English‐speaking white elites in South African politics

Abstract

In 1966 it was calculated that the English‐speaking group comprised 37 per cent of the White population, compared with 58 per cent of the Afrikaans‐speaking group. Furthermore, the Afrikaans‐speaking group is multiplying at a slightly faster rate than the English‐speaking group. The English speakers numerical minority is compounded by their concentration in the urban areas which are comparatively speaking under‐represented. The article shows that this group was hardly represented at all in 1968 in the higher councils of formal government structures, legislative, executive, or bureaucratic, where the major political decisions are made.

Furthermore, the English‐speaking group is shown to be politically refracted in contrast to the political unanimity of the Afrikaner group. Political refraction tends to increase their political impotence. They also showed themselves to be comparatively apathetic, with the highest rate of non‐affiliation to any party, and the lowest number of party activists. Such apathy has been variously explained by their minority status (Lever), their relatively recent arrival (Stone), and by cross pressures operating on them, particularly in the commercial, industrial and professional sectors.

Testing for political attitudes revealed differences in the concept of democracy. The Afrikaner would appear to stress the role of the group and the primacy of its rights over those of the individual in politics and even in economics; the English speaker sees the role of the individual and his rights as of primary significance in politics and economics. Their attitudes, pragmatic and tolerant, render them even more ineffective when faced by the ethnocentric, cohesive and ideological Afrikaners, who have welded themselves into a party of integration, and who man the organs of a highly centralised, strong executive‐type government.

In this situation the English speaker has restricted opportunities to make himself politically effective. He can become a creative minority (Curney), or a reconciling “bridge” group (Butler). Their relative openness to external influences might help to bring more universal influences to bear on the closed parochial South African body‐politic. But both roles call for increased group consciousness and commitment, and a willingness to act out values in the spheres which retain some autonomy, namely local government, universities, private schools, the Church, and commerce and industry.