Special Hearings — Political Party Recalls — 1997-05-16

GEN VILJOEN: I think this might be a bit of a long answer but if I have to answer this you have to take it from the development of the conflict and how it developed.  I think we must bear in mind that the South African conflict is not a simple one, it came from a simplistic number of factors. The complex grew from a conflict of interests of many peoples in this country.  It grew because of the peculiar history. It grew because of the arbitrary colonial boundaries which we see all over Africa. It came before because of differences in civilisation, it became because of heterogeneity and the development in South Africa after the traditional, or the historical agrarian type of concentrations of people became disturbed by the modernisation of the economy by the diamonds and gold that became the items which drew people away from their agrarian  living patterns towards the economy that created the new heterogenic nature in the country.
 This certainly, the riches that we developed, this was part of the problem of the Afrikaner but also part of the problem of the African. Because the riches lured in foreigners and the foreigners came in and they started taking the riches for themselves, because the Afrikaners were at that stage more living in the agrarian type of life and the blacks were also living in the agrarian type of life, and then the Afrikaners moved towards the working opportunities and the Black people also moved towards the working opportunities.
 So the modern economy caused the labour migrations and this caused conflict, and then the bedeviling factor as far as the Afrikaner was concerned was when Great Britain came in, deviated from its agreements on sovereignty for the two provinces of the Free State and Transvaal and started to put its hands on the riches of the Transvaal especially. The result was from this that the Afrikaner consolidated in and around a dangerous sentiment of being threatened, which is a collective feeling that we were collectively being threatened, we are collectively being treated in an unjust way, and that also unjust discrimination was being affected against the Afrikaner in his own land by the foreigners that came in and by the pressure from the British Government after annexation.
 From the blacks we had the same problem.  They also came in and they had the same problem of collective injustice because they were exploited in the labour fields   and they were also experiencing or having the perception or feeling the perception of being deprived collectively.  This also caused a conflict and when the Afrikaner went into conflict with the Anglo Boer War, that conflict ended unfortunately the way it did. And then thereafter the Afrikaner dug in their heels, they have resisted being overrun and they dug in their heels not to allow in any way, anybody to take over from them again, the government.
 And this is an attitude of the Afrikaners, it's an historical fact, it's within the historical context of those days.  But the Afrikaners were not lacking sensitivity towards the Blacks in amongst them. In fact what we could clearly see from the Afrikaner people is what we have seen in the Great Trek, whenever they went into an area of a tribe, they would see the chief or the headman of that tribe, they would negotiate with him, they would have good cooperation with him and never did they try to subvert that tribe for the sake of labour or for the sake of advancement of the Afrikaner's interests. But the clash came when both the Afrikaner and the black man after the Anglo Boer War and after the 1910 effort to make a constitution, because in this constitution the Afrikaner did not get what he wanted but the Black people also didn't get what they wanted.
 So the master plan was then developed as we went on the new Union of South Africa, and in this master plan, the Afrikaner felt an urge to give independence to the Black people in the right way, how it used to be in the old days living in the agrarian patterns of living thereby caring for their ability to govern themselves, but I must admit also, for the sake of our own survival. And I don't think that was completely wrong.
 Sir the basic motivation of the Afrikaner people in this historical period was that of finding a fair and equitable dispensation for themselves and for the other people in the country. This by the way Chairperson was in line with world tendencies of those days.  You will recall that in the early parts of this century we used to have nation states, states which were pretty homogenous in their population and in the original applications principle of self determination after the first World War, the original meaning of self determination was actually to try to find an area where a homogenous nation would be grouped and they would govern themselves with as little as possible influence from elsewhere. But as this urbanisation took place and as the economy changed the world, the Afrikaner was also faced with a new concept or the new development, that of heterogeneity, that of sharing land and living space together.
 I think the basic approach of the Afrikaner people was very just and very good and very honest but I think the problem came with making a few mistakes. Firstly by not consulting with the leaders of the Black people at that stage,or maybe I should say further by not consulting with the real leaders of the Black people at that stage.
 Secondly their incorrect concept of self determination, but you can excuse them for this because at that stage even when I started with the principle of self determination in 1993, I still found many works on self determination referring to it as a concept of a nation state and the concept of self determination had changed as the composition of states became more heterogeneous. 
 So I think the difficulty of the Afrikaner and the mistake that was made, was that it wanted to force down the throats of the Black people each perception.  In other words it was a paternalistic approach, maybe it was event the idea of caring for the people, of a mandate for caring for people, for looking after them because, maybe of a sense of superiority, but I think it was well meant, there is no doubt about it, but it was wrong to force down the throats of people a system of self determination, however good that might have been then, them not accepting this.
 So I think those were the mistakes made but with a basic approach of separate development, much can be said about the good intention of this.
 I want to add one thing more Chairperson, I'm not sure if we had good communication, if the channels of communication were open in 1961 and 1960, round about those days, even after the Freedom Charter of the ANC, I'm not sure whether, had the communication channels been opened, whether a modified form of the principle of separate development and governing yourself, whether that would not have materialised, but I think the lack of communication and the build up in the conflict, the escalation of the conflict, I think that eventually made that impossible and today many people, even the National Party would give half their riches to get back the possibilities of what could have been reached in 1961.
 The point I'm making is, one shouldn't condemn the idea of separate development in total.  The effect of the resistance that developed world-wide, and the effect of coupling the good points of separate development with the bad points of apartheid, I think that eventually destroyed what was good about the whole system, and that is what led eventually to a complete rejection by the National Party of what they have created themselves.  (end of tape)

CHAIRPERSON: .....and that it will be making a - ask a question before Mr Mpshe goes on.  Dr Boraine.