Beyers Naude (1915-2004): Christianity, violence, and reconciliation in South Africa

Beyers Naude was a well-known anti-apartheid Afrikaner clergyman, who spent seven years in the 1970s and 1980s under a banning order that was instituted against him by the South African government. Today he is revered as a model of racial reconciliation. However, in the 1960s he lost his status as minister in the Dutch Reformed Church because of his political stance. He then served as director of the Christian Institute, and as editor of the progressive journal, Pro Veritate. He also became an advocate of Black Consciousness and the black liberation movements in their struggle for equal rights. In all of this, the concept of violence was an underlying theme, and this article describes, from the point of view of his writings, how his understanding of the legitimate use of violence developed during the course of his public career. It is shown that the role of memory, particularly the transferred memory of his father's participation in the Second Anglo-Boer War, was demonstrably influential in the son's decision making, with special relevance for his evaluation of the role that violence might play in the process of liberation.