“Are We Afrikaners Getting too Rich?”1 Cornucopia and Change in Afrikanerdom in the 1960s

Abstract

This article attempts to correlate the unprecedented economic growth of the 1960s in South Africa with shifts in patterns of consumption, attendant lifestyle changes and forms of status identification among Afrikaners. Moreover the subse- quent divergences in Afrikaner nationalist politics and the demise of apartheid are explored in terms of the rise of the Afrikaner middle-class as one, hitherto largely unexamined, factor in the political transition in South Africa during the 1990s. ***** The 1960s are usually characterised in South African history as the time when apartheid flourished under the ever-watchful and all- knowing eyes of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, who for many whites was the symbol of an inspirational leader until his assassi- nation in 1966. The historical markers of this period are well known: Verwoerd led South Africa to becoming a Republic and he acted forcefully against the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress by banning them following the events at Sharp- eville on 21 March 1960 when 69 black protesters died after the police shot at them. Apartheid gradually encompassed more and more facets of South African life and the National Party went from strength to strength at the polling booths. At the same time the African National Congress had to re-establish itself in exile. These events were obviously of great import and rightly attracted the attention of numerous historians. The constant emphasis on apartheid and formal Afrikaner politics has, however, led to histo- rians neglecting the simultaneous socio-economic undercurrents in Afrikaner society and assessing their wider cultural and political impact. Whites are usually viewed as the agents of a repressive society during this period but, as the historian William Beinart has remarked, they too have a complex social history. 2 For a fuller historical understanding of the South African social formation as a whole, internal and more subterranean developments in white society should be taken equally seriously as those informing the larger issues in South Africa. This article thus seeks to explore some of the dynamics that helped to shape a new Afrikaner social world during a period of unprecedented economic growth. The notion of a social world in this