The political life of Jacob Daniel Du Plessis ‘Japie’ Basson 1937–1989

Abstract

This study of the working career of Jacob Daniel Du Plessis Basson (1918 - 2012), a South African politician, covers the years from when he started to work in politics in 1937 until 1989, when he finally retired from full time work in the political field. It traces influences from his early home life as a boy growing up in the town of Paarl in the Boland, processed in his political career, which started out with his involvement in student politics at the University of Stellenbosch where he was instrumental in forming the student branch of the United Party in 1937. His entry into politics at the University of Stellenbosch coincided with the debates around Fusion, when Afrikaners had to decide between the policies of Dr D. F. Malan and Dr J. B. M. Hertzog, and on South Africa’s future relations with Britain. The study also looks at Basson’s views on republicanism and other significant ideologies such as federalism. Preoccupations such as these, manifested themselves in regional and generational tensions, in Afrikanerdom as well as a broader South Africa, and with the sectionalist policies of the National Party government inaugurated in 1948. Further areas of contestation were between Afrikaners and English-speaking South Africans around issues such as the establishment of a republic in 1961, and federation as an alternative model of politics to the Westminster style/model. Left out of the constitutional landscape were black South Africans, whose strong political aspirations Basson was sensitive to, but he firmly believed that gradual and effective change could only be initiated from within party structures. Basson’s clashes with the National Party over the constitutional position of coloured people and black people’s representation in the 1950s are highlighted as an indication of the internecine struggles within white politics at the time. Basson was directly involved in these deliberations, always aware of these tensions, such as in the Progressive Federal Party, which he co-founded in 1978, over the establishment of the President’s Council in 1980 to direct the transition of white politics to a new political and constitutional dispensation for South Africa. By emphasizing these complexities, this thesis attempts to contribute to an understanding of South Africa’s turbulent political past and Basson’s role in it. It draws upon the memoirs he wrote from when he retired until his death and on primary material from archives in South Africa, as well as Basson’s personal papers.