to re-examine himself and his motives. He recalls: "That night I spent many hours in thought trying to account for my strange revulsion when I remembered I had never had any such feelings towards my boyhood friends. What became abundantly clear was that it was I and not the Black man who had changed; that despite my growing interest in him, I had developed an antagonism for which I could find no rational basis whatsoever". Fischer critically examined this reaction and the incident was a turning point for him. Stephen Clingman writes, "[f]or someone else this incident…might have been dismissed out of hand…[b]ut for Bram, coming now to define himself by the integrity and need for consistency that marked him, it prompted self-inspection he had not undertaken before. Such racial responses may have been embarrassing, but Bram was aware enough that something was deeply wrong. … Everything else that happened in Bram Fischer's life developed from this moment of personal crisis, and the obligation and commitments that followed".

It could be argued that Fischer's decision to resist Apartheid was less of a sudden Damascus experience than that of Naudé - perhaps because he did not see it as such a radical break from his identity. Fischer travelled much further than Naudé did; the results of his actions were more radical. He was accused of treason and imprisoned for the rest of his life. Yet he never left his Afrikaner genealogy behind. Fischer's resistance was grounded in the continuation of views he held since youth. Fischer's resistance was, to him, a natural continuation of the family history.
Naudé's journey was different. A number of important events took place over the course of the 1950's that would shape his eventual stance against apartheid. His emerging ideas placed him amongst a small but growing group of young Afrikaner theologians who shared increasing misgivings about the Afrikaner nationalist Reformed church paradigm. Many of these dissident voices were strongly shaped by Reformed evangelicalism (a stream that had been dominant in the DRC since the 18th century) and, through a commitment to mission, contact with the black so-called 'daughter' churches of the DRC. Although Naudé's emergence as a major challenger of the system from within the Afrikaner churches was very gradual, many of the dissidents would come to rally around him in the late fifties and the early sixties.
Naudé became aware of the theological critiques of apartheid that started to emerge from Europe and North America. It was during this crucial period that he undertook an extensive six-month overseas study tour as chairperson of the Kerkjeugvereniging (church youth society). Wherever he went, however, people questioned him about the political situation in South Africa. Initially Naudé tried to defend apartheid but soon realised that his theological arguments were flawed and easily refuted. He realised that apartheid could not be justified by scripture.

In 1955 Naudé accepted a call to Potchefstroom where he became acutely aware of yet another inhibiting factor: his pastoral sensitivity. He ministered to working class people and realised that "our Afrikaner people of the platteland" would not be able to comprehend a critique of apartheid, that his misgivings about the biblical justification of apartheid "would come as a terrible shock".

During his years in Potchefstroom the Reformed Ecumenical Synod, an international ecumenical body, held a conference there. Naudé attended the public sessions and he describes this as decisive for his conviction that his church was gravely mistaken in its biblical defence of apartheid. He brought up the matter privately with trusted minister-friends, and even with other Broederbond ministers. More often than not the replies that he received came as warnings: to not 'play with fire' and ruin his career with foolish declarations; that the 'time was not yet ripe' for such statements.

By 1958 Naudé had been elected as assessor (vice-chairperson) of the Transvaal synod. Young ministers who as students had known him during his time in Pretoria felt encouraged to come and seek advice on their own reservations about apartheid. In an interview with his biographer, Colleen Ryan, Naudé says:

They told me about the problems they were experiencing and about the growing resistance of African, Coloured and Indian Christians to the stand the white NGK [DRC] was taking on apartheid. And so they invited me to come and look for myself. And I did. And what I found was a shattering experience.

Naudé went on visits to segregated Indian townships, to black mining compounds and to coloured slum neighbourhoods, experiencing the awful division, strife and hardship that apartheid had brought to people's lives. He told himself, "If this is what apartheid is all about, it is evil, it is inhuman, it is something which can never be supported." He visited the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) and for the first time studied the apartheid race laws.

He knew that the church's race policy had to change and that in order to accomplish this he would need to gather support from enough fellow ministers to lead such change. When he received a call to the wealthy, new Aasvoëlkop congregation in Johannesburg he used the opportunity of being back in the city to initiate a number of Bible study groups with the intent aim of leading the church away from apartheid. Initially these consisted of only DRC ministers, but soon black and coloured ministers, also from other denominations, joined some of the groups.

The Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1960 prompted a new and more activist phase in black resistance to apartheid and focused world attention on the situation in South Africa. The English churches (especially the Anglican Church) attacked the DRC for supporting apartheid. The World Council of Churches (WCC) sent a delegation, led by Dr Robert Bilheimer, to meet with its South African member churches (which included the Transvaal and Cape synods of the DRC). His aim was to address the growing rift between the churches and to discuss the political situation in South Africa. A week-long conference was planned for December 1960 in the Johannesburg suburb of Cottesloe and Naudé was nominated to represent the Transvaal synod. For Naudé this was clearly an important opportunity to voice his opinions, albeit still very carefully.

The conference would ultimately be deemed a failure, but for Naudé and his Afrikaans colleagues this was their first real ecumenical contact with white and black churchmen. The eighty delegates (of whom twenty were from the DRC) decided to draw up a statement of their decisions, which was to be released after the conference. The statement was moderate but far-reaching given the situation in South Africa. It affirmed that all races had equal political and social rights and that nobody could be excluded from any church on the basis of race

When the conference statement was released a tidal wave of rejection from the Afrikaans press followed. Prime Minister HF Verwoerd settled the matter in his 1961 New Year's message when he said that the Cottesloe statement expressed the views of individuals in the church and that the synods will have the final say on the matter. The AB followed this up by informing its members in a circular that the Broederbond executive had rejected the Cottesloe statement. Not surprisingly the April 1961 meeting of the Transvaal synod did not re-elect Naudé as moderator and univocally condemned Cottesloe. The Cottesloe delegates were summoned to the front of the hall and asked to explain their support for the Cottesloe statement. Of the six responses five were apologetic or even openly critical towards Cottesloe. Beyers Naudé saw this as a turning point in his life:

I had to decide - would I because of pressure, political pressure and other pressures which were being exercised, give in and accept, or would I stand by my convictions which over a period of years had become rooted in me as firm and holy Christian convictions? I decided on the latter course … I could not see my way clear to giving way on a single one of [the Cottesloe] resolutions, because I was convinced that they were in accordance with the truth of the gospel.

The synod voted on Cottesloe. It rejected all its findings and reaffirmed its support for the government's policy of 'differentiation.' Naudé's reserve, on the other hand, grew stronger. From this point onwards he would eventually take a firm stand against his church and his government, initially as director of the Christian Institute from 1963 to 1977 (when the Institute was banned), but also during his seven years of restriction when he often met with prominent church leaders and activists. He even helped to distribute ANC documents and assisted many in the struggle by channelling financial donations from abroad and helping some to flee the country. During all this time Naudé was considered a traitor and labelled a communist by the Afrikaner establishment. This neither detracted from his commitment to the struggle, nor from his identity as an Afrikaner and a minister. This steadfastness is perhaps the reason why Naudé could be claimed a hero for all South Africans, white and black, when apartheid was finally dismantled.

Unlike Naudé, Bram Fischer did not live to see the vindication of his beliefs. In this time, when Fischer has been reinstated to the Bar (posthumously), he should also be remembered in other ways. He should be remembered as a singular individual, embedded in a genealogy that predicted otherwise, who was able to resist both law and history for the sake of justice and the future.

Naudé did survive and was welcomed back by the Afrikaner establishment (with honorary degrees and awards), the Dutch Reformed Church (who apologized to him) and the new government (who named bridges and highways after him). The reaction after his death on 7 September is proof of this. Beyers Naudé has truly become recognised as a symbol of unity, reconciliation and justice for South Africans from all walks of life.

As of yet, Bram Fischer has not enjoyed such reclaiming. Hopefully, following Stellenbosch University awarding him an honorary doctorate (posthumously), this will change. Or perhaps it is up to the younger generation to reclaim both these men and celebrate the future that their courage has made possible.

*Yvonne Malan is a doctoral student and researcher at the Department of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University. Christoff Pauw is a doctoral student in theology and a researcher for the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology at Stellenbosch University.

LitNet: 15 October 2004

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