#004 "Bake less cake and buy more reading material!"
Afrikaner Women and Anticommunism
The historical position of Afrikaner women is a peculiar one. In the Afrikaner nationalist hierarchy of the twentieth century, their whiteness placed them well above black South Africans, while they stood in second to white men. Initially, some historians cast Afrikaner women as ‘man-made women’, who were mere passive receivers of a male-dominated agenda of nationalism. This was based on a traditional view of politics that focused on formal political institutions, where women were initially excluded or later mostly absent.
However, a broader view of what constitutes politics shows Afrikaner women as co-creators of their own identity and agents of Afrikaner nationalism in their ‘traditional’ roles as volksmoeders, in women’s organisations, and the domestic sphere. And this, as historian Charl Blignaut rightly argues, is not an untold history. It is just an ignored one, and as
writes, a somewhat “embarrassing history” to grapple with. (I highly recommend subscribing to the Afrikaans feminist newsletter 🌵!)This broader interpretation of politics opens up more possibilities to understand Afrikaner nationalism. Here I would argue that it is very helpful in understanding a key political feature of twentieth-century South Africa: Afrikaner anticommunism. This phenomenon is usually seen as a ‘natural’ product of the Cold War and, with PW Botha’s Total Onslaught in mind, the state is assumed to be the central anticommunist agent. But by looking at the voices and actions of Afrikaner nationalist women, functioning outside of the formal political sphere, often within church spaces, we see that the so-called rooi gevaar (red peril) was felt, and ‘fought’ in every crevice of Afrikaner society. This reveals the function and fluidity of anticommunism under Afrikaner nationalism, especially in the second half of the twentieth century.
🙏 Moral Anticommunism
In 1946 the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC)—the organisation with the widest reach and deepest influence in the everyday lives of Afrikaners—became a site for anticommunist unity with the formation of Antikom. It was the church’s official anticommunist organisation. Antikom was the first centralised body which coordinates Afrikaner anticommunism, and its executive, although dominated numerically by DRC ministers, represented a variety of Afrikaner nationalist intellectual streams.
This was an important development in Afrikaner women’s relationship with anticommunism for two reasons:
Firstly, the DRC, more so than any other Afrikaner institution, has long been a space where women navigated a place for themselves, albeit on the periphery. Women often became active outside the mainstream activities of the official church and formed organisations that functioned as a church within a church to guard themselves against the dominant masculine culture of the DRC. With the church becoming the home of Antikom, women were institutionally drawn into the anticommunist sphere.
Secondly, it indicated the development of the ‘battle’ against communism as a moral one. Antikom was the outcome of a conference convened by an array of moral church bodies of the DRC with the Synodal Commission for Public Morality of the Transvaal DRC being the central organiser. Speakers warned that a communist threat was thus imminent and omnipotent, but external—the threat was still ‘knocking ever so hard on the door of South Africa’ according to one speaker. By casting anticommunism as a battle on the moral front, the foundation was laid for the red peril to enter every sphere of Afrikaner life, and for every Afrikaner to enter into the battle. This included the spheres of Afrikaner women.
Anticommunism would become a central political plank of the National Party (NP) in the run-up to its election victory in 1948. In 1950 the nationalist government banned the Communist Party of South Africa, and suppressed any gathering, organisation, or person deemed by the state to be ‘communist’. These measures tended to Afrikaner fears of overt communist threats and volks-anticommunism fell somewhat dormant for the next decade.
🏠 Domesticated Anticommunism
In the 1960s an anticommunist surge kicked off. International scrutiny of apartheid and internal fissures amongst Afrikaner nationalists started to grow in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. When, in the same year, some DRC ministers denounced apartheid theology at the ecumenical Cottesloe Conference, the Afrikaner establishment—specifically the DRC bigwigs backed by the secretive Afrikaner-Broederbond and prime minister HF Verwoerd—responded as if the rooi gevaar had entered the laager. The veneer of unity and uniformity had been cracked and any dissenting voices were deemed communist-inspired; liberalism, humanist, anti-anticommunist all became proxies for the rooi gevaar.
A decade of anticommunist mobilisation ensued to whip the volk into place, during which a vision of an ideal anticommunist Afrikaner woman emerged. In 1964 Antikom called an impressive volkskongres—peoples congress—on communism. Amidst all the male speakers on the programme, one woman spoke from the floor. It was Johanna Magdalena Raath, an influential figure in the Suid-Afrikaanse Vrouefederasie, which was devout to the nationalist cause. She felt it fitting that the congress “hear the voice of the woman” and “the language of her heart”—the definitive language here is telling; she is not speaking as herself, but as a representative of all Afrikaner women, assuming a single uniform version of Afrikaner womanhood. This ideal anticommunist women “intuitively sense” communist attacks on their households and on fellow women, according to Raath. An anticommunist woman was inspired by the idealised volksmoeder:
I appeal to the [Afrikaner] woman of South Africa: South Africa has asked many sacrifices from us… [The country calls for] a spirit among women that is alert enough to sense the emergency and strong enough for her to contribute on every level… I believe that, as women, we must teach our volk and our children what volksgebondenheid [boundness to the volk] is.
A more urgent appeal emerged at a Suid-Afrikaanse Vrouefederasie gathering four years later. In a speech published in Antikom’s widely circulated newsletter, ME Pienaar further developed the position of women within an anticommunist society. Leaving the fight against communism to the male spheres of the state, police force, and military—all supported by women on the home front, especially during the Border War—was not sufficient, because:
… the preservation of the domestic sphere rests with the woman; the obligation of education before the child goes to school rests with the woman; the obligation of education outside the school rests with the woman; the formation of the child's character and the laying down of life principles rests with the woman.
It was in the domestic sphere and as mothers that Afrikaner women were confronted with the unseen elements of communist subversion. They “are indeed thoroughly concerned with the subtle propaganda that has been directed against the individual, the child, religion and the volks-tradition.”
Yet, Pienaar criticised the male-dominated anticommunist institutions and called on women to go beyond their domestic sphere and participate publicly in the fight against communism:
Has the time not come for the [Afrikaner] woman to concern herself less with the material side of life and pay more attention to the real problems of our society? Bake less cake for the stomach and buy more reading material for the mind and soul?
🌏 Missional Anticommunism
Afrikaner women’s anticommunism was not confined to the domestic sphere anymore for much longer. In 1972, during a surge of global anticommunist missionary endeavours, the DRC announced its own initiative to support missionaries and bible distribution in communist countries. The earliest—even before a full-time organiser was appointed—and most fervent support came from Afrikaner women all over South Africa.
A stream of small donations and letters from women and women’s organisations, the elderly, and children flooded the DRC. Letters sent along with the donations reveal the creativity, commitment, sincerity, and fervour of those at the grassroots. Women gathered to bake and sell pannekoek while others knitted jerseys to be distributed by missionaries. A key feature here is how Afrikaner children were also drawn into the anticommunist mobilisation—a product of the anticommunist mother. School children from small farm schools held regular drives to collect loose change from fellow students to raise funds, and some parents reported their children enthusiastically selling doilies to raise funds.
By the time the DRC appointed a full-time organiser of its anticommunist mission in 1975, the organisation had already received R2,5-million (2023) in spontaneous donations.
At the same time, Afrikaner women also initiated another mission endeavour, distributing bibles and Christian literature amongst crewmembers from so-called ‘red ships’—from Russian and Eastern European. By 1978 there were kiosks in charge of distributing bibles and pamphlets at the harbours of Walvis Bay, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, and East London. These were all initiated and organised primarily by regional DRC women’s groups.
Afrikaner women under nationalism were central in developing their own anticommunist identity and role, built on ideas of the volksmoeder as protector of Afrikaner morals, traditions, and children. But this history tells us that anticommunism was constructed on every level of Afrikaner society, not only on campaign trails, in parliament, or from podiums and pulpits. It was also in the most personal political space, the Afrikaner home, where the rooi gevaar was felt and fought.
Learnt something here