Introduction
This post is a follow up to
In that post, I stated that Q wasn’t my first conspiracy rodeo. I introduced the theory on which I’d cut my conspiracy teeth fifty years ago. It concerned a secretive organization in South Africa known as the Broederbond. To provide context, I summarized South Africa’s history up to the Boer War, which ended in 1902.
The story now picks up from there.
Union of South Africa
Following the Boer War, the previously independent Boer republics became British colonies. The South African Republic’s name was changed to the Transvaal. Paradoxically, the subjugated Orange Free State retained its name.
In 1910, Britain’s four Southern African colonies united to form the Union of South Africa. It was comprised of:
Transvaal
It formerly had been the independent South African Republic.
Its white population originally had been predominantly Afrikaans-speaking. However, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886 had resulted in a huge influx of English-speakers.
Its largest city was Johannesburg.
Natal1
It had been a British Colony.
Its white population was largely English-speaking.
Its largest city was Durban.
Orange Free State
It had been an independent Boer republic.
Its white population was mainly Afrikaans-speaking.
Its largest city was Bloemfontein.
Cape Province
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it had been a Dutch colony.
During the Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian periods, however, it had been a British colony.
Its white population was split between English-speakers and Afrikaans-speakers.
Its largest city was Cape Town.
Parallels with the United States
The relationship between the two primary groups of whites in the Union of South Africa was somewhat similar to that between the North and the South following the American Civil War. In the American case, Northern Carpetbaggers swept into the South and took advantage of impoverished Southerners.
The ravages of the Boer War left many Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans destitute. Following the Boer War, English-speaking whites, for the most part, got the good jobs and the promotions. The Afrikaans, more often than not, got the leftovers.
Afrikaans leaders took the bull by the horns
In the aftermath of the Boer War, a handful of Afrikaans intellectuals hatched a plot. They created a secret organization called the Broederbond, which means “brotherhood” in Afrikaans.
It was an invitation-only organization. Existing members kept an eye out for promising Afrikaans students and young adults and recruited them into the Broederbond.
The organization was so secret that, on joining it, new members had to take an oath that they would never tell their wives that they belonged to it.
Initially, Broederbond members secured toeholds in corners of the civil service and private industry. When vacancies arose, they gave jobs and promotions to fellow Broederbond members. In this way, the Broederbond’s reach gradually expanded.
Hilter boosted the Broederbond’s fortunes
The Broederbond’s opportunity to expand its power base came at the outbreak of WWII.
South Africa’s white population was divided about the war. English-speakers were supportive of the Allied war effort. Afrikaans-speakers, still feeling bitter about the concentration camps into which the British had corralled their women and children during the Boer War and the prejudice they’d suffered since the Boer War, felt no sympathy for the Allies.
The South African Parliament decided by a majority of only one vote to participate in the war. Because of conflicting sentiments about the war, there was no conscription. Enlistment was voluntary.
Feeling a sense of loyalty to the Empire, English-speaking South Africans, like my father, enlisted in droves. Feeling resentful towards the Empire, Afrikaans-speaking South Africans stayed home.
With English-speaking department heads and managers fighting in the war, the Broederbond was able to pounce. Pretty much the only people who were available to fill the vacancies left by English-speaking soldiers were Afrikaans-speakers2.
It was during the war years that Afrikaans-speaking South Africans in general, and Broederbond members in particular, consolidated their power base. That greatly assisted the National Party in amassing the political clout that enabled it to win the first post-WWII election in 1948. And it was then that the National Party introduced the infamous policy of racial segregation known as apartheid.
It wasn’t always thus
To give you a seamless reading experience, I have presented this history as if I knew all of it all along and as if I always felt the empathy towards the Afrikaans people that I feel now.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Though I don’t yet know the order in which I will proceed, in subsequent installments of this series, I will share:
How South Africa’s majority black population fits into this story.
My default attitude towards Afrikaans-speaking South Africans that I inherited from my English-speaking reference group.
How my knowledge of history and my opinions evolved over time.
How I found out about the uber secretive Broederbond. (Recounted in Conspiracies I’ve known - Part III.)
The similarities that I see when I compare what I know about the Broederbond and Q.
The differences that I see between the Broederbond and Q.
What I believe was well intentioned about the Broederbond.
Where I believe the Broederbond was mistaken and the lessons we can learn from that.
Books that provide insights into South Africa’s history.
Natal got its name from the Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, who “discovered” it on Christmas Day 1497. As is so often the case with European explorers, the word “discovery” is a stretch. The land already was inhabitted by the Khoikhoi whom we shall meet in Part V of this series.
A question that likely would arise in a normal person’s mind would be, “Why were Afrikaans-speaking whites the only possible replacements for English-speaking whites? Couldn’t blacks have filled some of the vacancies?”
The short answer is, “No.”
When I describe the history of black people in South Africa, I hope it will become more apparent to the reader why that was so during that period. (See the description of apartheid in Part VII.)
Still waters run deep. Thank you for sharing your experience, strength and hope, Judith