In today’s terms he might be considered one. However, most people,
including the peasants of Poland, the tribesmen of Zululand and Xhosaland, the
peers of England, and the populations of Asia, America and China considered
themselves to be ‘racists’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century –
and were proud of it.
‘Racism’, however, grew to refer to the hate that existed between jingoist British colonial subjects and bitter boers. It was an ethnic/racist division Smuts spent his whole political life trying, in vain, to combat.
Racism as we understand it rightly today acquired
universal opprobrium with the advent of Facism and Nazism and later offshoots
such as nationalistic Apartheid.
Smuts lived to see all three – and it could be claimed he actively opposed
all three. He was one of the founders of the League of Nations and an author of
the United Nations Freedom Charter. His personal philosophy involved
universalism. His ‘Holism’ embraced and sought to harmonise differences, not to
exclude them.
Yet he practised racial
politics, and will remain forever condemned in Africa for doing so.
Why then
did his international contemporaries after World War Two – ranging from
liberal-minded academics on several continents, and leaders of much of the
democratic world, hold him in such high esteem? Undoubtedly it was because of his world vision and the way he
articulated and sometimes demonstrated it.
Like Cecil Rhodes, he was a complex and flawed leader who valued ideas
more than individuals, but to label him a ‘racist’ in today’s context might
reflect as much on the prejudice, racism, ignorance, or petty attitudes of the accuser –
white or black - than on Smuts.
The same might be said of Rhodes. He appears to have been oblivious to almost everything except his own vast ambitions. He didn't hate people because of their race. He simply manipulated people, or moved them out of his way.
Some examples of Smuts's qualities as a leader and negotiator:-
A) He is
the instigator, at the tender age of about 30, to convince the Old Beards to take the initiative and declare war on Britain before she can get troops landed.
B) He goes on to negotiate favourable terms at war-end; achieving
‘semi-independence’ on the grounds that they need the power so that he and Botha can cope with the bitter-einders.
C) All this was apparent in the lead-up to a Union, negotiated
mainly by him on the same conditions granted at Vereeniging.. . .
Slim Jan is a puppetmaster who could outrival
Milner. He was finally able to better
Rhodes, confuse Merriman, transcend Louis Botha and everyone it seemed, except
Hertzog and Malan, whom he failed to watch as his attention wandered overseas, where he
was gaining international glory.
