The covenant - James A. Michener [546]
In 1956 Detleef van Doorn engineered one more assault on the Coloureds, and this time, with a vastly enlarged Senate and a Supreme Court more than doubled, the law was passed by Parliament and certified by the Court, but Detleef's sense of triumph, to which he was entitled, was diminished by the severe illness of his sister. He was with her when she heard the joyous news that Coloureds were to be thrown off the common roll, first step in their total disfranchisement: 'It is our duty, Detleef, to make decisions. We must see that they are just, but we must also see that they are enforced strictly so that we retain control. I wish our father and mother could have seen this day.' She passed into a mumbling period, then called for Maria: 'Detleef lacks will power. When the time comes, he won't want to fight to take South Africa out of the Commonwealth. Pressure him, Maria. We must be free.' And she died, never for a moment perceiving that Coloureds and blacks might also want to be free.
In the sad wake of his sister's death Detleef worked diligently on the next chain of laws which would bind the nation together. Only whites could attend the great universities. Bantu education was severely revised, taking it away from religious organizations and missionaries and placing it under the control of politicians: 'Blacks must not be troubled with subjects which they have not the brain power to comprehend, or trained for jobs which will never exist for them. They should be taught only those skills needed to enable them to support the dominant society. Instruction should be in Afrikaans, since that is to be the language of the nation of which they will form a helpful part.'
He then directed his attention to living areas, for it angered him to see attractive spots in the big cities still occupied by Bantu. In sweeping regulations, which he drafted but which appeared over the signature of others, he authorized the evacuation of such areas and gave special attention to one particular eyesore in Johannesburg-Sophiatownwhere he called in the bulldozers to start leveling the place; the black occupants were sent out into locations he had set up in the countryside. These blacks, all of whom worked for white families and establishments in Johannesburg, joined the masses of workers herded together southwest of the City of Gold. Highspeed railway lines soon carried nearly half a million black servants into the city at dawn, out to the countryside at dusk.
In 1957 Detleef played no part in two major decisions, but he supported the men who made them: 'God Save the Queen' was dropped as the national anthem, to be replaced by 'Die Stem van Suid-Afrika,' a fine, stirring song; and the Union Jack no longer flew as a national flag. Maria was especially gratified by these changes, for they proved to her and others that the country was at last becoming the Afrikaner republic it should always have been: 'The bad years since 1795, when the English first intruded, are almost over. I was just a little ashamed of myself for cheering when Jan Christian Smuts died, but I was glad to see him go. He betrayed the Afrikaner, and it was only just that he should have died rejected by his own people.'
And then the euphoria of the Van Doorns was shattered by an act they could not comprehend. Their son Marius, an excellent rugby player at Stellenbosch, with every promise of graduating to Springbok status, was selected to be a Rhodes scholar and offered a sumptuous grant of money to study at Oxford.
'It's reassuring to know he was eligible,' Detleef told his friends in Parliament. 'He's one of the best.'
'Will he accept?'
'Certainly not. There's talk of his being selected for the next tour of New Zealand.'
'A Springbok?' the men asked excitedly.
One man who followed sports avidly broke