Afrikaner Broederbond
[2][3] Its influence within South African political and social life came to a climax with the 1948-1994 rule of the white supremacist National Party and its policy of apartheid, which was largely developed and implemented by Broederbond members.
[2] Described later as an "inner sanctum",[4] "an immense informal network of influence",[5] and by Jan Smuts as a "dangerous, cunning, political fascist organization",[6] in 1920 Jong Zuid Afrika, now restyled as the Afrikaner Broederbond, was a group of 37 white men of Afrikaner ethnicity, Afrikaans language, and Calvinist faith, who shared cultural, semi-religious, and deeply political objectives based on traditions and experiences dating back to the arrival of Dutch white settlers, French Huguenots, and German settlers at the Cape in the 17th and 18th centuries, and including the dramatic events of the Great Trek in the 1830s and 1840s.
Ivor Wilkins and Hans Strydom recount how, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, a leading broeder (brother or member) said: for understandable reasons it was difficult to explain [our] aims…[I]n the beginning people were allowed in…who thought it was just another cultural society.The precise intentions of the founders are not clear.
[citation needed] The emergence of the Broederbond took place amidst the backdrop of a rise in Afrikaner nationalism as a result of the Second Boer War (1899–1902), which saw the British annex the South African Republic and the Orange Free State.
Jan Smuts had commanded British Army forces in the East African theater of the First World War and was amenable to backing the Allies a second time.
Malan's "Purified National Party" to become the force that would take over South African politics for the next 46 years, until majority rule and Nelson Mandela's election in 1994.
[2] Once the Herenigde Nasionale Party was in power...English-speaking bureaucrats, soldiers, and state employees were sidelined by reliable Afrikaners, with key posts going to Broederbond members (with their ideological commitment to separatism).
The Afrikaner Broederbond continued to act in secret, infiltrating and gaining control of the few organisations, such as the South African Agricultural Union (SAAU), which had political power and were opposed to a further escalation of apartheid policies.
On 8 June 1986 J.P. de Lange, the then-chairman met Thabo Mbeki in New York for a five-hour meeting held at a conference organised by the Ford Foundation.
The meeting was just between de Lange and Mbeki, but at the conference other ANC members Mac Maharaj, Seretse Choabi, Charles Villa-Vicencio, and Peggy Dulany were present.
