Title: Steeds op die Parlementêre Kolfblad: Met Insigte oor die Afrikaner en Afrikaans
Author: Japie Basson
Publisher: Politika
ISBN: 9780620409063
Pages: 204
Steeds op die Parlementêre Kolfblad: Met Insigte oor die Afrikaner en Afrikaans completes the trilogy memoirs of politician Japie Basson. Its predecessors are Raam en Rigting in die Politiek en die Storie van Apartheid (Politika 2004) and Politieke Kaarte op die Tafel (Politika 2006). A separate publication appeared earlier this year entitled State of the Nation as viewed from a Front Bench in Parliament 1969–1981, edited by Caro Wiese and Beverly Kenzy.
The completion of the memoir is a Herculean undertaking for a person in his ninety-first year. As a primary source of South African political history covering three-quarters of a century, it is invaluable. In a way, these writings are somewhat Dantesque, because they show a deep understanding of the undercurrent trends in a country’s political society, not always clear or apparent to the amateur.
Steeds op die Parlementêre Kolfblad appears at a time of change in the South African political arena, and so to have the benefit of the recorded memories of the experiences of an astute professional politician can throw light on the current situation. Basson’s is not a head-knowledge, but rather a firm set of practical experiences, and one feels from reading these memoirs, somewhat overlooked.
Parlementêre Kolfblad begins where Basson’s years of service in the National Party ended a half-century ago, in May 1959. The strong stance he took against Verwoerd and his ideology will be the hallmark of the man and his politics. Major Piet van der Byl explained it: "As iemand dit (aan NP-kant) sou waag om sy stem (teen dr Verwoerd) te verhef ... sou hy onmiddelik ge-Basson word."
Ostracised and alone in the political wilderness did not make it at all easy. But Basson found himself in good company – Helen Suzman of the Progressive Party was herself an Independent. The kind-natured Paul Sauer assisted Basson, and soon he was back in the South African political arena, now, far from his beloved South West Africa where he had been actively working as a politician for nine years.
Of vital importance is the view of Basson that a new direction in South African politics should follow, and this could come from a shadow party, or a third party as in the American paradigm. He explains:
Once a third party attracts substantial backing, one or both of the major parties, anxious to win over those supporters, seize the minor party’s ideas as their own ... Women’s suffrage, the graduated income tax and the direct election of senators, to name a few, were all issues that third parties espoused first, according to Steven J Rosenstone et al.
A national movement to divert the direction of the NP from its policies was Basson’s vision. In the chapter entitled "In Parlementêre Niemansland" we are presented with the proposals set out for the founding of a new party, which would end Basson’s short-lived period of isolation and place him once again in the maelstrom of South African politics, where he surely belonged. As founder of the National Union, and judging by the fiery floor debates that followed in that year, Basson’s new presence in the House was gradually becoming more and more significant.
Self-belief in the new venture in South African politics initiated by Basson, standing up against Verwoerdian ideology, and the words of Paulo Coelho, “May your morning be a beautiful one, and may the sun shine on your soldiers’ armour, for in the afternoon, I will defeat you”, are inspirational to anyone wanting to set out on a new venture.
For the National Union, explains Basson, the choice of name was paramount. It was to be more a movement than a party, and the reader can enjoy the explanations that are given. The Basson ideology with its set of principles, and the efforts of other big names in politics, takes the reader back to important times in South African politics, when it was crucial to have voices denouncing the harsh political system that apartheid became.
Wednesday 10 February 1960 was an important day in South African politics, when the NU was finally formed. A good team with plenty of experience, in Japie Basson, Hein Richter and others, was guaranteed to fill a void in South African politics. Brian Bamford’s The Realist announcing the NU’s policy to the political world soon saw support for the party grow. With our own state of politics in South Africa today, reading Basson’s prose on the matter of founding and forming a third party can give important insights into the mechanisms that are attached to this process.
The great challenge in the 1970s was to take a mildly liberal stance away from apartheid, without estranging the very electorate that supports you, as the NP knew so well. It required great skill, and assessment, and Basson gives rare insights into how this process needs to work for it to be successful. Here he commends FW de Klerk for his far-sighted moves to steer South Africa away from political disaster at a time of the important role of the Progressive Federal Party, and admits: "Hierdie wonder kry nie altyd die historiese erkenning wat dit verdien nie."
One of the features of this book is the important and interesting contextualisation of history and historical data both local and international, and the impact it has and had on South Africa. For instance, there is reference to Ramsay MacDonald’s visit to South Africa during the South African War and the observations he made then of the close links by a people to its strongholds. Basson analyses MacDonald’s observation of the time and demonstrates his own views of the situation, and how MacDonald’s insights can be applicable in our politics.
Ours is a complex historical past and solutions need to come from strong politicians, not the many weak ones Basson recalls and had to serve under. He was one of those who saw the necessity to forge ahead in a new venture and his view of this is an interesting one: "Hierdie agtergrondsegeskiedenis het die grondslag gevorm van die beginsels en die koers wat die Nasionale Unie sou inslaan." Insightful appointments such as the high-profiled Advocate Henry Allen Fagan to the position of leader of the party assured the NU of a strong growth trend.
He explains the difficult period in the run-up to the referendum for a republic. His unswerved vision for it are evident in his book. The implications of an early election destabilised the party’s plans, and the NU needed to time to regroup its energies and strategies. Basson’s throwback thoughts of the contexts of 1961 in South Africa at a crucial time in its history, even further back to the time of Union in 1910, and then fast-forwarding to 1994, demonstrates the scope and ambit of his thinking.
A bold stance is his explanations of, and views on, the lack of strong leadership when it was needed most in our country (the period covered by the book – the sixties and seventies), and wonders if there is hope yet when he asks: “Wie weet, miskien lê daar spesiale grootheid vir ons weggebêre in die minderheidsrol waarop ons tans en vir goed aangewys is – en groei daar geskikte leiers in die skaduwees.”
In "Om Reg of Verkeerd, Nie om Regs of Links Nie" Basson analyses the SWA situation ... his firsthand knowledge of the situation there forms an important chapter in the book and it contextualises Basson’s political actions in a situation that called for the strong opposition he was to give. Here he defends his right to change political direction when circumstances dictate:
Soos in die Parlement, is ek in Suidwes as ’n links-liberale Nasionalis in die idioom van Van Wyk Louw beskou. Vir myself was die politiek egter nooit ’n saak van Regs of Links nie, maar een van reg of verkeerd soos ék dit beskou.
Basson’s views on shortcomings in policies (as identified for the UPs on the Bantustans) attest again to his farsightedness. Niccoló Macchiavelli’s The Prince throughout his narrative discusses matters and issues that require astuteness from politicians as well as their awareness and their actions, a prerequisite for maintaining political power. Reading Basson one cannot help but think he somehow espoused the ideas of a Macchiavelli but the circumstances were not always conducive to their being played out.
The chapter "Na die Ou Transvaal", words from a well-known Afrikaans folk song, discusses important decisions, close alliances, and once again we see the principled politician at work. The chapter is appropriately prefaced by a quote from Disraeli: "There are principles more important even than a party."
It’s hard to believe, but there it is, storm troopers came to break up meetings conducted by the NU in the run-up to the early 1961 election: "Talle van ons vergaderings is op ’n georganiseerde wyse opgebreek, sommige met geweld wat ek in al my jare in die politiek nie gesien het nie. Dit het die NP se leierskorps volkome koud gelaat.'" We are seeing signs of these disgraceful tactics surfacing once again in our own country as electioneering intensifies with the advent of the 2009 elections, and of course it's an almost everyday occurrence in neighbouring Zimbabwe.
There are views on the calibre of leaders that Basson served under, some hard-hitting. He had respect for politicians Hertzog and Smuts, but to a lesser degree, Graaff, although his respect is for other reasons: “Graaff het nie ’n eersteministerskap gehaal nie, maar het soveel agting en liefde van sy mense geniet dat niemand die geringste kans gehad het om hom uit sy leierspos te skuif of selfs daarna sou dink het om dit te probeer doen nie.”
The political era that the book covers is the time of the most distasteful and intransigent views of the NP leaders, in stark contrast to the broader political philosophies espoused by the UP and other opposition leaders, of a more liberalist persuasion, and we know well Basson was one of them. In "Neo-Gesuiwerde Blom" we read of the dangerous views and deeds of HF Verwoerd and John Vorster and of them he writes:
Veral steurend was dat die draers daarvan hul gewaande moraliteit op die ganse Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskap wou afdruk en hul optredes gereeld in die naam van “die Afrikaner” se “wêreld- en lewensbeskouing” aangebied het – met afbrekende gevolge wat ons almal, én ons taal, tot vandag toe moet ontgeld.
Venturing beyond the political bench, Basson discusses the politics that come with works of art in Parliament. For instance, he discusses the sensitive status around the Le Vaillant vignettes, and not for a moment do the circumstances surrounding them escape his critical eye. Details of the Roworth, and the painting of General Louis Botha, are discussed, and as for the Botha statue at the entrance of Parliament, Basson opines that Botha should be remembered as one of the forerunners, together with others such as General Smuts, who served their country as others are doing today.
I found every reason to be hugely taken with a Gandhi quote in "Tussen Beginsel en Belang". It reads appropriately for Basson’s own life:
One’s life is not a single straight line; it is a bundle of duties very often conflicting. And one is called upon continually to make one’s choice between one duty and another.
There is no soft-soaping in the text, for instance, the quite hard-hitting account of Dr Van Zyl Slabbert and his role in politics. In "Tussen Beginsel en Belang" there are important references to a much regarded personality in South African politics and Basson concludes that Van Zyl Slabbert should have engaged more with the political situation in light of PW Botha’s cunning political strategies.
The important 1970s and the Soweto uprisings, as well as the ensuing repressive eras under Vorster and Botha are explicitly discussed, and stories of these characters abound from one whose career coincided with theirs.
Basson was instrumental in founding the PFP (Progressive Federal Party) in 1977, the year it became the official opposition. With important portfolios of external and constitutional affairs, it was a particularly busy period for him, especially as shadow minister of external affairs. He recounts how the NP ten years down the line (1988) assumed many of the principal points the PFP adopted at its national congress in Durban on 17 November 1978, thirty years ago, and thirty years later, much of it is what is now being practised in our country; observations are from a true visionary.
Looking currently at the situation, Basson, a vehement opponent of apartheid, quotes Professor Willie Esterhuyse who said of it: “Dié kruis sal nog lank met ons wees.” Basson cites Sampie Terreblanche’s denunciation of apartheid as “kru rassisme”, and finds the complicity by church, media and universities odious. There follows an explanation of the way opposition politics changed and began disbanding as a stronger lead was taken by the NP on the road to changing its stance on apartheid.
The detail in the book will delight the lover of party politics. There are the big names – we read about the involvement of Kurt Waldheim, Martti Ahtisaari, Donald McHenry and others, the names in world politics at the time. And there is much on local politicians PW Botha, Pik Botha, Colin Eglin, Vause Raw and George Bartlett. We remember seeing their faces on the front pages of the daily journals and on television. Now we read about them in Basson’s book, their deeds and actions, at a crucial time for all of us in South African history.
No study of South Africa’s political past can neglect the role of the “Groot Krokodil”. Basson quotes Piet Cillié of Die Burger as saying about PW: “As jy in die politiek iewers wil kom, moet jy self ’n krokodil wees; en PW is ’n groot krokodil”, and Basson calls him a “politikus der politikusse”. He recalls his first meeting during the time of WWII with the 27-year-old PW, senior to Basson by a couple of years. There are valuable insights into PW’s character from the Basson descriptions of him.
Details of South Africa’s black leaders, Mr Nelson Mandela, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi and others, as they interacted in the broader political sphere, feature in the material. And as the book nears its end we get amazing contextualisation of South Africa’s history, with reference to other countries’ difficult human diversity (India), as well as analyses of South Africa’s statesmen’s political philosophy as in JC Smuts.
There are perceptive moments of South Africa’s distant past, the Great Trek, the Anglo-Boer War, the efforts by De la Rey, David Lloyd George, Alfred Milner, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith, Winston Churchill, and once again the great Smuts. Rare cameos are explained, as in the Royal Visit in 1947, remembered vividly by Basson and described in "Oper Horison Nodig". South Africa had the chances to widen its horizons, and if stronger, more farsighted leadership could have guided the nation into a less reactionary and parochial perspective, our sectionalist history would not have been the stumbling block that it has become.
Chapter 30 towards the end of the book contextualises the new histories, seen in publications from the pen of Hermann Giliomee and Bernard Mbenga. Readers will see how Basson interprets Smuts not as a party man, and not as the British imperialist some might have made him out to be. Basson concludes his chapter "Holisme versus Imperialisme" on a very particular note about Smuts and the reader will surely see another side to the man.
Some personal reminiscences end the memoir, and a quote by ID du Plessis places for us something of the broader, happier context that life is (outside of politics). The quote stands at the start of the final chapter, entitled “’n Moppie vir 'Verjaardagdoppie'." And the chapter before, “Voorpos-denke”, introduces itself with a quote from Walt Whitman: "Have the past struggles succeeded? What has succeeded? Yourself? Your nation? Nature?” In it you get a personal glimpse of Basson, his family, his place, his mission, his philosophy, his politics, all coming together nicely, and he looks to the future.
At ninety going on ninety-one, Basson is as positive about life and the country of his birth as has always been the case. Basson grew up with politics, and still to this day his clear mind thinks, writes and lives the moments through a wealth of of knowledge, espousing wisdom and showing understanding, of a topic that has integrated itself into the soul of a great South African equal with the greatest, in its gentleness and respectfulness.
The text is handsomely illustrated with apt cartoons operating parallel with the text and has numerous historical and personal photographs to illustrate. Steeds op die Parlementêre Kolfblad: Met Insigte oor die Afrikaner en Afrikaans brings to a close the trilogy memoir, and we hope to see another publication before long.