Nico Smith
Encyclopedia
Nico Smith was a South Africa
n Afrikaner
minister and prominent opponent of apartheid
. Smith was a professor of theology
at the University of Stellenbosch, a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond
(Afrikaner Brotherhood) organization, and a minister of the apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church
(DRC). However, he abandoned his upper-class lifestyle to live with the impoverished and segregated blacks of Mamelodi, a suburb of Pretoria. From Mamelodi, he worked to support the black community and oppose apartheid. Smith joined the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA), the separate branch of the Dutch Reformed Church for non-whites, due to the DRC's refusal to oppose apartheid.
, and was raised by his father with conventional Afrikaner views on the inferiority of coloured
s and blacks at the time. He "took to the streets" to celebrate the 1948 election
in which the pro-apartheid National Party
won the most seats (despite losing the popular vote). Smith spent seven years at the University of Pretoria
where he earned his theology degree. He was ordained a minister of the apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church
. Smith spent a 7-year period doing missionary work in the black homeland of Venda
, where he saw the gap between white and black in South African society up close. He then spent three years performing staff work at the Dutch Reformed Church headquarters in Pretoria. While in Pretoria he received an invitation to join the prestigious Afrikaner Broederbond
, which included many of the elites of Afrikaner society and government. Smith would later say of his 10-year membership of the Brotherhood that he was "thankful that God gave me an opportunity to discover what was going on in the hearts and minds of Afrikaners." Smith continued his professional ascent with the help of the Brotherhood, and he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Stellenbosch.
While Smith still held to typical white South African views of the time, the seeds for his later change of position were planted in the 1960s and '70s. Smith credited Swiss theologian Karl Barth
for helping him eventually decide to fight apartheid. In 1963, Barth asked him if he was really free to preach the Gospel in South Africa. Barth asked him the question three times, concluding with "Will you be free to preach the Gospel even if the government in your country tells you that you are preaching against the whole system?" Smith found that "I could not really answer the question truthfully. I thought I was free, and yet I was not sure." Smith later said that he realized he "would have to decide to teach my theology but not apply it, or apply it and take the consequences."
designated for non-whites only at the time due to the Group Areas Act
. Smith eventually received rare permission from the South African government to live there in 1985, making him and his wife the only whites allowed to live in the area. In Mamelodi, he not only acted as minister, but also as a community organizer and civic planner. To encourage integration and interaction between the separated communities, he organized a further swap in 1988 — 170 whites moved into Mamelodi to live with black families, while 35 blacks lived in white homes in the suburbs of Pretoria. The exchange lasted four days. At the time, few whites knew how blacks lived due to strict segregation rules. Black neighborhoods were avoided and perceived as dangerous. Smith explained that he ran the swap because "White fear is one of the great barriers to understanding and progress in this country... But over the past two years there has been an increasing realization by whites of the depth and the degree of black anger." The swap was attacked as "designed to promote Marxist doctrine", as nearly any opposition to apartheid was called a communist plot to destabilize the country. Smith also demanded an investigation into suspicious murders of anti-apartheid activists.
In 1989, he moved back to a white suburb of Pretoria.
for perceived slowness in integrating with the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
(the successor to the anti-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church in Africa). He wrote Die Afrikaner Broederbond: Belewinge van die Binnekant, a book critical of the Afrikaner Broederbond
, in 2009. He still opined on politics as well; in a 2009 article in the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld
, he warned Afrikaners that the democratic transition of 1994 had averted a disaster akin to the near-complete exile of white Algerians after the Algerian Independence War. There, France and its white Algerian minority did not give up power peacefully, which led to the violence of the war. In Smith's view, too much nostalgia for the old days of special "cultural rights" risked a similar disaster; white Afrikaners should not complain about the black-dominated government in racial terms or ask for an end to affirmative action, but instead be loyal citizens of South Africa.
Smith died of a heart attack on June 19, 2010. He was 81 years old. African National Congress
spokesman Jackson Mthembu
paid tribute to him as a "gallant fighter, and [we] will forever treasure the contribution he made in the struggle for liberation and the building of our democracy."
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
minister and prominent opponent of apartheid
Internal resistance to South African apartheid
Internal resistance to the apartheid system in South Africa came from several sectors of society and saw the creation of organisations dedicated variously to peaceful protests, passive resistance and armed insurrection. It came from both black activists like Steve Biko and Desmond Tutu as well as...
. Smith was a professor of theology
Christian theology
- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...
at the University of Stellenbosch, a member of the Afrikaner Broederbond
Afrikaner Broederbond
The Afrikaner Broederbond or Broederbond was a secret, exclusively male and Afrikaner Calvinist organization in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of Afrikaner interests. It was founded by HJ Klopper, HW van der Merwe, DHC du Plessis and Rev...
(Afrikaner Brotherhood) organization, and a minister of the apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church
Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk
The Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk is a Reformed Christian denomination in South Africa. It also has a presence in neighboring countries, such as Namibia, Swaziland, and parts of Botswana and Zimbabwe...
(DRC). However, he abandoned his upper-class lifestyle to live with the impoverished and segregated blacks of Mamelodi, a suburb of Pretoria. From Mamelodi, he worked to support the black community and oppose apartheid. Smith joined the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA), the separate branch of the Dutch Reformed Church for non-whites, due to the DRC's refusal to oppose apartheid.
Early life and professional career
Smith grew up in the rural reaches of the Orange Free StateOrange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
, and was raised by his father with conventional Afrikaner views on the inferiority of coloured
Coloured
In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured refers to an heterogenous ethnic group who possess ancestry from Europe, various Khoisan and Bantu tribes of Southern Africa, West Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, Malaya, India, Mozambique,...
s and blacks at the time. He "took to the streets" to celebrate the 1948 election
South African general election, 1948
The parliamentary election in South Africa on 26 May 1948 represented a turning point in the country's history. The United Party, which had led the government since its foundation in 1933 and its leader, incumbent Prime Minister Jan Smuts was ousted by the Reunited National Party , led by Daniel...
in which the pro-apartheid National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
won the most seats (despite losing the popular vote). Smith spent seven years at the University of Pretoria
University of Pretoria
The University of Pretoria is a multi campus public research university located in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa...
where he earned his theology degree. He was ordained a minister of the apartheid-supporting Dutch Reformed Church
Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk
The Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk is a Reformed Christian denomination in South Africa. It also has a presence in neighboring countries, such as Namibia, Swaziland, and parts of Botswana and Zimbabwe...
. Smith spent a 7-year period doing missionary work in the black homeland of Venda
Venda
Venda was a bantustan in northern South Africa, now part of Limpopo province. It was founded as a homeland for the Venda people, speakers of the Venda language. It bordered modern Zimbabwe and South Africa, and is now part of Limpopo in South Africa....
, where he saw the gap between white and black in South African society up close. He then spent three years performing staff work at the Dutch Reformed Church headquarters in Pretoria. While in Pretoria he received an invitation to join the prestigious Afrikaner Broederbond
Afrikaner Broederbond
The Afrikaner Broederbond or Broederbond was a secret, exclusively male and Afrikaner Calvinist organization in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of Afrikaner interests. It was founded by HJ Klopper, HW van der Merwe, DHC du Plessis and Rev...
, which included many of the elites of Afrikaner society and government. Smith would later say of his 10-year membership of the Brotherhood that he was "thankful that God gave me an opportunity to discover what was going on in the hearts and minds of Afrikaners." Smith continued his professional ascent with the help of the Brotherhood, and he was appointed professor of theology at the University of Stellenbosch.
While Smith still held to typical white South African views of the time, the seeds for his later change of position were planted in the 1960s and '70s. Smith credited Swiss theologian Karl Barth
Karl Barth
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
for helping him eventually decide to fight apartheid. In 1963, Barth asked him if he was really free to preach the Gospel in South Africa. Barth asked him the question three times, concluding with "Will you be free to preach the Gospel even if the government in your country tells you that you are preaching against the whole system?" Smith found that "I could not really answer the question truthfully. I thought I was free, and yet I was not sure." Smith later said that he realized he "would have to decide to teach my theology but not apply it, or apply it and take the consequences."
Anti-apartheid activism
In 1981, Smith could no longer keep his membership in the Afrikaner Broederbond in good conscience. He quit, and compared it to social suicide — many of his "friends" suddenly wanted nothing to do with him. Smith began aggressively challenging apartheid in his classes, which drew the ire of his superiors who wanted him to "Teach theory, not conclusions." Smith joined public protests against the government's bulldozing of squatter shacks in Capetown, and he was called before a church commission to justify himself. Smith decided to resign his professorship and leave the DRC to join its separate colored branch, the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa. Smith, together with his wife Ellen, became an anti-apartheid activist from that point onward. He began preaching in Mamelodi in 1982, a suburb of PretoriaPretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
designated for non-whites only at the time due to the Group Areas Act
Group Areas Act
The Group Areas Act of 1950 was an act of parliament created under the apartheid government of South Africa on 27th April 1950. The act assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid...
. Smith eventually received rare permission from the South African government to live there in 1985, making him and his wife the only whites allowed to live in the area. In Mamelodi, he not only acted as minister, but also as a community organizer and civic planner. To encourage integration and interaction between the separated communities, he organized a further swap in 1988 — 170 whites moved into Mamelodi to live with black families, while 35 blacks lived in white homes in the suburbs of Pretoria. The exchange lasted four days. At the time, few whites knew how blacks lived due to strict segregation rules. Black neighborhoods were avoided and perceived as dangerous. Smith explained that he ran the swap because "White fear is one of the great barriers to understanding and progress in this country... But over the past two years there has been an increasing realization by whites of the depth and the degree of black anger." The swap was attacked as "designed to promote Marxist doctrine", as nearly any opposition to apartheid was called a communist plot to destabilize the country. Smith also demanded an investigation into suspicious murders of anti-apartheid activists.
In 1989, he moved back to a white suburb of Pretoria.
Later years
After the fall of apartheid, Smith helped build a multiracial congregation in Pretoria. Smith continued to be a critic of the (originally white-only) Dutch Reformed ChurchNederduits Gereformeerde Kerk
The Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk is a Reformed Christian denomination in South Africa. It also has a presence in neighboring countries, such as Namibia, Swaziland, and parts of Botswana and Zimbabwe...
for perceived slowness in integrating with the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa was formed by the union of the black and coloured Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk mission churches.-Main markers in the URCSA'S history:...
(the successor to the anti-apartheid Dutch Reformed Church in Africa). He wrote Die Afrikaner Broederbond: Belewinge van die Binnekant, a book critical of the Afrikaner Broederbond
Afrikaner Broederbond
The Afrikaner Broederbond or Broederbond was a secret, exclusively male and Afrikaner Calvinist organization in South Africa dedicated to the advancement of Afrikaner interests. It was founded by HJ Klopper, HW van der Merwe, DHC du Plessis and Rev...
, in 2009. He still opined on politics as well; in a 2009 article in the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld
Beeld
Beeld is an Afrikaans language daily newspaper that was launched on 16 September 1974. Beeld is distributed in five provinces of South Africa: Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West and KwaZulu-Natal. Die Beeld was an Afrikaans language Sunday newspaper in the late 1960s...
, he warned Afrikaners that the democratic transition of 1994 had averted a disaster akin to the near-complete exile of white Algerians after the Algerian Independence War. There, France and its white Algerian minority did not give up power peacefully, which led to the violence of the war. In Smith's view, too much nostalgia for the old days of special "cultural rights" risked a similar disaster; white Afrikaners should not complain about the black-dominated government in racial terms or ask for an end to affirmative action, but instead be loyal citizens of South Africa.
Smith died of a heart attack on June 19, 2010. He was 81 years old. African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
spokesman Jackson Mthembu
Jackson Mthembu
Jackson Mthembu is the African National Congress' national spokesperson. In 1997, while Mthembu was serving as MEC for Transport in Mpumalanga, he was criticized for spending R2.3 million on ten BMWs.-References:...
paid tribute to him as a "gallant fighter, and [we] will forever treasure the contribution he made in the struggle for liberation and the building of our democracy."