The New Prime Minister

When 80-year-old Daniel Malan resigned the Prime Ministry of South Africa last month, hope stirred that there might be a respite in the racial and political tensions which have long troubled that land. South Africa needed a period of peace to attract much-desired foreign capital, and Malan maneuvered to have Nicolaas Christiaan Havenga, a moderate member of the dominant Nationalist Party, succeed him. Last week the Nationalist Party caucus frigidly rebuffed Malan, rejected Havenga, and unanimously elected as Prime Minister a man with the racist principles of Adolf Hitler and some of the Nazi leader's demagogic frenzy.

Johannes Gerhardus Strydom (pronounced Straydom), 61, the new Prime Minister of South Africa, is a descendant of those Dutch settlers who 115 years ago fought their way across Zululand to the fertile Transvaal. Young Strydom grew up during the Boer War, and studied at the University of Stellenbosch, cradle of thwarted Boer aspirations. After taking his law degree at the University of Pretoria, he returned to his father's farm, where he raised ostriches. He improved a natural gift for histrionics by speech-making in front of mirrors. In 1929 he was elected to Parliament for the backveld district of Waterberg, quickly established himself as an uncompromising Afrikaner Nationalist. "The Lion from the North," as he has come to be known, is apt to make intolerant old Daniel Malan seem a lamb by comparison.

Hitlerian Ideas. Short, burly, blue-eyed Johannes Strydom can rouse a Transvaal audience like no other man. When he speaks, his arms are like whirling windmills, his fingers become jabbing pistons, and words fall pell-mell from his lips. In Parliament he has an authoritative air, snaps his fingers at backbenchers, invariably receives a bigger cheer than Malan. He has a bitter tongue, and is quick to take offense.

An ardent admirer of Hitler, he did not have to borrow Nazi racist ideas; he already had them. In 1941 he proclaimed: "One of the cornerstones of the British Empire is equal rights for everybody irrespective of color or smell. The other cornerstone is British-Jewish capitalism." Later he amplified his remarks to denounce "the detestable British-Jewish and liberal democratic system which we have in our country today." In recent weeks he has been openly critical of Malan's failure to make effective many of the stricter apartheid (segregation) measures. Said Strydom: "The old man is holding us up."

Strydom has two lines of action. He wants to break with the British Commonwealth and make South Africa a republic in which Afrikaners will hold the sovereign power and Afrikaans will be the only official language. In this republic, he wants complete segregation of the races and the disenfranchisement of all non-whites (Negroes, Indians and mixed bloods), who make up five-sixths of the population. His ideas are summed up in the slogan he had carried through the Transvaal: Die witman moet baas bly (The white man must remain boss).

Malanian Miscalculation. It took the Nationalist Party bosses, meeting in Pretoria, only seven minutes last week to elect Strydom to power. Outside, an excited crowd waited for the first appearance of their new Prime Minister. "Dis die leeul" (It is the Lion), they cried, and hoisted him shoulder high. No smile, no sign of expression crossed the Lion's feline face as supporters began singing the Boer song Vrye Volk. Wailed Daniel Malan when he heard of it: "I have miscalculated . . . I have miscalculated."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.