Hendrik Verwoerd Quotes

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd [fə'vu:rt] , also commonly referred to as H. F. Verwoerd and Dr. Verwoerd, was a Dutch-born South African politician, sociologist and journalist. As leader of South Africa's National Party he served as the last prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1958 until 1961. In 1961 he proclaimed the founding of the Republic of South Africa, and continued as its prime minister from 1961 until his assassination in 1966 by Dimitri Tsafendas.

Verwoerd was an authoritarian, socially conservative leader and an Afrikaner nationalist. His goal in founding the Republic of South Africa, thereby leaving the Commonwealth, was to preserve minority rule by white Afrikaners over the various non-white ethnic groups, including Bantu, Khoisan, Coloured and Indian people, who were the majority of South Africa's population. To that end, he greatly expanded apartheid , the system of forced classification and segregation by race that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.Verwoerd characterised apartheid as merely "good-neighbourliness", but its practical effects have been widely condemned, then and since, as a form of racism. Decisions that Prime Minister Verwoerd made in the areas of legislation, law enforcement and public policy caused almost the entire non-white population of South Africa to be disenfranchised, lose civil rights, and suffer discrimination. Verwoerd heavily repressed anti-apartheid activism, ordering the detention and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people and the exile of further thousands, while greatly empowering, modernising and enlarging the security forces and army. Black-dominated political organisations such as the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress were banned under Verwoerd, and ANC leaders including future President of South Africa Nelson Mandela were prosecuted for sabotage in the Rivonia Trial.Although apartheid existed before Verwoerd took office, his efforts to place it on a firmer legal and theoretical footing, in particular his opposition to even the limited form of integration known as baasskap , have led him to be dubbed the Architect of Apartheid. It was the actions of Verwoerd that prompted the United Nations in 1962 to pass Resolution 1761 condemning apartheid, which ultimately led to international isolation and economic sanctions against South Africa.

Prior to entering politics, Verwoerd was considered an exceptional student and achieved great academic success at a young age. He was appointed a professor of applied psychology at Stellenbosch University in 1927 at the age of 26, and later became head of the sociology department in 1933.

✵ 8. September 1901 – 6. September 1966
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“Israel is not consistent in its new anti-apartheid attitude… They took Israel away from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a thousand years. In that, I agree with them. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.”

Quoted in The Empire's New Walls: Sovereignty, Neo-liberalism, and the Production of Space in Post-apartheid South Africa and Post-Oslo Palestine/Israel, by Andrew James Clarno, 2009. pp. 66–67

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