My Memories of South Africa’s Twilight Years

2,408 words

As a man of an aging vintage, I look back on the changes I saw with a great degree of regret. Each reader will have seen demographic changes in their own lifetimes, as well as the erosion of social and cultural mores. In my own case, as an Irish nationalist born and bred, I have seen this in my own country. This article is mostly intended as a reminiscence rather than to argue a political or ideological point, but I write as a nationalist and an anti-liberal.

In my young manhood I had the honor to spend a short few years in South Africa during its last stand against the forces of globalism as a backroom observer of the unravelling political situation. How I as a young Irishman fresh out of school came to work as a trainee journalist and then as an office assistant in the parliamentary office of a South African MP later convicted of involvement in a murder plot is a strange story, but one that reflects the twists and turns of life as a “dissident.” I hope it brings you some pleasure in reading it, and whether lessons can be inferred or not is your own judgement.

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Coming from a provincial town in the Irish midlands, my life was very ordinary until the advent of the constitutional referendum in 1983 to insert a pro-life amendment into the Irish constitution. At the time of the referendum, I was 16 and nearing the completion of my second level education. My father (RIP) was a Dominican tertiary and was involved minorly in the referendum campaign, urging voters to support a yes vote. I, too, helped him, and we often journeyed to Dublin to attend meetings hosted by the Pro Life Amendment Campaign. It was a time of high tension, as despite overwhelming pro-life support among the people, the media was firmly against us.

In the aftermath of the referendum, which was carried by 66%, my family were increasingly aware of the heresies promoted by liberal popes during the Second Vatican Council and beyond. Through contacts formed during the referendum campaign, we began to attend Latin Mass celebrated by priests of the Society of St. Pius X. Having come within the orbit of Traditional Catholicism, we received copies of the Scottish magazine Apropos, edited by the son of Hamish Fraser, a former Communist and fighter with the Spanish international brigades who became a Traditional Catholic and renounced all Marxism.

Apropos featured articles on the true nature of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, such as how it was controlled by an inner core of the Communist Party. Jews like Joe Slovo later became well-known Communists who pulled the ANC’s strings. As I became stronger in my rejection of the Novus Ordo religion, so too did my support for the white races of South Africa strengthen. Novus Ordo bishops, including the Irish hierarchy, regularly criticized apartheid’s “racism,” which prompted an intellectual reaction from me.

I came to see the Irish bishops as deeply corrupted by liberalism. Bishop Eamon Casey, for example, was strongly influenced by liberation theology. It was ironic that when his secret child was revealed in the media, he was characterized as a “traditionalist” and a symbol of strong Catholicism. He was anything but.

As a subscriber to Apropos, I entered letter correspondence with South African traditional Catholics, which deepened my sympathy for their plight. I saw connections between the Irish and South African experiences; two small nations which were historically under the thumb of the British Empire. In the Irish canon there are several examples of solidarity with the Afrikaner Volk. One of the leaders of Ireland’s Easter Rising in 1916, Major John MacBride, previously headed an Irish commando unit during the Second Boer War. This rich history was news to many of my South African correspondents, who gained a newfound respect for the Irish nation.

Shortly before I finished my second level education in 1985, a very decent and kind family in South Africa offered me lodgings in their home. For a family principally descended from Huguenots, the fact they were Traditional Catholics was on the face of it unusual. But, regarding religion in South Africa, in my experience the avowed Protestantism of the Afrikaners was more a badge of identity than an all-consuming faith-worldview. It was deeply intertwined with their national and ethnic identity, but at no point did they allow religion to supersede these other elements. In private, South African conservatives believed all kinds of things. The Israel Vision movement was very widespread among nationalist Afrikaners, and even some parliamentarians shared its tenets. Extrinsic religiosity was a core element of what made up many Afrikaners.

Having finished my education, arrangements were made for me to begin an apprenticeship as a journalist with the Natal Mercury newspaper in Durban. Natal was always the most Anglophilic province in South Africa and was a bastion of resistance to the ruling National Party (NP), although by the time I arrived in South Africa in 1987 the influence of English-speaking “unionists” had receded greatly on the national stage. Many English-speakers re-emigrated to Britain or elsewhere in the Western world, a pattern which would become more widespread after 1994.

I arrived in Durban in 1987, where I was advised to “keep my head down” about my sympathies with the ruling government. Initially I believed the NP were defenders of the white race. I soon took a dimmer view of them. The Mercury was an English-speaking paper, and old inter-ethnic racial animosities ran deep; it was initially assumed by my employers that I, as an English-speaking emigrant, would find it impossible to sympathize with the policies of the NP government. Indeed, most emigrants from the West tended to be quite liberal in their outlook and mostly worked in South Africa for financial self-advancement.

I sympathized with the Afrikaners in my time, seeing a parallel between their struggle and the Irish struggle. And of course it all fitted within an international reading of world history and politics for me as well. My reading material in Ireland painted clear pictures of the dangers of Communism, and also delved into “untouchable” historical subjects to give the reader a more thorough understanding of the abyss of the modern world.

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My work generally focused on tracking the successes and failures of P. W. Botha’s 1983 constitution, a muddled attempt to essentially maintain the overarching status quo while watering down some elements of South Africa’s racial policy. Really, it was an effort to appease international observers; nobody seriously believed it could halt the ANC’s terrorist activities, which were backed by the Soviet Union, and it was not interested in a compromise but in securing a racial victory against the white race. The constitution’s implantation was unwieldy, a fact widely recognized. It was then that I began to step up my contacts with more “advanced” Afrikaner nationalists. The principal opposition to the Botha government from the Right came from the Conservative Party (KP), which split from the NP. A split also occurred in the Afrikaner Broederbond (AB), an organization whose influence has been greatly exaggerated.

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As a young man I was quite fed up with “keeping my head down” and keeping my views to myself in a rather liberal work environment. I had not come to South Africa to “make a few bob” or to not express myself, but to see something totally new — to see a country which was seemingly under siege by international forces. I had a naïve view that I could do something to stop this.

Whilst working as a “neutral” journalist by day, I spent my evenings fraternizing with real nationalists. The Traditional Latin Mass network remained quite an important means to meet such people for me. It was via such associates that I first met Clive Derby Lewis. He was then mayor of an area on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and privately an attendee of the Latin Mass. I believe this was the influence of his Australian Catholic wife. He made a positive impact on me, particularly his exposition of usury’s malevolence in the loan-banking system of international finance. He read fluent German, which impacted his reading habits.

When P. W. Botha called a general election for May 1987, I had had enough of being in the ringside seat as an assistant journalist; I wanted to play my part. The KP was widely seen as a party on the march, led by the late Dr. Andries Treurnicht. I know on several occasions that NP members of parliament gave strong private commitments to Dr. Treurnicht and his associates that they would support his party. NP parliamentarians constantly complained of Botha, but ultimately they failed to step outside the reservation.

Facts about the 1987 election are often misremembered. It is regularly claimed, especially in English-language sources, that there was an expectation that Dr. Treurnicht would win the general election, defeating the NP and forming his own KP-led government. This was never really said or believed. But in fact — and this, I believe, has been lost in the published history — there was a secret pre-election agreement between the KP and a group of anti-Botha NP MPs. From what I knew and subsequently learned more of, there was an expectation that the KP could win between 40-50 seats. In this scenario, it was agreed that a substantial minority of NP MPs would oppose Botha becoming state President. This would precipitate his resignation, and the rebel NP MPs would then elect one of their own as leader of the NP. Meanwhile, the KP would be reintegrated into the NP, with Dr. Treurnicht graciously allowing another to assume the party’s leadership (from the original NP wing). I am aware of the potential alternative leader’s name, but I shall not give it now for reasons of privacy. It was widely known that the NP’s vote was deeply entrenched in 1987, and that even anti-Botha voters would continue to follow their voting loyalties. Dr. Treurnicht was thus content for KP-sympathetic MPs to remain within the NP as part of this pre-election plan.

The plan fell apart, however. Why? Partly due to the underperformance of the KP, which won just 22 seats. Nonetheless, the numbers were still there within the NP to deny Botha’s election as state President, but seemingly weak-willed NP parliamentarians simply did not have the stomach for it. I certainly believe some were “got at”, by international forces and the traditional forces of the conservative establishment. But the 1987 election was a lost opportunity. I played a minor role in the KP, mostly assisting with press releases and small administrative duties. Even though this was on a voluntary basis, KP staff appreciated that I had sacrificed my employment with the newspaper by aligning with a “far-Right,” “racist” political party.

In the wake of the general election, Clive Derby Lewis understood the difficulties I was in as a young man in what was still a foreign environment, although I had lived there for two years by then. Unemployed and then living off meager savings. I found employment as a secretarial assistant of his in the Parliament, which involved relocating. I lasted less than a year in this intense environment, but during it I ran into many of the notables of the day. It was a time of high tension. I gradually became more sympathetic to the idea of “Afrikaner separatism,” which I believe was in line with Dr. Verwoerd’s plans before he was assassinated. This led to some tensions with KP staff. The “betrayal” of the weak NP members really took the wind out of the KP’s sails. Its parliamentary solution was seen as a pipe dream. It was believed by many that the country had moved beyond a “political solution.” There was a growing feeling among Afrikaners that more militant action was needed, with groups like the AWB — by then very famous — attracting members, but also more popular militia-style organizations.

In Parliament, Clive was mostly responsible for economic issues. People don’t remember it now, but the KP then was very radical in its economic stance, many of which were inspired by admiration for a certain historical regime. Many MPs who were elected for the KP were disappointed by the betrayal of the NP’s supposedly patriotic rump. Many simply stopped attending Parliament regularly, or only attended to vote. Some filtered into more extreme organizations. Some were later keen to downplay such associations, but they existed.

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My time in the South African Parliament was brief. I lasted not more than seven months before resigning. I left the country almost immediately afterwards, initially going home to Ireland. The reasons underpinning my resignation I admit I subsequently muddled. In Ireland, England, and Europe I often felt an embarrassment about my time in South Africa, particularly as people regarded anyone with even the most tenuous links with the country as suspicious. Little did many know I was involved with the more radical stream of white South African opinion! I somewhat obfuscated and implied I had left “disillusioned” with apartheid. The actual reason was simply that I never fully picked up the Afrikaner language, which made work in the Parliament basically untenable.

As this is not an autobiography, but simply a few memories, I will not continue to elaborate the twists and turns my life took afterwards. I initially remained in contact with friends in South Africa, but quickly lost interest and my life took me in other political directions which were antithetical to the views of many white South Africans for a period. Of course, Clive Derby Lewis was later implicated in the 1993 killing of Chris Hani by Janusz Walús. I have my own views on this incident which could probably be regarded as “conspiratorial,” but they are not appropriate for this article. Suffice to say I found the late Mr. Derby Lewis a decent man.

South Africa today is a very dangerous country which is the product of 30 years of non-white rule. Even during economic sanctions, the country had a spirit of belt-tightening and remained relatively stable. What made South Africa different then and now is that it once had civilization. Its alliance with Israel was obviously misplaced, an alliance which was originally to include Iran, but this was the desperate thinking of the isolated country. I have visited South Africa a handful of times since the late 1980s, but have found it in a depressing state. I watch with sadness the passing of the great race in what was once a jewel of Africa.

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