What are black hopes, and what are white hopes, and can they be hoped together? So asked Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr, in 1930. Rarely has such a question been asked so anxiously and so seriously, or in such tragically doomed spirit of hope. One of the greatest privileges any man can inherit is not the riches of ill-gotten gains, but the wealth of an ancestry worth honouring in all seasons. For most of South Africa’s history, its greatest men were murderers and thieves, on all rungs of our sordid caste system. I have had the good fortune to have been born to an educated family of what would pass for nobility in the Afrikaner world, though tainted by the Cape’s usual ambiguity of political allegiances between Brit and Boer. One of the ancestors to whom my family would often pay deference was the esteemed deputy of Jan Smuts, Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr. His skill, diligence and intellect allowed him to manage seven portfolios during the Second World War, while balancing the books and achieving a budget surplus. He was also remembered for his integrity – he became the only member of parliament, in 1936, to vote against the disenfranchisement of the non-white population. He opposed the infamous Riotous Assembly Act, and the fingerprint registration of the population, losses of freedom which have now come to be accepted.
Hoping to High Heaven
Hoping to High Heaven
Hoping to High Heaven
What are black hopes, and what are white hopes, and can they be hoped together? So asked Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr, in 1930. Rarely has such a question been asked so anxiously and so seriously, or in such tragically doomed spirit of hope. One of the greatest privileges any man can inherit is not the riches of ill-gotten gains, but the wealth of an ancestry worth honouring in all seasons. For most of South Africa’s history, its greatest men were murderers and thieves, on all rungs of our sordid caste system. I have had the good fortune to have been born to an educated family of what would pass for nobility in the Afrikaner world, though tainted by the Cape’s usual ambiguity of political allegiances between Brit and Boer. One of the ancestors to whom my family would often pay deference was the esteemed deputy of Jan Smuts, Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr. His skill, diligence and intellect allowed him to manage seven portfolios during the Second World War, while balancing the books and achieving a budget surplus. He was also remembered for his integrity – he became the only member of parliament, in 1936, to vote against the disenfranchisement of the non-white population. He opposed the infamous Riotous Assembly Act, and the fingerprint registration of the population, losses of freedom which have now come to be accepted.