Seeking a Pure Race

I was intrigued when I recently heard of a book about South Africa written by an Australian author, Bryce Courtenay, who spent his childhood in South Africa. The book is Whitethorn. He deftly describes South Africa as "...a dark, fierce landscape where kindness and cruelty, love and hate share the same backyard."

I had heard the book was hard to read because of some of its content, so it was with some trepidation that I opened it. There were some hard parts, but overall it was an interesting story about a little orphan boy with an English name living in an Afrikaans orphanage in the northern Transvaal during World War II.

The Afrikaans and English are the two dominant white races of South Africa. The Afrikaans enforced apartheid from 1948 to 1994.

What I found most arresting was the portrayal of the Afrikaans people who ran the orphanage. They were among very radical Afrikaaners who supported Hitler during World War II, and who shared the same dream of maintaining a pure race. Hitler, by eradicating the Jews, and the Afrikaans by suppressing the blacks. I have even heard Afrikaans people refer to themselves as "the chosen race."
This support of Hitler came as a shock to me. I had not heard this before, and I have lived there.

Fortunately, as is explained in the book, not all Afrikaans were so radical. But they are known to be a stubborn and proud people.