A second, expanded edition of Hermann Giliomee's The Afrikaners: Biography of a People has just appeared (see here). There is a long new chapter describing the story of the often fraught relations between the Afrikaners and the ANC since the 1987 conference in Dakar, Senegal, to the present day. The following are Giliomee's answers to a series of questions on the book:

1. Why a second edition with the first one having appeared as recently as 2003?

The book sold remarkably well (25,000 in both the English and Afrikaans editions) and it was out of print at the beginning of the year after having gone through six reprints. To reprint it again would not make much sense. Simply too much has happened in the last ten years. A substantial new chapter was needed to take developments up to the present time.

2. Does it often happen that a history book gets a second edition so soon?

Not really, but it is South Africa's fate to have too much history and too much politics, particularly for a country with a relatively small population (only six million a century ago). Over the past ten years too much has happened and the public mood has changed drastically. It is almost similar to what happened in the four years before the Great Trek (1832 -1836), the four years between the Jameson Raid and the Anglo Boer War (1895-1899), the five years between the Depression and Fusion (1929 -1934), the five years after becoming a republic (1961-1966), and the nine  years after P.W. Botha's Rubicon speech in 1985.

3. How do people react in such times?

It almost as if politics becomes overwhelming; people begin to feel and think differently. If the politics goes wrong, as is happening now - with the ruling elite unable or unwilling to stamp out corruption, crime and unemployment - people become angry. If things go exceptionally well, as in the first half of the 1960s, or the years of the Mandela presidency, people become euphoric and politically irresponsible. In such a period, it is as if the country is shooting the rapids. This is what we have experienced in our politics since Robert Mugabe showed how far a liberation movement was prepared to go, and how he was allowed to proceed unchallenged by our government, which had the capacity to intervene.

4. How does it change people's conception of history and politics?

People are strongly inclined to see the past in the light of the present. Take for instance the Dakar conference of 1987 between a group of Afrikaners and other "inziles" and a delegation of the ANC in exile under the leadership of Thabo Mbeki. At the time, people thought it was an exceptionally brave deed that could pave the way to a true democracy. Now the view is that they were conned by the ANC. Reading the transcript of the debates that has become available, it is clear that the inziles ignored the signs. That includes me - I was there. Another participant was the journalist Chris Louw, who died tragically the other day. He became very disillusioned about Dakar.

5. Aren't big issues, such as interpretations of the constitutional settlement, not the same?

No, they too are influenced radically. At first, the settlement was seen almost as a miracle. But over the past decade it has become clear that the major issues were not resolved.  The two main parties differed radically about what was meant by good faith negotiations. The NP saw the end product as a firm social contract, while the ANC saw the drafting of a constitution as part of an ongoing revolutionary process in which nothing, not even property rights, was really fixed. Transformation trumped all. In 2007, both F.W. de Klerk and Pik Botha said they would not have signed the constitution if they had known what the ANC meant with transformation and "representivity". In the new chapter, I quote the private exchange of long letters between Pik Botha and Thabo Mbeki that was made available to me.

6. How did the different minority groups respond in that last decade to the ANC's domination?

In the case of both the Jews and the Afrikaners there are constant attempts by elites to mend fences with government. The implicit argument is that interracial and interethnic peace is quite fragile and needs regular gestures and expressions of goodwill by white communities. That strategy plays into the government's hands.

7. What has been the biggest surprise to you in the past decade?

The greatest surprise to me was the disappearance of the Afrikaners as a distinct political force. Also the failure at universities like Pretoria and Stellenbosch to safeguard the future of Afrikaans.  It is particularly surprising that the University of Stellenbosch, which is well suited to become the seat of Afrikaans teaching, writing and debate, has been so prepared to discard a precious cultural heritage. At undergraduate level most classes now are taught in dual medium (English and Afrikaans combined in the same lecture) Worldwide this is acknowledged as the kiss of death - when a national language has to compete against an universal language. Dual medium at US and UP are the biggest threats to Afrikaans as a public language.

8. Why are academics prepared to throw away Afrikaans?

It is an elitist strategy and the easy option.

9. And the other surprise?

The other surprise was the collapse of business leadership. With the exception of Johann Rupert and a few others, very few business leaders have been prepared to criticise government on policy. They rarely criticised government on issues that touched on the daily lives of minorities, such as affirmative action, representivity, crime and language rights. The organisation that did its homework on mobilisation and focused action is the trade union Solidarity under the leadership of Flip Buys. It was the mobilisation of Solidarity, along with AgriSA and the FW de Klerk Foundation that forced the government in 2008 to withdraw the Expropriation Bill. This example of an alliance, of political parties, organizations and institutes combining, will become more and more necessary.

10. If business leaders are prepared to concern themselves in politics only from the anonymity of their offices, why don't they at least sponsor more media ventures, such as the English-Afrikaans magazine you suggest?

I must confess I still don't know how the heads of business leaders in SA work when it comes to social or political issues, except the determination to avoid political risk.

11. What political lessons have minorities learnt in the past decade?

The basic conflict in South Africa is between black people with political power and no real economic power and white people with economic power, but no political power. For minorities to make themselves heard they will have to learn how to organize, mobilise and agitate. As Breyten Breytenbach recently said in Afrikaans, "Opstaan". There are more than enough constitutional opportunities.

12. Breyten is an exile. Is there a role for Afrikaners in exile?

The model of Israel and its diaspora is more and more punted. The Afrikaners lack three things the Jews have: a sense of chosenness, a history of persecution and Israel. But if the language of instruction issue can be resolved something can be built up around Afrikaans schools and universities and especially bursaries to the poorer Afrikaans youths. But that will take organization.

13. Do you sense a new restiveness among Afrikaners?

Yes, definitely. I think there is a suppressed rage and anger over crime and corruption that the government is grossly underestimating.  If the government does something stupid, like agreeing to a closed shop agreement for a single teachers' union there can be trouble.

14. If the present power struggle in the ANC results in a more moderate and efficient government can the Afrikaners  re-negotiate their position in society, or are all three minority groups destined forever to be second-rankers?

There were three coalitions in our history and all were totally unexpected: the SAP and the Unionists in the early 1920's, the SAP and the NP in the early 1930s and the NP and the Afrikaner Party in 1947. With the exception of the first the coalition gave a much needed new base of order and stability.

15. What is the biggest challenge to the Afrikaners?

To be heard, to build effective alliances across racial and ethnic lines and to get government to respond.  Chris Louw wrote in his second last column in Beeld that the government has reduced Afrikaner opinion to six percent - their share of the population. The Afrikaans press is freer than ever and Naspers is the biggest media company in Africa, but the government could not care a whit about what appears in the Afrikaans papers. I don't know what is worse: censorship or being ignored. The government takes notice only when something appears in English, and even then it may ignore it. What the country needs is a way to force government to take account of the diversity of opinion. Perhaps a monthly political journal with excellent articles in both Afrikaans and English.

16. What remains the same?

For Afrikaners, the love of the land and all its people, and for Afrikaans as a language. If one feels despondent, one can always recall the words of Jan Smuts after his party's defeat in the 1948 election. "In South Africa the best - and the worst -never happens.

Hermann Giliomee was professor of Political Studies at the University of Cape Town

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