BEYERS NAUDE - AFRIKANER RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER WHO TURNED HIS BACK ON THE RACIAL POLICIES OF HIS FELLOW BROEDERBONDERS

 

BY SUBRY GOVENDER

INTRODUCTION:

During the funeral of black consciousness leader, Steven Bantu Biko, at King Williamstown in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa on September 25 1977, one prominent progressive leader caught the attention of many among the 20 000 mourners. 
He was Dr Beyers Naude, a former minister of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), who ditched the conservative background of the DRC in the early 1960s to join the anti-apartheid struggles. He rose to become secretary general of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) in 1985. 
Veteran journalist, Subry Govender, recalls that for his bravery, Dr Naude was banned, house-arrested, harassed and intimidated by the security police, and denied several opportunities to travel overseas prior to 1994.

 

                "A TRUE PATRIOT AND SON OF AFRICA"

 

On September 25 1977 at the funeral of black consciousness leader, Steven Bantu Biko, a prominent Afrikaner, who turned his back on his people’s bigotry and racial prejudices, joined the more than 20 000 mourners in giving the power salute and shouting: “Amandhla Awethu – Power to the People”.
A black colleague watching this historic event whispered to this correspondent:
“He is a true patriot and son of Africa.”

But 24 days later the black journalist, Mono Badela, who was serving a banning order at that time, and the people as a whole heard with shock and disbelief that the “true patriot”, Dr Beyers Naude, had been served with a five-year banning and house arrest order.
At the time of his banning, Dr Naude was Director of the Christian Institute – a peace organisation he had joined after resigning as a member of the Afrikaner secret body, the Broederbond, and as a dominee of the Afrikaner church, the Nederuitse Gereformede Kerk (NGK).
Dr Naude was silenced when the Pretoria regime in one major crackdown on October 19 1977 banned the Christian Institute, 17 other anti-apartheid  organisations and their leaders.
In 1985 when his banning order was lifted, he accepted his nomination as the next general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC).  He succeeded Bishop Desmond Tutu who vacated the hot seat to take up the position of Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg.
His acceptance of the SACC post marked a milestone in his political and Christian involvement in the country – an involvement which saw him fall-out with Afrikaners in the corridors of power to being one of the most respected persons among the progressive forces in the country and anti-apartheid supporters in Europe.

BECAME ACTIVE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STELLENBOSCH

Born in May 1915 in Roodeport, near Johannesburg, as Christiaan Frederick Beyers Naude to parents who were involved in the DRC, he started his schooling at the age of seven in the country town of Graaf-Reinet in the Cape Province.
After finishing his schooling, he went to the former Afrikaner University of Stellenbosch where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Afrikaans, Dutch and German.
In 1936 he completed a masters degree. While at university it was clear to all that he was destined for greater things.
He was head of the university’s SRC – a position at that time generally meant that one would eventually enter the white parliament.
However, no one realised his destiny would be with the forces opposed to the racial establishment.
After he completed his masters, he studied at a theological school at the ultra-conservative Nederduitse Gereformede Kerk (NGK) in Stellenbosch and obtained a diploma in theology.

        RELIGION AND POLITICS - A NATURAL CALLING

Religion and politics were a natural calling for the boy whose father was a dominee in the all-white NGK church, a pioneer of the Afrikaans language and a founder member of the secretive Afrikaner Broederbond.
Before he began to critically analyse what apartheid was doing to the black people, he served a number of congregations of the NGK around the country.
He was chaplin of the arch-conservative University of Pretoria, served on the executive of the synod of the Transvaal branch of the church and was moderator of the Southern Transvaal synod.
In 1940 he joined the Broederbond, an organisation which was sympathetic to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party.
The change in Naude’s life began after the Second World War when he began to question the biblical justifications for the policy of apartheid. In 1954 he began a study on the NGK church’s support of apartheid. In 1957, he claimed that he found that he, nor the “holy scriptures” could defend apartheid.
But a catalyst was needed for the young man to eject himself from the racial oligarchy.
Visits to black churches in the townships that surrounded the white cities were shattering experiences for him. They showed him at first-hand what apartheid was doing to more than 80 percent of the country’s population.

                            1960 SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE

The March 1960 Sharpeville massacre – in which more than 57 people were killed and hundreds others wounded by unprovoked police action – was a turning point in his personal history.
“I was no longer willing to be party to the injustices of apartheid,” he reflected when interacting with this correspondent in the 1980s.
In the same year in 1960 he and 80 other South African clergymen attended a gathering of churches to discuss the racial conflict in South Africa at Cottesloe in Canada.
The conference declared, among other things, that racially mixed marriages, that were still illegal at that time, could not be defended on biblical grounds and that everybody, irrespective of race, had the right to buy land where they wished.
The conference then drew up a document condemning the whole apartheid system. However, even though a number of ultra-conservative NGK delegates at the conference approved the document, their synod rejected it. Eventually Beyers Naude remained the only NGK delegate to endorse it.
In 1962 he started the ecumenical newspaper, Pro Veritate, to promote inter-racial dialogue in the country, particularly between the Afrikaner and the black people.
And when in 1963 he was offered the position of Director of the Christian Institute, he broke all links with Afrikanerdom by resigning as a dominee of the NGK church in the former Transvaal. He also resigned from the Broederbond “as a matter of conscience”.
The Institute tried to convince whites of the injustices of apartheid. This action invoked the wrath of the NGK church leaders who removed him from his position as minister.
The long, hard road of internal exile was to begin for him.

                               CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE

In the late 1960s the Christian Institute began to take a keener interest in the democratic political alternatives that faced the country.
Dr Naude’s Christian Institute sponsored an investigation into alternative ways of governing the country. Called the Sprocas Investigation, it was found that South Africa could in no way be classified as a democratic country and that the only way it could be democratic was when the government abolished all racial discrimination, released all political prisoners, allowed all exiles to return and to hold a national convention.
By then Beyers Naude and the Christian Institute, which had become more vocal in its opposition to apartheid, had become a festering sore for the apartheid regime.
In 1972 the apartheid regime appointed the Schlebusch Commission to “investigate” a number of organisations, including the Christian Institute.
During the sessions Dr Naude was called to give evidence, but he refused as he believed the Commission was too secretive and that it should have been a judicial body rather than a government one.
He was charged under the Commissions Act for refusing to testify and found guilty. He was given the option of paying a R50 fine or going to prison. Dr Naude refused to pay the fine and presented himself for imprisonment. However, an anonymous person paid his fine.
In 1975 the regime declared the Christian Institute an “affected organisation” which meant it could no longer receive any financial support from overseas. But the organisation, despite this setback, doggedly carried on with its work.

CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE AND DR NAUDE BANNED IN OCTOBER 1978

In October 1977 the government outlawed the Christian Institute and 17 other progressive organisations. At the same time Dr Naude was banned for five years. His passport was seized and he was prevented from travelling abroad.
During his years of banning he had been refused permission to travel to Stockholm to collect a R4 450 prize for his promotion of racial peace; refused permission to attend the funeral of a close friend; his car had been wrecked by a mysterious explosion; and in September 1982 refused permission to travel to West Germany to attend a book fair.
After his banning order was lifted on 26 September 1984, he joined the South African Council of Churches (SACC) as its general secretary. He succeeded Archbishop Desmond Tutu in this position and served in the Council from February 1985 until July 1988.
As chief of the SACC he played a vital role in helping progressive community-based and other organisations around the country.
After 1994, when the new South Africa was born following the election of Nelson Mandela as the new president, Dr Naude, in addition to receiving recognition for his promotion of justice and peace, was welcomed back into the Dutch Reformed Church. He was lauded as a prophet during a general synod of the DRC in 1994.
He was also awarded recognition by a number of universities in Europe and by the University of Natal in 1991 and the University of Durban-Westville in 1993.
One of the best-known landmarks in his honour is the Dr Beyers Naude motor way in Johannesburg.

When Dr Naude passed on in September 2004 at the age of 89, he was really “a true patriot and gallant son of Africa”. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com  August 28 2020