would later persuade Malan to enter politics.
In the meantime, Malan busied himself with the matters of the church – which inevitably reflected the matters of state. The four colonies moved closer together and in 1910 became the four provinces of the Union of South Africa. By the end of 1911 and in the course of 1912, the political parties that represented the Afrikaners in the Cape, the Transvaal and the Free State – the Afrikaner Bond, Het Volk and Orangia Unie respectively – dissolved themselves in order to form the South African Party (SAP). The SAP represented a new ideal: the unification of Afrikanerdom into a single party – although its membership included a few moderate English speakers.[86] The unification of the colonies prompted the DRC to consider its own unification across the new provincial borders. The debate concentrated most of its energy on the position of coloured congregants in the Cape Province. Although the Mission Church had been established in 1881 to provide for segregated worship,[87] coloured members still had the right to belong to the DRC. This right, however, did not extend beyond the borders of the Cape Province, and the northern provinces baulked at the idea of even one or two coloured members from the Cape participating in the national Synod. On this point, church unification broke down,[88] and it would only be achieved after Malan’s death.
Malan himself was in favour of the unification of the church, which he regarded as part of the broader unification of the Afrikaner nation itself. The political unification of South Africa was a dream come true and, initially, it filled Malan with cautious hope. In the light of this victory for Afrikaner unity, the failure of church unification was a genuine disappointment. Malan felt that coloured representatives in the Synod were in such a minority that their presence was negligible and could not constitute a threat to the northern provinces.
In a letter written in May 1912, he lamented the outcome, which he believed was due to poor timing – ‘[n]otwithstanding the new Union, the nation is far from realising that it is now truly one’.[89] The reality was that, among Afrikaners, provincial loyalties ran much deeper than the new loyalty to a united South Africa in which English and Afrikaans speakers formed a single nation. This provincial loyalty was manifested in a near hero worship of prominent personalities who were seen to represent a particular area. Especially in the northern provinces, the heroes of the South African War enjoyed an unrivalled amount of respect. The Transvaal was a Louis Botha-Jan Smuts stronghold, while the Free State adored ex-President Steyn and General J.B.M. Hertzog. In the Cape, admiration for its former prime minister, John X. Merriman, still ran very deep.
A new generation of Afrikaners was on the rise, however. They had not experienced the South African War, and did not have as strong a loyalty to its icons. They began to challenge Prime Minister Louis Botha’s attempts at conciliation between Afrikaners and English speakers. Botha recognised this, and it worried him. What worried him even more was the fact that the younger generation seemed to form an alliance with the most powerful of all Afrikaner institutions, the Dutch Reformed Church. He saw fit to warn Smuts against this impending threat:
Jannie, you and I will now make a stand somewhere – that is certain, for it seems clear that there is underhand collusion against our principles and moderate policy … The young Afrikaners, and especially our Church, are now going too far; we must turn them back before it is too late, for it cannot go on like this.[90]
Unfortunately for Botha, the wave of Afrikaner nationalism within the church, and among the younger generation, continued to swell, with Malan headed towards its crest. In 1911, the students of Stellenbosch organised a language conference to celebrate the Union constitution’s entrenchment of equal language rights for both Dutch and English, which marked a departure from the hegemony of English in the pre-Union colonies. At this conference, Malan gave a moving speech entitled ‘Taal en Nationaliteit’ (Language and Nationality).[91]
In his address, Malan distanced himself from the convoluted problems of linguistics once again and, instead, tied language to a broader nationalist ideal. He was convinced that all of the problems experienced by the Afrikaner community were the result of their national identity and language not being acknowledged, and because they were made to feel that theirs was an inferior culture. The situation was especially acute in schools, where the Afrikaners’ language and history were hushed into a corner. This had a detrimental effect on the Afrikaners’ character, Malan argued, since a nation that had lost its national self-respect could not hope to have a strong character.[92]
The speech revealed Malan’s interwoven world-view, as he intertwined all that was dear to him: language, nationalism and religion. Language was more than just a means of communication:
The language is the membrane that binds everything that belongs to a nation together and makes it one. It is the peel around the fruit, the skin around the body, the bark around the tree; it is not only there to bind together and to include, but also to fence off the outside and simultaneously to make all healthy growth and expansion possible.[93]
To Malan, nationalism was a living, growing organism. It was holy, since the nation only existed because God had willed it so. Malan believed that God revealed himself in history, which proved time and again that disintegration, rather than integration, was the natural order. The tale of the Tower of Babel was an expression of this deep psychological and historical truth. Humanity was diverse, and imperialism, which sought to wipe out this diversity by imposing the hegemony of a single culture, was directly opposed to God’s will. Christianity brought unity, but not at the expense of cultural diversity. Instead, Christianity honoured and elevated it. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit enabled the apostles to speak various languages – and the translation of the Bible into the local German vernacular was an integral part of Luther’s Reformation. Based on this evidence, Malan declared to his audience: ‘My nationalism rests, in the last instance, on a religious foundation.’[94]
Malan believed that, to realise these ideals, forceful personalities and men of character were needed. To Malan, manhood was synonymous with adulthood and a steadfast character. This was an ideal that he strove to achieve in his life, and that he used to inspire others. Years before, when he was a student at Stellenbosch, one of his professors, J.I. Marais, had lamented the dearth of true men. His words had set Malan thinking, and it was in answer to this that he formulated his description of a true man, which he included in the speech:
What is a man? A man is someone with inner strength, someone who is not like the tide, moved and swayed by every wind, but who can assert himself in any environment. A man is someone who can leave his mark on others, because he has his own character. He is someone who has convictions, who knows what he wants, who is aware that he stands for something. A man is someone who knows that there are principles he must hold on to no matter what the cost, and who would, if necessary, willingly give his life for these principles. That is a man.[95]
In reaction to the speech the chairman of the conference, Professor A. Moorrees, rose and pointed to Malan, exclaiming, ‘There is a man!’ To which the audience responded with thunderous applause.[96]
Malan appreciated the force of personality as a vehicle for historical change. He believed that the world was a better place because a Luther had brought about the Reformation[97] – or because an Elijah had defied an Ahab. Even though he did not maintain any contact with his acquaintances in the Netherlands, Professor Valeton’s voice was still echoing in Malan’s ears, and the image of the prophet Elijah was still in his mind’s eye. A mere two months after his moving description of a true man, he was back in Stellenbosch to expand on the ideal in an address entitled ‘De Profeet Elia en zyne beteekenis voor den tegenwoordigen tyd’ (The Prophet Elijah and his relevance to the present day).[98] The address bore a striking resemblance to Valeton’s ‘De strijd tusschen Achab en Elia’ (The battle between Ahab and Elijah).[99] Malan, like Valeton, recounted the power struggle between Ahab – the clever statesman who saved Israel through his shrewd alliances, but at a terrible cost – and Elijah, who would rather perish than compromise the truth as determined by God.[100]
The manner in which
