Daniel François Malan
Encyclopedia
Daniel François Malan (ˈdɑːniəl frɐnˈswɑː mɐˈlɐn; 22 May 1874 – 7 February 1959), more commonly known as D.F. Malan, was the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1948 to 1954. He is seen as a champion of Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism is a political ideology that was born in the late 19th century around the idea that Afrikaners in South Africa were a "chosen people"; it was also strongly influenced by anti-British sentiments that grew strong among the Afrikaners, especially because of the Boer Wars...

. His National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...

 government came to power on the program of apartheid and began its comprehensive implementation.

Biography

Malan was born in Riebeek-Wes in the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

. He obtained a B.A. in Mathematics and Science from the Victoria College in Stellenbosch, whereafter he entered the Stellenbosch seminary in order to train as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. Along with his studies in theology, he obtained a M.A. in Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 from Victoria College, later to be Paul Roos Gymnasium
Paul Roos Gymnasium
Paul Roos Gymnasium is a government school for boys in the town of Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa, founded in 1866 as Stellenbosch Gymnasium....

 and the Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University is a public research university situated in the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Other nearby universities are the University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape....

. Malan left South Africa in 1900 to study towards a Doctorate in Divinity at the University of Utrecht, which he obtained in 1905. After his return to South Africa, he was ordained as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church and served for six months as an assistant-minister in Heidelberg, Transvaal. He was an ardent fighter for the acceptance of Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...

, which was an emerging language fighting against Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 and English, and was a founding member of the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuur Vereeniging (ATKV) (Afrikaans language and cultural society), which was established in 1906. He was stationed in Montagu from 1906 to 1912 and thereafter in Graaff-Reinet until 1915. He also undertook a journey on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church, visiting Afrikaners in the Belgian Congo
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

 and Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...

.

Political career

Malan's involvement in National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...

 politics began shortly after the NP's formation in 1914. In those years, political parties had affiliated newspapers that served as their mouthpiece. However, Nationalist-minded Afrikaners in the Cape had no such outlet and therefore, in 1915, decided to found De Burger, which later became known as Die Burger
Die Burger
Die Burger is a daily Afrikaans language newspaper, published by Naspers. By 2008, it had a circulation of 91,665 in the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa...

.
They persuaded Malan to become the editor of the new newspaper and, as he was worried about the Afrikaners' political position in the aftermath of the 1914 Rebellion
Maritz Rebellion
The Maritz Rebellion or the Boer Revolt or the Five Shilling Rebellion, occurred in South Africa in 1914 at the start of World War I, in which men who supported the recreation of the old Boer republics rose up against the government of the Union of South Africa...

, he relinquished his position as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church to accept the position. The Cape branch of the National Party was founded in 1915 and Malan was elected as its provincial leader. In 1918, he was elected to Parliament
Parliament of South Africa
The Parliament of South Africa is South Africa's legislature and under the country's current Constitution is composed of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces....

 for the first time as MP for the Calvinia
Calvinia
Calvinia is a regional town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa named after the Swiss religious reformer John Calvin. The town belongs to the Hantam Local Municipality which forms part of the Namakwa District Municipality. The Calvinia district is part of the Great Karoo region of South...

 constituency. He held that seat until 1938, when he became the MP for Piketberg
Piketberg
Piketberg is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. The original spelling of the name was "Piquetberg".The town is in the foothills of the Piketberg mountains, a range of low mountains formed from Table Mountain Sandstone....

.

When the National Party came to power for the first time in 1924, Malan was given the post of Minister of the Interior, Education and Public Health, which he held until 1933. In 1925, he was at the forefront of a campaign to replace Dutch with Afrikaans in the constitution and provide South Africa with its own national flag.

After the 1933 election, the United Party
United Party (South Africa)
The United Party was South Africa's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948. It was formed by a merger of most of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog's National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts, plus the remnants of the Unionist Party...

 was formed out of the fusion of Hertzog's National Party and the rival South African Party
South African Party
The South African Party was a political party that existed in the Union of South Africa from 1911 to 1934.-History:The outline and foundation for the party was realized after the election of a 'South African party' in the 1910 South African general election under the leadership of Louis Botha...

 of Jan Smuts
Jan Smuts
Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, ED, KC, FRS, PC was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948...

. Malan strongly opposed this merger and, in 1934, he and 19 other MPs
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 defected to form the 'Purified' National Party, which he led for the next fourteen years as opposition.

Malan opposed South African participation in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, which was already unpopular among the Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...

 population and led to a split in the governing party in 1939. This dramatically increased his popularity, and he consequently defeated Smuts and the United Party in 1948.

A firm foundation for apartheid was laid during Malan's six-and-a-half years as prime minister. The system was officially dismantled in 1994, but the legacy continues to have an impact in South Africa. Malan retired in 1954 at the age of 80, but in the succession-battle that accompanied his retirement, his anointed heirs, N.C. Havenga
Nicolaas Havenga
Nicolaas Christiaan Havenga was a South African politician who served as Finance Minister in the governments of J. B. M...

 and E. Donges were defeated and Malan was thus succeeded by J.G. Strijdom
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom, commonly called JG Strydom or Hans Strydom , nicknamed the Lion of the North, was Prime Minister of South Africa from 30 November 1954 to 24 August 1958...

.

Malan died in 1959 at Môrewag, his home in Stellenbosch. His book, Afrikaner Volkseenheid en my ervaringe op die pad daarheen ("Afrikaner Nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism is a political ideology that was born in the late 19th century around the idea that Afrikaners in South Africa were a "chosen people"; it was also strongly influenced by anti-British sentiments that grew strong among the Afrikaners, especially because of the Boer Wars...

 and my experiences on the road to it"), was published in the same year by Nasionale Boekhandel. A collection of his writings and documents is housed in the Document Centre at the University of Stellenbosch's J.S. Gericke library.

He is positioned 81st on the SABC3's Great South Africans
SABC3's Great South Africans
Great South Africans was a South African television series that aired on SABC3 and hosted by Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu and Denis Beckett. In September 2004, thousands of South Africans took part in an informal nationwide poll to determine the "100 Greatest South Africans" of all time...

 list.

The surname

The progenitor of the Malan name in the South African region was a French Huguenot refugee named Jacques Malan from Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

 (Mérindol), France, who arrived at the Cape before 1689. The Malan name is one of a number of Afrikaans names of French origin which have retained their original spelling.

Malania anjouanae

In 1952 J B L Smith
James Leonard Brierley Smith
James Leonard Brierley Smith, known as J.L.B. Smith was a South African ichthyologist, organic chemist and university professor. He was the first to identify a taxidermied fish as a coelacanth, at the time thought long extinct.-Early life:Born in Graaff Reinet, Smith was the elder of two sons of...

 was told about a coelacanth
Coelacanth
Coelacanths are members of an order of fish that includes the oldest living lineage of Sarcopterygii known to date....

 that had just been landed by fishermen at Anjouan and recognised by an adventurer called Eric Hunt. He had persuaded them that the fish was worth a lot of money and shouldn't be sold to anyone other than the South African government. This would be only the second specimen known to science. The first specimen identified by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer
Marjorie faree Doris Courtenay-Latimer was the South African museum official who in 1938 brought to the attention of the world the existence of the coelacanth, a fish thought to have been extinct for sixty-five million years....

 was preserved only as a skin, so Smith needed to collect this new specimen and get it refrigerated quickly so that the internal organs wouldn't decay. His local MP, Vernon Shearer, telephoned Malan and together with Smith persuaded him to send the South African Air Force
South African Air Force
The South African Air Force is the air force of South Africa, with headquarters in Pretoria. It is the world's second oldest independent air force, and its motto is Per Aspera Ad Astra...

 to fetch the fish and bring it back to South Africa. Because second specimen differed from the first one in two key ways, it lacked the first dorsal fin and its tail fin was truncated, Smith named the fish in honour of Malan and the place where the fish was caught, Malania anjouanae. Eventually it was established that this wasn't a different species at all, and exactly the same fish as the first specimen, Latimeria chalumnae
Latimeria chalumnae
West Indian Ocean coelacanth is a species of coelacanth, known for its vivid blue pigment. It is the better known of the two extant species.-Biological characteristics:...

; the apparent differences were down to a shark attack that cost the fish one of its dorsal fins and part of its tail.

External links

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