F.S. Malan: Prophet without Honour

Francois Stephanus Malan (1871-1940), an Afrikaner newspaper editor and politician, is one of the most complex figures in South African history. In an era of racism, oppression and exploitation when whites regarded blacks as a barbarous threat to their supremacy he refused to pander to these fears. With the fervour of an Old Testament prophet he argued that white survival could be secured only through the extension of equal political rights to all races. Yet he was also an Afrikaner nationalist, playing a leading role in the Cape Colony defending the volk’s interests against British domination. But he desired a united, stable and prosperous South Africa in which, free of internal British control, Afrikaners and English-speakers could overcome their enmity and become one nation.