INTRODUCTION; This could be South Africa......in theory. If I were in S.A. on this momentous day and I would be afforded the opportunity to speak, this is what I would have to say; I have prepared this letter for publication on a date which is full of significance for the European people in SA, the 16th December. The beginning of that great internal revolution which in the meantime has been on everyones minds and will give a new aspect to European life in SA. It is a period of four years which I ask the South African people to grant me for the purpose of putting our work to the test and submitting it to their judgment. Hence at the present moment nothing could be more opportune than for me to render you an account of all the successes that can be achieved and the progress that can be made during these four years, for the welfare of the South African people. But within the limits of the short statement I have to make, it would be entirely impossible to enumerate all the remarkable results that can be reached during a time which may be looked upon as probably the most astounding epoch in the life of our people. That task belongs rather to the press and the propaganda. Moreover, during the course of the next year there will be an expose of the many preparations and much to be organized for the purpose of giving a more comprehensive and detailed picture of the works that have been planned, the results that have been foreseen and the projects on which work must be begun, all of which can be explained better in this way than I could do it within the limits of an address that is to last for two hours. Therefore I shall utilize the opportunity afforded me by this historic day to cast a glance over the next four years and call attention to some of the new knowledge that we have gained, some of the experiences which we have been through, and the consequences that have resulted thereof - in so far as these have general validity. It is important that we should understand them clearly, not only for our own sake but also for that of the generations to come. THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE OF SOUTH AFRICA When people ask me what is the National Christian Alliance, who are members, what do they stand for and what are the goals, I can answer these questions in a couple of short sentences: The NCA of SA is a group of sound thinking people who have their roots in European countries who have the desire to live out their culture, religion, traditions and way of life in a state governed BY THEMSELVES, FOR THEMSELVES for the good of their heritage, their christian values and the preservation of a nation built on moral principles, sound economic policy, open relations with all friendly nations, and peace with all neighboring countries. The alliance will be composed of all political parties and groups in South Africa who have an interest in peaceful co-existence with neighboring countries but will not tolerate interference from any quarter. We as Christian Caucasians whose roots reach as far back as Adam and Eve and have the same rights to sovereignty as do the billions of citizens of the United States of America, the South American States, Australia, New Zealand and even parts of the Russian Federation. We also have a right to our own religious, cultural, economic, political, art, scientific and industrial sovereignty. We do NOT propagate segregation or APARTHEID, we do stand and we will fall for an own state governed for our people, by our people, a place on earth where we can live in peace. UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW EVERY PEOPLE WITH COMMON CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, AND TRADITIONAL VALUES AND HAVE A COMMON LANGUAGE, HAS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO SELF RULE AND SELF DETERMINATIONAL WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF A SOVEREIGN STATE. Based upon this legal foundation which is anchored in the Charter of the United Nations, the states of Palastine, Israel, Pakistan, India and more recently South and North Sudan and many more Nations and states gained their sovereign status. Having said this, I shall begin to explain our attitude toward those problems and tasks whose importance for us and for the world around us must be appreciated before it will be possible to live in better relations with one another. Finally I should like to describe as briefly as possible the projects which we have in mind for our work in the near future and indeed also in the distant future. RETROSPECTIVE: THE LAST TWENTY YEARS AND THE MEANING OF THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION At the time when I used to go here and there throughout the country, simply as a public speaker, people from the bourgeois classes used to ask me why we believed that a revolution would be necessary, instead of working within the framework of the established political order and with the collaboration of the parties already in existence, for the purpose of improving those conditions which we considered unsound and injurious. Why must we have a new party, and especially why a new revolution? The answer which I then give may be stated under the following headings: (1) The elements of confusion and dissolution which are making themselves felt in SA life, in the concept of life itself and the will to national self-preservation, cannot be eradicated by a mere change of government. More than enough of those changes have already taken place without bringing about any essential betterment of the distress that exists in SA. All these Cabinet reconstructions brought some positive advantage only to the actors who took part in the play; but the results were almost always negative as far as the interests of the people were concerned. As time has gone on the thought and practical life of our people have been led astray into ways that are unnatural to them and injurious. One of the causes which brought about this condition of affairs must be attributed to the fact that the structure of our State and our methods of government were foreign to our own national character, our historical development and our national needs. The parliamentary-democratic system is inseparable from the other symptoms of the time. A critical situation cannot be remedied by collaborating with the causes of it but by a radical extermination of these causes. Hence under such conditions the political struggle must necessarily take the form of a revolution. (2) It is out of the question to think that such a revolutionary reconstruction could be carried out by those who are the custodians and the more or less responsible representatives of the old regime, or by the political organizations founded under the old form of the Constitution. Nor would it be possible to bring this about by collaborating with these institutions, but only by establishing a new movement which will fight against them for the purpose of carrying through a radical reformation in political, cultural and economic life. And this fight will have to be undertaken even at the sacrifice of life and blood, if that should be necessary. In this connection it is worthy of remark that when the average political party wins a parliamentary victory no essential change takes place in the historical course which the people are following or in the outer aspect of public life; whereas a genuine revolution that arises from a profound ideological insight will always lead to a transformation which is strikingly impressive and is manifest to the outside world. Surely nobody will doubt the fact that during the next four years a revolution of the most momentous character will pass like a storm over SA. Who could compare this new SA with that which existed on the 24th of April twenty years ago. I am speaking of a National Revolution; but this revolutionary process in South Africa will have a particular character of its own, which may be the reason why the outside world and so many of our fellow-countrymen will fail to understand the profound nature of the transformation that will take place. I do not deny that this peculiar feature, which will be for us the most outstanding characteristic of the lines along which the National Christian Revolution will take place--a feature which we will be specially proud of--will hinder rather than help to make this unique historic event understood abroad and among some of our own people. For the National Christian Revolution will in itself be a revolution in the revolutionary tradition. What I mean is this: Throughout thousands of years the conviction grew and prevailed, not so much in the SA mind as in the minds of the contemporary world, that bloodshed and the extermination of those hitherto in power--together with the destruction of public and private institutions and property--were essential characteristics of every true revolution. Mankind in general has grown accustomed to accept revolutions with all these consequences somehow or other as if they were legal happenings. I do not mean that people endorse all this tumultuous destruction of life and property; but they certainly accept it as the necessary accompaniment of events which, because of this very reason, are called revolutions. Herein lies the difference between the National Christian Revolution and other revolutions, with the exception of the Fascist Revolutions in Germany and Italy. The National Christian Revolution should be an entirely bloodless proceeding. When the National Christian Alliance takes over power in its own part of SA, after overthrowing the very formidable obstacles that have stood in its way, it will do so without causing any damage whatsoever to property. I can say with a certain amount of pride that this will be the first revolution in which not even a window-pane will be broken without due cause. Dont misunderstand me however. If this revolution is to be bloodless that will not be because we are not manly enough to look at blood. I was a soldier for more than four years in a war where more blood was shed than ever before in SA history. I never lost my nerve, no matter what the situation was and no matter what sights I had to face. The same holds good for many of my colleagues. But we do not consider it as part of the program of the National Christian Revolution to destroy human life or material goods, but rather to build up a new and better life. And it will be the greatest source of pride to us when we have been able to carry through this revolution, which is certainly the greatest revolution ever experienced in the history of our people, with a minimum of loss and sacrifice. Only in those cases where the murderous lust of the Communist Racists, even after the 24th of April 1994, led them to think that by the use of brute force they could prevent the success and realization of the National Christian ideal--only then will we answer violence with violence, and naturally we will do it promptly. Certain other individuals of a naturally undisciplined temperament, and who have no political consciousness whatsoever, will have to be taken into protective custody; but, generally speaking, these individuals will be given their freedom after a short period. Beyond this there are a small number who take part in politics only for the purpose of establishing an alibi for their criminal activities, which will be proved by the numerous sentences to prison and penal servitude that have been passed upon them previously. We will prevent such individuals from pursuing their destructive careers, inasmuch as we set them to do some useful work, probably for the first time in their lives. I do not know if there ever has been a revolution which will be of such a profound character as the National Christian Revolution and which at the same time allows innumerable persons who have been prominent in political circles under the current regime to follow their respective callings in private life peacefully and without causing them any worry. Not only that, but even many among our bitterest enemies, some of whom have occupied the highest positions in the government, will be allowed to enjoy their regular emoluments and pensions. That is what we will do. But this policy will not always help our reputation abroad. I know that many will scorn upon us when we incarcerate the likes of Julius Malema and the other communist agitators including those who are in the more moderate parties and even in parliament yet follow the direction of the communist regime. Perhaps it is because I am not very well informed on current affairs that I have not heard whether those honorable ladies and gentlemen have ever expressed their indignation at the various acts of sanguinary violence which these Moscow trained criminals committed in South Africa, or whether they ever expressed themselves against the slogan: Strike down and kill the farmer and boer wherever you meet him, or whether, for example, they have taken the occasion of recent happenings in Zimbabwe and SA to express their indignation against slaughtering and violating and burning to death thousands upon thousands of men, women and children. If the revolution in SA where to take place according to the democratic model in Zimbabwe and SA since 1994, these strange apostles of non-intervention abroad would probably find that there was nothing which they need to worry about. People closely acquainted with the state of affairs in Zimbabwe and SA have assured us that if we place the number of persons who have been slaughtered in this bestial way at 170,000, the figure will probably be too low rather than too high. Measured by the achievements of the noble democratic revolutionaries in South Africa and Zimbabwe, the quota of human beings allotted for slaughter to the post 1994 terror upon Euro Africans would have been about 400,000 or 500,000; because our population is about three times larger than that of Zimbabwe. That we do not want to carry out this mass-slaughter will apparently be looked on as a piece of negligence on our part. We see that the democratic world-citizens are by no means gracious in their criticism of this leniency. We certainly have the power in our hands to do what has to be done in South Africa. And probably we have better nerves than the murderer who steals upon his victim unawares, shunning the open fight, and who is capable only of murdering defenseless hostages. We have been soldiers and we never flinched in the face of battle throughout that most gruesome war of all time in South Africa. Our hearts and, I may also add, our sound common sense will save us from committing any acts like those which have been done against our people. Taking it all in all, fewer lives will be sacrificed in the National Christian Revolution than the number of NCA followers who were murdered in SA by our communist racist opponents in the years since 1994 alone, when there was no revolution. This absence of bloodshed and destruction can only be made possible solely because we have adopted a principle which not only guided our conduct as Soldiers in the past but which we shall also never forget in the future. This principle is that the purpose of a revolution, or of any general change in the condition of public affairs, cannot be to produce chaos but only to replace what is bad by substituting something better. In such cases, however, something better must be ready at hand. All the means employed in carrying on the struggle will be strictly within international law as it stands and the protagonists in the fight will be the National Christian Alliance. Before the new State can be actually established and promulgated, the idea of it and the model for its organization must already exist within the framework of our alliance. All the fundamental principles on which the new Republic is to be constructed are the principles and ideas already embodied in the National Christian Alliance. As a result of the constitutional struggle to win over our South African fellow-countrymen to our side the Alliance has to establish its predominance in the country and for a whole year before it actually assumes power it must already have the right to demand this power for itself, even according to the principles of the parliamentary-democratic system. But it is essential for the National Christian Revolution that this alliance should put forward demands which of themselves would involve a real revolutionary change in the principles and institutions of government hitherto in force. When certain individuals who were blind to the actual state of affairs thought that they could refuse to submit to the practical application of the principles of the movement which will be entrusted with the government of the new republic, then, but not until then, the NCA will use an iron hand to make these illegal disturbers of the peace bend their stubborn necks before the laws of the new National Christian Alliance and the new Government in a new State. With this act the National Christian Revolution will come to an end. For as soon as the alliance has taken over power, and this new condition of affairs is consolidated, I look upon it as a matter of course that the Revolution should be transformed into an evolution. The new development which will then set in, will however, mean that there has to be a new orientation not merely of our ideas but also in regard to the practical policy which we have to carry out. Even then certain individuals who have fallen in the march of events will refuse to adapt themselves to this change. They cannot understand it because it is beyond their mental horizon or outside the sphere of their egotistic interests. Our National Christian Alliance teaching will undoubtedly have a revolutionizing effect in many spheres of life and on those who interfered and acted under the revolutionary impulse. TOTALITARIANISM AND INDIVIDUALISM: THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHNICITY The main emphasis in the National Christian Alliance program is to abolish the liberal concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute therefore the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood. A very simple statement; but it involves a principle that has tremendous consequences. This is probably the first time and this is the first country in which people are being taught to realize that, of all the tasks which we have to face, the noblest and most sacred for mankind is that each species must preserve the purity of the blood which God has given it. And thus it happens that for the first time it is now possible for men to use their God-given faculties of perception and insight in the understanding of those problems which are of more momentous importance for the preservation of human existence than all the victories that may be won on the battlefield or the successes that may be obtained through economic efforts. The greatest revolution which National Christianism will bring about is that it has rent asunder the veil which hides from us the knowledge that all human failures and mistakes are due to the conditions of the time and therefore can be remedied, but that there is one error which cannot be remedied once men have made it, namely the failure to recognize the importance of conserving the blood and the race free from inter mixture and thereby the racial aspect and character which are Gods gift and Gods handiwork. It is not for men to discuss the question of why Providence created different races, but rather to recognize the fact that it punishes those who disregard its work of creation. Unspeakable suffering and misery have come upon mankind because they lost this instinct which was grounded in a profound intuition; and this loss was caused by a wrong and lopsided education of the intellect. Among our people there are millions and millions of persons living today for whom this law has become clear and intelligible. What individual seers and the still unspoiled natures of our forefathers saw by direct perception has now become a subject of scientific research in Germany and elsewhere. Through DNA research and analysis it has become clear that all Europeans and to a lesser extent other ethnic groups all have Neanderthal genes, which are not present in any African tribes and I can prophesy here that, just as the knowledge that the earth moves around the sun led to a revolutionary alternation in the general world-picture, so the blood-and-ethnicity doctrine of the National Christian Alliance Movement will bring about a revolutionary change in our knowledge and therewith a radical reconstruction of the picture which human history gives us of the past and will also change the course of that history in the future. And this will not lead to an estrangement between the nations; but, on the contrary, it will bring about for the first time a real understanding of one another. At the same time, however, it will prevent the different peoples from intruding themselves among all the other nations as elements of internal disruption, under the mask of honest world-citizens, and thus gaining power over these nations. We feel convinced that the consequences of this really revolutionizing vision of truth will bring about a radical transformation in all our lives. For the first time in our history, The South African people will have found the way to a higher unity than they ever had before; and that is due to the compelling attraction of this inner feeling. Innumerable prejudices will have been broken down, many barriers will have been overthrown as unreasonable, evil traditions will have been wiped out and antiquated symbols shown to be meaningless. From that chaos of disunion which has been caused by tribal, dynastic, philosophical, religious and political strife, the South African Euro African people will arise and unfurl the banner of a reunion which symbolically announces, not a political triumph, but the triumph of the christian principle. For the future years NCA legislation will uphold and enforce this idea. When in the future, a state of affairs already in existence is legalized by the fact that a National Christian Alliance member is entrusted with the Presidency, whereby the alliance whose supremacy in The New Republic will then become unquestionable and authorized to take over the government of The New Republic and mold the future destiny of all Euro Africans; so this legislation when in force will be the only legal sanction which gives jurisdiction and binding force to an idea that has already been clearly formulated and promulgated by the Alliance. When the SA European community, based on the racial blood-bond, becomes a reality in the New State we will all feel that this would remain one of the finest moments to be remembered during our lives. Like a blast of springtime it will pass over South Africa for years to come. The fighting forces of our movement who for many years have defended the banner of the Cross against the superior forces of the enemy, and have carried it steadily forward for a long twenty years, will now plant it firmly in the soil of the new Republic. THE NATIONAL CHRISTIAN REVOLUTION: ELIMINATING CLASS DIFFERENCES Within a few weeks the political debris and the social prejudices which have been accumulating through hundreds of years of SA history will be removed and cleared away. May we not speak of a revolution when the chaotic conditions brought about by the multi ethnic parliamentary-democracy disappear in less than three years and a regime of order and discipline takes their place, and a new energy springs forth from a firmly welded unity and a comprehensive authoritative power such as SA has never before had? So great will be the Revolution that its intellectual foundations are not even yet understood but are superficially criticized by our contemporaries. They talk of democracies and dictatorships; but they fail to grasp the fact that in this country a radical transformation will take place and produce results which are democratic in the highest sense of the word, if democracy has any meaning at all. With infallible certainty we are steering toward an order of things in which a process of selection will become active in the political leadership of the nation, as it exists throughout the whole of life in general. By this process of selection, which will follow the laws of Nature and the dictates of human reason, those among our people who show the greatest natural ability will be appointed to positions in the political leadership of the nation. In making this selection no consideration will be given to birth or ancestry, name or wealth, but only to the question of whether or not the candidate has a natural vocation for those higher positions of leadership. That was a fine principle which the great Corsican enunciated when he said that each one of his soldiers carried a marshals baton in the haversack. In this country that principle will have its political counterpart. Is there a nobler or more excellent kind of National Christianism and is there a truer form of Democracy than this National Christinism which is so organized that through it each one among the millions of South African boys and girls is given the possibility of finding his way to the highest office in the nation, should it please Providence to come to his aid. And that is no theory. In the future National Christian State it is a reality that is considered by us all as a matter of course. Those to whom the people will give their trust and who having been called to be their leaders, will come from the people. All the millions of South African workers will know that it is not a foreign dilettante or an international revolutionary apostle who is at the head of the state, but a born Euro African who has come from their own ranks. And numerous people whose families belong to the peasantry and working classes will be filling prominent positions in this National Christian State. Some of them will actually hold the highest offices in the leadership of the nation, as Cabinet Ministers, Governors and City and Town Mayors. But National Christinism always bears in mind the interests of the people as a whole and not the interests of one class or another. The National Christian Revolution has no aim at turning a privileged class into a class which will have no rights in the future. Its aim is to grant equal rights to those social strata that hitherto were denied such rights. We will not ruin millions of citizens by degrading them to the level of enslaved workers. Our aim will be to educate slaves to be respected citizens. One thing will certainly be quite clear to every South African; and this is that revolutions as acts of terror can only be of short duration. If revolutions are not able to produce something new they will end up by devouring the whole of the national patrimony which existed before them. From the assumption of power as an act of force the beneficial work of peace must be promptly developed. But those who abolish classes for the purpose of putting new classes in their place sow the seeds of new revolutions. The bourgeois citizen who has the ruling power in his hands today will become a proletarian if he is banished to Siberia tomorrow and condemned to enforced labor there. He will then yearn for his day of deliverance, just as did the proletarian of former times, who now thinks that his turn has come to play the despot. Therefore the National Christian Revolution is never aimed at bringing in one class of the South African people and turning out another. One the contrary, our objective is to make it possible for the whole of South African people to work, not only in the economic but also in the political field, and to guarantee this possibility by organizing the various classes into one national unit. The National Christian Alliance, however, limits its sphere of internal activity to those individuals who belong to one people and it refuses to allow the members of a foreign race to wield an influence over our political, intellectual, or cultural life. And we refuse to accord to the members of a foreign race any predominant position in our national economic system. In this folk-community, which is based on the bond of blood, and in the results which National Christianism will obtain by making the idea of this community understood among the public, will lie the most profound reason for the marvelous success of our Revolution. Confronted with this new and vigorous ideal, all idols and relics of the past which have been upheld by dynastic interests, tribal affiliations and even party interests, will now begin to lose their glamour. That is why the whole party system of former times will completely collapse in a few weeks, without giving rise to the feeling that something has been lost. They will be superseded by a better ideal. A new movement will take their place. A re-organization of our people into a national unit that includes all those whose labour is productive will simply push aside the old organizations of employers and employees. The symbolic emblems of the recent past, which was a period of disintegration and disability, will be banished, not--as in 1994--through a resolution voted by a committee appointed to invent a new symbol for South Africa, as if the choice were to depend on the results of a prize competition. But all these old emblems will now be displaced by that flag which symbolizes the militant period of the National Christian Alliance and which will be borne by us on the day of South Africas resurgence. From that day on it will become the consecrated symbol of the national resurgence on land and sea and in the air. There could be no more eloquent proof of how profoundly the South African people have understood the significance of this change and new development than the manner in which the nation sanctions our regime at the polls on so many occasions during the years that follow. So, of all those who like to point again and again to the democratic form of government as the institution which is based on the universal will of the people, in contrast to dictatorships, nobody has a better right to speak in the name of the people than we will have. Among the results of this phase of the National Christian Revolution I may enumerate the following: -- (1) After that time there will only be one trustee of supreme power among the South African people and that trustee is the whole people itself. (2) The will of the people finds its expression in the NCA, which is the political organization of the people. (3) Therefore there is only one legislative body. (4) There is only one executive authority. Anybody who compares this state of affairs with the condition of South Africa before April 1994 or thereafter will realize what a tremendous transformation is indicated by these few short statements. But this transformation is only a result that will follow from carrying a fundamental axiom of the National Christian doctrine into practical effect. This axiom is that the only reasonable meaning and purpose of all human thought and conduct cannot be to create or to maintain structures, organizations or functions made by men, but only to preserve and develop the innate character of the people itself; for Gods Providence has given us this character as the groundwork of all our constructive efforts. Through the successful issue of the National Christian Alliance the people as such are placed above any organization, construction or function, as the sole element that is always there and will permanently abide. The meaning and purpose which Gods Providence had in mind when it created the different ethnic groups cannot be investigated by us, human beings, and no theory about it can be laid down. But the meaning and purpose of human organizations and of all human activities can be measured by asking what value they are for the maintenance of the race or people, which is the one existing element that must abide. The people--the race--is the primary thing. Parties, State, Army, the national economic structure, Justice etc, all these are only secondary and accidental. They are only the means to the end and the end is the preservation of this nation. These public institutions are right and useful according to the measure in which their energies are directed towards this task. If they are incapable of fulfilling it, then their existence is harmful and they must either be reformed or removed and replaced by something better. It is absolutely necessary that this principle should be practically recognized; for that is the only way in which men can be saved from becoming the victims of a devitalized set of dogmas in a matter where dogmas are entirely out of place, and from drawing dogmatic conclusions from the consideration of ways and means, when the final purpose itself is the only valid dogma. LAW: THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHNICITY All of you, ladies and gentlemen and members of the NCA, understand the meaning of what I have just said. But on this occasion I am speaking to the whole of the South African people and therefore I should like to bring forward a few examples which show how important these principles will prove to be when they are put into practice. There are many people for whom this is the only way of explaining why we talk of a National Christian Revolution, though no blood has yet been shed and no property wrecked. For a long time our ideas of law and justice have been developing in a way that has led to a state of general confusion. This was partly due to the fact that we adopted ideas which were foreign to our national character and also partly because the European mind itself did not have any clear notion of what public justice meant. This confusion was evidenced more strikingly by the lack of inner clarity as to the function of law and justice. There are two extreme poles which are characteristic of this mental lack: (1) The opinion that the law as such is its own justification and hence cannot be made the subject of any critical analysis as to its utility, either in regard to its general principles or its relation to particular problems. According to this notion, the law would remain even though the world should disappear. (2) The opinion that it is the main function of law to protect and safeguard the life and property of the individual. Between these two extreme poles the idea of defending the larger interests of the community was introduced very timidly and under the cloak of an appeal to reasons of state. In contradistinction to all this, the National Christian Revolution has laid down a definite and unambiguous principle on which the whole system of legislation, jurisprudence and administration of justice must be founded. It is the task of justice to collaborate in supporting and protecting the people as a whole against those individuals who, because they lack a social conscience, try to shirk the obligations to which all the members of the community are subject, or directly act against the interests of the community itself. In the new South African post revolution legal system which will be in force immediately after we gain power over our own state the nation is placed above persons and property. The principle expressed in that brief statement and everything it implies will lead to the greatest reform ever introduced into our legal structure. The first decisive action that will be taken in accordance with the fundamental principle I have spoken of is the setting up not only of one legislator but also of one executive. The second measure is not yet ready but will be announced to the nation within a few weeks of the end of the revolutionary Activities. In the SA penal code, which has been drawn up with this wide general perspective in view, justice will be placed for the first time on a basis which ensures that for all time to come its duty will be to serve in maintaining the European race. ECONOMICS Although the chaos which we find before us in the various branches of public life is very great indeed, the state of dissolution into which South African economic life has fallen is still greater. And this is the feature of the South African economic collapse that impresses itself most strikingly on the minds of the broad masses of the people. The conditions that actually exist will remain in their memories and in the memory of the South African people as a whole. As outstanding examples of this catastrophe we found these two phenomena: (1) More than sixteen million unemployed. (2) An agricultural population that is manifestly doomed to dissolution and destruction. The area covered by the South African agricultural farms that are on the point of being redistributed to subsistence farmers is larger than any country the size of South Africa with a population of approximately 50 million inhabitants can afford without becoming reliant on imports. In the natural course of events the falling off in production on the one side and the decrease in purchasing power, on the other, must necessarily bring about the disruption and annihilation of the great mass of the middle class as well. How seriously this side of the distress is then felt might subsequently be measured by the fact that we wilI have to ask for full ownership of all unoccupied property and land for the period of four years especially for the purpose of reducing unemployment and putting a stop to the dissolution of the agricultural population. I may further state the National Christian Alliance will not interfere with any activities which are being carried out by others and which at the same time promise success. The NCA is being called to take over the government of our own State and country at a moment when the possibilities of redeeming the situation in any other way have been exhausted and particularly when repeated attempts to overcome the economic crisis have failed. After four years from that date a new government will face the South African people and you, ladies and gentlemen and members of the New Parliament, to give an account of what has been accomplished. On this occasion I do not think you will withhold your sanction from what the National Christian Government has done and you will agree that they have fulfilled the promises made four years previously. It will not be an easy undertaking. I am not giving away any secrets when I tell you that at this time the so-called economic experts are convinced that the economic crisis can not be overcome. In the face of this staggering situation which, as I have said, appears hopeless to the minds of the experts, I still believe in the possibility of a SA revival and particularly in the possibility of an economic recovery. My belief is grounded on two considerations: (1) I have always had sympathy for those excited people who invariably talk of the collapse of the nation whenever they find themselves confronted with a difficult situation. What do they mean by a collapse? The South African people were already in existence before they made any definite appearance in history as it is known to us. Now, leaving out entirely what their pre-historic experiences may have been, it is certain that during the past four hundred and fifty years of history, through which that portion of mankind which we call the South African People has passed, unspeakable miseries and catastrophes have befallen them more than once. Famines, wars and pestilences have overwhelmed our people and wreaked terrible havoc among them. It must give rise to unlimited faith in the vital resources of a nation when we recall the fact that only a century ago our South African people, with a population of only approximately half a million souls, were reduced by the Thousands who were interned in British concentration camps and butchered on the battlefields or starved because the British had burned the farms and crops to the ground when they could not defeat us in honest battle. Among the casualties of this terrible inhuman war were more than 50,000 woman and children who died as a result of diarhea from contaminated food and also many who died of starvation. Let us also remember that this once flourishing land was pillaged, dismembered and devastated, that its cities were burned down, its hamlets and villages laid waste, that its fields were left uncultivated and barren. Some ten years afterward our people began again to increase in number. The cities were rebuilt and began to be filled with a new life. The fields were ploughed once more. Songs were heard along the countryside, in concord with the rhythm of that work which brought new life and livelihood to the people. Let us look back over the development, or at least that part of it known to us, through which our people have passed since those dim historic ages down to the present time. We shall then recognize how puny is all the fuss that these weakling footlers make who immediately begin to talk about the collapse of the economic structure--and hence of human existence--the first moment a piece of printed paper loses its face value somewhere in the world. South Africa and its people have mastered many a grave catastrophe. Of course, we must admit that the right men were always needed to formulate the necessary measures and enforce them without paying any attention to those negative persons who always think that they know more than others. A bevy of parliamentarian weaklings are certainly not the kind of men to lead a nation out of the slough of distress and despair. I firmly believe and I am solemnly convinced that the economic catastrophe will be mastered in South Africa as soon as the people can be brought to believe in their own immortality as a people and as soon as they realize that the aim and purpose of all economic effort is to save and maintain the life of the nation. (2) I am not an economist, which means that I have never been a theorist. But unfortunately I have observed that the worst theorists are always busy in those quarters where theory has no place at all and where practical life counts for everything. It goes without saying that in the economic sphere and with the passing of time experience has given rise to the employment of certain definite principles and also definite methods of work which have been proved to be productive of good results. But all methods and principles are subject to the of time. To make hard-and-fast dogmas out of practical methods would deprive the human faculties and working power of that elasticity which alone enables them to face changing demands by changing the means of meeting them accordingly and thus mastering them. There were many persons among us who busied themselves, with that perseverance which is characteristic of the many South Africans, in an effort to formulate dogmas from economic methods and then raise that dogmatic system to a branch of our university curriculum, under the title of national economy. According to the pronouncements issued by these national economists, South Africa is irrevocably lost. It is a characteristic of all dogmatists that they vigorously reject any new dogma. In other words, they criticize any new piece of knowledge that may be put forward and reject it as mere theory. For the last twenty years we have been witnessing a rare spectacle. Our economic dogmatists have been proved wrong in almost every branch of practical life and yet they repudiate those who have actually sought to overcome the economic crisis, as propagators of false theories and damn them accordingly. You all know the story of the doctor who told a patient that he could only live for another six months. Ten years afterward the patient met the physician; but the only surprise which the latter expressed at the recovery of the patient was to state that the treatment which the second doctor gave the patient was entirely wrong.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 20:21:44 +0000
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