By Mike Smith
21 June 2010

Most people today cringe when one mentions the name of Dr. Verwoerd. Even ardent right-wingers are careful to be associated with Dr. Verwoerd, normally denouncing this great visionary before the cock crows a third time. People in general believe that Dr. Verwoerd was “The Architect of Apartheid”.

This is plain nonsense as I have proved in this series. Most of the Apartheid laws were already in place when the National Party came to power in 1948. These laws were drawn up under British rule when South Africa was still a colony and during the time of Jan Smuts who was a liberal puppet of the Crown.

There is a technique in historical research to cross reference information about certain people. It works like this…

Most great historical figures are praised by their own people and loathed by their enemies. So in order to find out the true nature of an historical figure it is sometimes necessary to look at what the enemies of such people have to say. That is exactly what we will be doing in this post, but let us first have a look at Dr. Hendrik French Verwoerd

Dr Verwoerd was born to Dutch parents in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and moved to South Africa when he was two years old in 1903, shortly after the Anglo Boer War. The family moved to Rhodesia shortly after they arrived in South Africa. Most of his childhood he spent in Bulawayo in Rhodesia.

In 1917 the family settled in Brandfort in the Orange Free State. Verwoerd studied at the prestigious Afrikaans University of Stellenbosch and as a brilliant student he obtained his BA and his MA degrees cum laude. He eventually obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy that included Psychology.

Verwoerd then won two bursaries and decided to take the one that would offer him the opportunity to study in Germany. In 1925 he arrived in Germany and studied at three German universities namely Leipzig, Hamburg and Berlin.

He got married in Germany to Betsie Schoemann, toured Europe and then moved over to the USA where he did some more research. Upon his return to SA…at the tender age of 26…Verwoerd became professor in Sociology at Stellenbosch, his alma mater.
In 1937 he became editor of “Die Transvaler” (The Transvaler, an Afrikaans daily paper). In 1950 he became Minister of Native affairs in the National Party government of Dr. D.F. Malan.

It is important to note that all these Nationalist Afrikaner leaders of the time were no idiots. Dr Malan had a Doctorate in Divinity (Theology) from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands as well as a Masters degree in Philosophy. Yet most people refer to them today as “Dumb Dutchmen”…

Verwoerd was thus a man who was highly educated, well travelled and could speak several languages including Afrikaans, Dutch, German, English as well as the black languages of Zulu and Shona. He was also a natural leader whose talents were recognized at student level already.

Verwoerd was elected Prime Minister on 2 September 1958, promising to uphold with honour the democratic institutions of the country .. and .. justice between white and non-white.

Verwoerd,reformulated the Apartheid policy calling it “separate development,”
He wanted to guide Africans to self-determination once they were considered to be ready.

On the 3d of February 1960 British Prime Minister, Mr Harold Macmillan, delivered his famous “winds of change-speech” before the joint session of the Union Parliament.

On the 5th of October 1960 a referendum regarding a Republic for SA was held. The Yes vote won with a majority of 74,580 votes – 90,73% votes were cast.

Verwoerd led the nation to become a republic. On 15 May 1961 in London, at the meeting of the Commonwealth, Verwoerd announced that South Africa withdrew its membership. South Africa became a republic on 31 May 1961.

Verwoerd’s biggest critics were the English speaking press in South Africa, but let us look at what the “Rand Daily Mail” (a sworn enemy of Verwoerd) on 30th of July 1966 wrote about this great man.

“At the age of 65 Dr. Verwoerd has reached the peak of a remarkable career. No other South African Prime Minister has ever been in such a powerful position in the country. He is at the head of a massive majority after a resounding victory at the polls. The nation is suffering from a surfeit of prosperity and he can command almost unlimited funds for all that he needs at present in the way of military defence. He can claim that South Africa is a shining example of peace in a troubled continent, if only, because overwhelming domestic power can always command peace. Finally, as if that were not enough, he can face the session (of parliament) with the knowledge that, short of an unthinkable show of force by people whom South Africans are rapidly being taught to regard as their enemies, he can snap his fingers at the United Nations. Thanks to the recent judgement of the Hague Court (on the South West Africa issue) he can afford to condescend to the world body, graciously remaining a member as long as it suits him. Indeed, the Prime Minister has never had it so good.”

In his booklet, “Assassination and the tragedy of South Africa”, Jaap Marais, deceased leader of the HNP speaks of the success of Apartheid and why Dr. Verwoerd was killed.

Jaap Marais was another of these so called educated “Dumb Dutchmen”. He was a politician, an attorney a devoted ornithologists as well as the man who translated William Shakespeare’s“Julius Ceaser” into Afrikaans.

Marais states that under Verwoerd and his policy of “Separate development (“Apartheid”), the living standards of Blacks were rising at 5,4% per year against that of the whites at 3,9% per year. In 1965 the economic growth of South Africa was the second highest in the world at 7,9%. The rate of inflation was a mere 2% per annum and the prime interest rate only 3% per annum. Domestic savings were so great that South Africa needed no foreign loans for normal economic expansion.

A few months before Dr. Verwoerd was assassinated, the editor of the British periodical, “Statist”, Paul Bareau, wrote…

“At the rate at which South Africa is now expanding the term „miracle” is likely to be appropriate to its development over the next few years”.

In other words, South Africa was an emerging economic and military threat to the Anglo American establishment.

Nevertheless… All of this, South Africa under Nationalism, achieved despite of worldwide arms embargoes, economic sanctions and the entire world supporting the enemies of South Africa.

It has to be remembered that after the Anglo Boer War where the British destroyed all the economic power of the Boers by a “Scorched Earth Policy” of burning their farms to the ground, killing their livestock and interning their women and children in horrific concentration camps where 27,000 white women and children died…there was no “Bailout” or “Marshal Plan” to rebuild South Africa. The Boers rebuilt South Africa and created their own wealth singlehandedly with absolutely no foreign support.

“Time magazine”, eleven days before Dr. Verwoerd’s assassination, wrote,

“South Africa is in the midst of a massive boom. Attracted by cheap labour, a gold backed currency and high profits, investors from all over the world have ploughed money into the country, and the new industries that they have started have sent production, consumption – and the demand for labour – soaring. Such are the proportions of prosperity…”

Quotes like these are numerous and a testimony to the success of Dr. Verwoerd’s policy of “Separate development”. These quotes come from sources that were normally extremely hostile to Dr. Verwoerd and South Africa.

We will deal with sanctions in a later edition, but for now I just have to explain that the object was to bring South Africa economically to its knees, to impoverish the people (all the people and especially the blacks) so that they would start a revolution against their government. It totally backfired, because South Africa just became more and more self sufficient.

Nobody ever took the personal philosophy of the Boers into concideration. In South Africa we have a common saying, “ A Boer makes a plan”…

It is a saying, a philosophy that we grow up with, that was forged over hundreds of years on the African continent. No matter how hard it gets, no matter how tough life gets for us, we can always make a plan.

When the world imposed oil embargoes against us to bring us to our knees, we simply invented a method of making fuel from coal, known as SASOL. When the world cut of weapons, we simply started ARMSCOR and in no time we were not only self sufficient…we were exporting top of the range weapons to the very countries who imposed those sanctions against us.

Such is the will of the whites of South Africa to survive. The more the world tried to isolate us the more selfsufficient we became. Our scientists, medical doctors and engineers were some of the best in the world and leading at the forefront of technology. Our observatory at Sutherland was fully booked out by international astronomers years in advance.

Karl Marx predicted that the more Capitalism grows the poorer the common man will become and the more he will be and feel exploited. Nationalism in South Africa proved Marx wrong. The more industries were created, the more jobs were available and the living standard of blacks in South Africa was the highest on the continent of Africa.

Not only that, Nationalism ensured the survival of all the nations of South Africa….It ensured the survival of their languages and their cultures.

It was obviously a massive blow to the Anglo America establishment who wanted to destroy South Africa and get their hands on the riches of the country. The spite and envy came out in the word of Lord Deedes who said that “The Afrikaans speakers made two big mistakes. One was to leave the Commonwealth – and the other was to survive.”

So they did not reckon with the tenacity of the Afrikaners and their will to survive…not only to survive, but to prosper!

But even Lord Deedes admitted, “White South Africa grew to become the economic giant of the continent, the other members of the Commonwealth virtually sank into poverty.”

The British Foreign Office and the US State Department were disappointed to say the least. South Africa turned out to be a major success under Nationalism and every other country in Africa opposing the system of Apartheid was sinking into poverty.
What was happening at the time was that Dr. Verwoerd was winning the Cold War all by himself. He was showing the world how successful Nationalism is and he was showing up the failure that Socialism/Communism is.

Verwoerd also initiated an investigation into power monopolies known today as the “Hoek” report (1965). Verwoerd delegated the job to Professor Piet Hoek and asked him to investigate the stranglehold that economic monopolies such as Anglo American (the Oppenheimers, mining), Rembrandt (Anton Rupert, liquor and cigarettes) , Trust Bank (Jan Marais), Sanlam (A.D. Wasenaar, insurance), etc were holding.

In addition, Verwoerd destroyed the Marxist terrorist onslaught against South Africa by nipping arch Communists (including Mandela) in the bud by arresting them in Rivonia and destroying all their cells in South Africa. By 1965 the ANC and the SA Communist Party was defeated.

In her book, “People’s War”, Dr Andrea Jeffrey on page 7 quotes Oliver Tambo the leader of the ANC saying in 1964, “it appears as if the guns of MK (uMkhonto we Sizwe, Spear of the Nation, armed wing of the ANC) have been silenced for all time.”

There is no doubt that Dr. H. F. Verwoerd was a remarkable man. The best Nationalist leader and politician who ever lived and the best Prime Minister South Africa ever had.

Dr. Hendrik French Verwoerd loved South Africa with all his heart. He loved all the nations and all the cultures of South Africa. He wanted to protect and secure the future of all the rich cultures that make up the country of South Africa. “Seperate Development” was his vehicle,

He was a true patriot who turned South Africa into a first world country and the envy of the world. He laid the foundation that turned South Africa into the only nuclear power on the continent. He was “The man of Granite” who stood up against the entire world who wanted to destroy South Africa and the last vestiges of White success on the continent of Africa. He wanted to protect the culture and survival of his own people as much as he wanted to protect the culture and the survival of all the black tribes of South Africa.

Today he is despised as a “Racist” when he should be praised as a visionary.

Whilst Premier of Free State, Terror Lekota removed the statue of Hendrik Verwoerd, which had been mounted in front of the building that housed the provincial administration.

Lekota apparently found the mere sight of Verwoerd, to which he was subjected every time he showed up for work, quite offensive.

Today that statue stands in an honorary position in the Afrikaner enclave known as “Orania”

But Dr Verwoerd does not need any statue of himself. By the time he died he built his own monument which is there for all to see: The Republic of South Africa…