1956 I enrolled as a student at the University of Stellenbosch (US) with no expectations of becoming an academic. As my aptitude for maths was nothing to write home about, I did not do particularly well in the final matric examination. My brother Jan and my sister Hester would later enjoy reminding me that both of them had obtained a better symbol than I did in their matric exams. In his history classes my father told the story of the past well, and was respected by his friends for his political judgement. I decided to choose history as one of my major subjects.
My student years were largely carefree. I thoroughly enjoyed life in Simonsberg residence, especially the inter-residence sport. In 1958 I was a member of the team that won the Sauer Cup for the first league of residence rugby. I was on the editorial team of the student newspaper Die Matie, but preferred writing about sport rather than student politics. The ardent nationalists on the campus put me off.
To my surprise, I was elected to serve on the SRC in 1960 despite not having published my policy in Die Matie as all the other candidates had done voluntarily. When I was questioned about this at the pre-election mass meeting known as “the Circus”, I had a pat answer. I argued that experience had taught us that candidates’ promises were seldom carried out, and that all I would promise, therefore, was to do my best according to my lights. It sounded principled, but the real reason was that I decided to stand at such a late stage that the opportunity to publish my policy had passed by.
In 1960 I was also elected primarius (head student) of Simonsberg, a residence that accommodated 280 male students. This was at a time when students had started questioning the official ban on alcohol and female visitors in the rooms. To the annoyance of Prof. Chris Gunter, the residential head, I maintained that it was not the responsibility of the house committee to be moral guardians, but only to act against students who openly flouted the rules.
Towards the end of my term as primarius, I received my first lesson in how power operates. Late one evening, about twenty Simonsbergers invaded a female residence and overturned the beds of the sleeping residents. The university authorities considered this a serious offence, and immediately requested the names of the culprits from the house committee. Without the committee’s cooperation, however, they were powerless.
I contended that the house committee had no say with regard to offences committed by Simonsberg residents outside the residence, and that we were only prepared to comply with the request if the authorities undertook not to punish the culprits. The undertaking was given verbally. Accordingly, the house committee persuaded the culprits to provide their names, with the assurance that they would not be punished.
A few days later I heard to my dismay that the university authorities had written to the parents of the offenders, informing them that their sons were guilty of a serious offence in a female residence and that any further misdemeanours would be punished severely. Evidently the authorities felt that because no one had been punished, they had kept to their undertaking. I felt that the university’s action flew in the face of the promises that had been made, but it was too late to do anything about it.
On the other hand, there were also times when the university decided not to act. One day “Vloog” Theron, an obstreperous second-year student, asked me for permission to bring two elephants to graze on the lawn in front of the residence. I thought he was joking, and did nothing to stop him. Lo and behold, a day or two later he turned up at Simonsberg with two circus elephants in tow. The following day Die Burger published a photo in which I and a few other residents looked on laughingly as Vloog and the two giant animals made themselves at home on the lawn. There was no reaction from the administration. Clearly, elephants on the loose on Simonsberg’s lawn was much less dangerous than male students on the loose at 11 pm in the bedrooms of a female residence.
A symbiotic relationship
By the time I started my studies, the university had entered the “era of Thom”. Prof. HB Thom, who was rector from 1954 to 1969, was also the only person from the south of the country who ever served as chairman of the Afrikaner Broederbond’s Executive Council. He occupied this position from 1952 to 1960. This undoubtedly boosted the AB’s membership figures on the Matie campus.
The US was a university with attitude: all students and lecturers were supposed to be extremely grateful for the privilege of being part of the US’s proud legacy. Between 1919 and 1978, all the prime ministers were US alumni. There was a symbiotic relationship between the university and Afrikaans as an official language. It was the first institution with full university status in the country that used Afrikaans predominantly as the medium of instruction. The offices of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse taal, a comprehensive descriptive dictionary aimed at reflecting Afrikaans in its entirety, were situated on the campus. And, of course, Stellenbosch had Danie Craven, who was practically synonymous with South African rugby.
The US as an institution that was unmistakably Afrikaans was founded on the winged words “Stellenbosch stands for an idea”, expressed by Dr DF Malan in 1913. By that he meant that Stellenbosch was the place from which the Afrikaner nation could best realise its ideals. The US was established a few years later through a generous bequest of the philanthropist Jannie Marais, a Stellenbosch businessman and politician, which stipulated that Dutch or Afrikaans had to occupy no lesser place than English at the institution. Almost a hundred years later, no one seems to know any more what the famous Stellenbosch “idea” was. Without much compunction, the university has allowed English to elbow out Afrikaans relentlessly as medium of instruction.
At the time of my enrolment at Stellenbosch, there were certain departments and lecturers that were justifiably rated highly. The Law Faculty was universally recognised as excellent, and the students had the greatest admiration for the dean, Prof. JC de Wet. Prof. PJ van der Merwe of the History Department was the most influential Afrikaans historian.
Encountering Verwoerd
I was a student at a time when it seemed as if white rule would remain inviolate for decades to come. Except for three or four months after the Sharpeville tragedy in 1960 – when the police shot dead 69 black people as a large crowd protested against the pass laws at the Sharpeville police station – we did not really have any fears about security. My generation was the last one which was not subject to military conscription, and we were also the generation that experienced the excitement of the final push towards a republic. I voted “yes” for the republic in the referendum of 1960. In the general election of 1961, I voted for the NP for the first and last time during the era of that party’s rule.
In 1958, when I was in my third year, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd became NP leader and prime minister. I have two personal memories of Verwoerd that are unrelated to his political ideas. At the age of about 12 or 13, I collected signatures of celebrities as a hobby. Most of the cabinet ministers replied to my written request with a brief note from their private secretaries to which the signature had been added.
Verwoerd was the only one who responded to my request with a personal handwritten note. He wrote that he had a child who was left-handed like me, and another who was the same age as me. I read later that a little girl once asked him for permission to call her pet rabbit Hendrik Verwoerd. He replied that he did not think it was a suitable name for a rabbit, but he was prepared to give his permission nonetheless. It says something about the man that he took this kind of trouble with children’s requests.
My other instance of contact with him was in June 1960, when a few students and I spent the winter holidays with our fellow Simonsberg resident Siebert Wiid at his father’s farm Welgevonden, near Groblersdal. Verwoerd and his wife arrived at Welgevonden shortly after us. He was due to address a huge crowd at Groblersdal the following day, one of his first public appearances after the failed attempt on his life three months earlier. (David Pratt, a farmer from the Magaliesburg district, had shot Verwoerd in the face while he delivered a speech at the Rand Easter Show.) We students had our meals together with the VIP guests in the main house. I sat next to Verwoerd, and I remember how calmly and convincingly he formulated his standpoint in a way that made complete sense.
On the Sunday morning of the Verwoerds’ weekend at Welgevonden, the local NP branch presented Verwoerd with a painting of him as a gift. He received it graciously, but remarked that it had a minor flaw: