Dialoog met Nederland oor die kwessie van strukturele geweld in Suid-Afrika

Abstract

The South African society was internationally regarded as a structurally violent society, because the policy of apartheid violated the dignity and integrity of individuals and/or groups. Because of the realisation of a kinship between the Hollanders and Afrikaners, the opposition in Holland against what was happening in South Africa was perhaps stronger than elsewhere. Leading Dutch opinion formers rejected apartheid in principle, because it absolutized the superiority of the whites. They feared that apartheid could lead to bloodshed and therefore this policy was conceived to be a threat to world peace. The Afro-Asian states could also adopt an antiRWestem attitude because of the policy of apartheid. As regards the dialogue between the Netherlands and South Africa in the sixties, there was agreement on one issue, and that was that the racial question was in essence an issue of international significance. South Africa's success or failure in solving its racial question had world-wide consequences. When the Dutch newspaper Trouw and Die Burger exchanged views on the apartheid issue during 1963/1964, editor PJ Cillie of Die- Burger emphasised the fact that the whites in South Africa had an inalienable right to self-determination.