Acknowledgements [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ] Who was this man who for more than half a century played a leading role on the domestic and international stage as warrior, statesman and
councilor of kings. [ Music ] [ Music ] He focused on uniting Boer and Brit after the Anglo Boer War and was caught up in a global arena between two World Wars serving
as a member of the British War Cabinet in both. Reconciliation is central to his draft to the preamble of the United Nations Charter
which upholds human rights. [ Music ] Yet, for all this, today he is virtually persona non grata in his own country. 'I think it's somewhat sad that a Canadian teenager will know more about Jan Smuts, and what he achieved in world terms,
than a South African adult.' The most tangible evidence of the work and deeds of this great man
are to be found in the memorablia in this huge rambling wood and iron house on his farm Doornkloof, near Pretoria. [ Music ] He had a great love of walking in the open veld and his interest in grasses found fulfillment in the various species in and around his farm on which a small room
served as his private herbarium. Despite the official car he was allocated, he would often walk the 17kms to his Prime Minister's Office in the Union Buildings. But nowhere was his love of walking more keenly felt than in then
in his hikes up Table Mountain. [ Music ] [ Music ] Jan Smuts: "The Mountain is not merely something externally sublime. It has a great historic and spiritual meaning for us. It stands for us as the ladder of life. Nay, more, it is the ladder of the soul, and in a curious way the source of religion. From it came the Law, from it came the Gospel of the Sermon on the Mount. We may truly say the highest Religion is the religion of the Mountain." [ Music ] An exceptional human being he left an indelible impression on a 7 year old girl. 'Suddenly here he came walking along with two little children on both hands and the nanny made up the rear and he started talking to us. and he didn't talk down to me, he talked to me as though I was an adult
and I never forgot that. He was actually way ahead of his contemporaries. If you look around in this library, you'll be astonished
at the collections of books, number one, number two is the titles ... the subjects which he covered and he had read it all. The library was his sanctuary _ so a visitor didn't just walk in here and that also applied to his children and his grand children....he loved children. They would peek around the doorpost and he would invite them in and say "Take any book off the shelf, open it on any page and read me the first three lines", and he woud give them the title of the book.' Why has this brilliant man, a leader who embraced a modest lifestyle despite his political status, and who is regarded by leading historians today as one of the Makers of the Modern World virtually disappeared off the radar screen in his own country? A look back on his life may provide some answers. He spent his early years on his father's farm in the Western Cape
where he developend an affinity with nature which would not only remain with him for the rest of his life but sew the seeds for a Darwinian-type philosophy that would shape his world view and influence many of his decisions in life. Jan Smuts: "How well I remember tending the cattle on the large farm, roaming over all its far expanse of veld, in which every kloof, every valley, every koppie was endeared to me by the most familiar associations. Having no human companion I felt a spirit of comradeship with the objects of nature around me. In my childish way I communed with these as with my own soul; they became the sharers of my confidence." His parents, 5th generation Dutch descendants, Catherina Petronella and Jacobus Abraham Smuts, who lived a simple lifestyle in their modest farmhouse, could never have imagined in their wildest dreams they had given birth in 1870 to a genius who would grow up to be an international icon. At the age of 12 Jan's life takes a dramatic turn when his older brother dies, and, as the new oldest brother in the family, he is given the chance of a formal education. This Afrikaans speaking boy packs 12 years of schooling into 5, mastering not only English to become one of the greatest English orators of the 20th century, but also Greek, German and High Dutch. At Victoria College, now Stellenbosch University, his intellect and romantic spirit take flight, feeding into a personal philosophy which is yet to fully take shape. Jan Smuts: "The five years I spent at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, were probably the happiest of my life. I read much and widely, but especially the poets and philosophical writers. I had not yet any defined channel of thinking or feeling. My mind was simply dazzled by beauty in all its intellectual forms." It is at Victoria College that he meets fellow student Isie Krige, whose home in Stellenbosch is a few houses away
from where he rents a room in Dorp street and they spend many hours together forging a relationship which lasts a lifetime, despite the many deep friendships he is destined to have
with other women in the ensuing years. Smuts takes many walks into the scenic countryside around Victoria College and it is here he is likely to have contemplated a theory that is germinating in his young mind a belief that the country's future lay in political union a belief that he is to retain throughout his later political career. but it is to be a union shaped within the framework of a colonial mindset and restricted to those of European descent. At the age of 21 Smuts graduates with a double first first in a mixed degree in Literature and Science from the University of Cape Town, a university of which he would later become Chancellor. [ Music ] Another great turning point comes in his life when he is awarded a scholarship to study law at Cambridge University where he is later hailed by a professor as one of the top three scholars, next to Charles Darwin and the epic poet John Milton, ever to attend Christ Church College. [ Music ] In later life he is given one of this academic instituion's highest honours
when he is inaugurated as Chancellor. It is here at Cambridge that the young Afrikaner boy fully embraces
English and European culture, paving the way for the role he is destined to play as an international statesman, a role which is to later prove increasingly irksome to his fellow Afrikaners. It is also at this stage of his life, influenced by his studies of Greek Philosophy, his own philosophical leanings take shape in a school of thought he calls Holism from which comes the phrase 'holistic' and which takes
Darwin's theory of evolution into new realms. 'The oubaas's philosophy of holism stated that everything on the planet is interdependent and that if you remove one of the elements of that interdependence there would be a change reaction and consequences from that and so he believed that grasses would exist to feed the cattle and that the cattle would exist to feed us ... for an example as a very simple idea.' 'Smuts anticipated the science of ecology which comes from the word 'oikos' the house, the totality.' It was a school of thought that was destined to permeate every facet of his ensuing political career, yet in its implementation it proved to be flawed in that it was conceived within an imperialistic world order, and didn't include the suppressed within that order, certainly not in in his own country. 'It was a great philosophical vision that he had that the whole is more important than the solitary or the individual. Bringing people together they are more powerful when they are working together. This concept of a broader humanity of the Commonwealth, I mean he really was the father of the Commonwealth and it was encompassed in his view of the British Empire that was part of his holistic vision and the United Nations was certainly part of that. Yet, for him somehow the people of the colonies were not part of that whole. To him, and I suspect to Churchill, western civilization was the universal standard,
and to many still is!' 'It sounds like this principle of holism brings together only those wholes which share similar elements among themselves. Now once you do that, for me it is already laying the basis for discrimination. In Africa you would not find anything that was similar to the cultures of Europe. I think Holism got him lost because it is selective of whom you will connect with.' After graduating as a lawyer Smuts returns to the Cape Colony and becomes an ardent supporter of Cecil John Rhodes whose vision of a united Africa from Cape to Cairo, feeds into his philosophy of creating a greater interdependent whole out of a fragmented continent. But an event occurs that turns his life around completely. [ Gunfire ] The Jameson Raid engineered by Rhodes under the guise of fighting for the cause of the mainly disenfranchised British ex pats, or Uitlanders, living in the Transvaal was for Smuts a betrayal of trust and he leaves the Cape to become Kruger's State Attorney. But hardly three years later, Kruger is facing the possibility of war with Britain. [ Music ] Kruger sits down at this table together with President Steyn of the Orange Free State, Jan Smuts and Lord Milner, among others. Kruger makes concessions but Milner is determined to crush the 2 Boer Republics. No agreement is reached. Smuts drafts an ulltimatum to the British. The ultimatum is rejected and troops begin massing near the Transvaal border. [ Music ] [ Music ] During the early phase of the war Smuts makes several visits to the war front on the Natal side of the line. [ Music ] [ Music ] Following early successful campaigns in the war, the tide begins to turn against the Boers. [ Gunfire ] [ Gunfire] [ Music ] A triumphant Lord Roberts enters Pretoria in June 1900. Smuts becomes a Boer Guerrilla Commando. He was trained as a strategist by General de la Ray. 'I think the fact that he had proved his ability to win three battles within 3 days In fact shortly after his becoming a full general and having his own command, coupled to the fact that he was that academic and that intellectual, proved his abilities to the burghers, the ordinary burgher, that this was a great leader, he was a man who knew his story, he was
a man who was a brilliant intellectual and here was the man in the veld with them, fighting with them at the front.' Smuts and his commando enter the Cape Colony in an attempt
to draw the local Boers into the conflict. [ Music ] 'During Smuts' raid into the Eastern Cape when he was operating in the Suurberge which now incidentally forms part of the Addo Elephant National Park, as a matter of interest, the Times even reported that this band of resolute men led by General Smuts formed one of the most amazing aspects of the guerilla war. This commando laid siege to the copper mining town of Okiep after neighbouring towns Concordia and Springbok had surrendered to the Boers in the closing phase of the war. On the one hand the British were having a certain degree of success with depriving the Boer of their supplies; on the other hand, however, Smuts was proving that he could be a factor in the veld by besieging Okiep.' To end this guerilla warfare, the British adopt brutal methods to crush further Boer resistance. There were several incidents that hastened the end of the war, Firstly, Lord Kitchener's scorched earth policy had resulted in women and children being removed from the farms and the livestock being slaughtered.
It deprived the Boers in the veld with their ability to live off the veld and to source supplies from these different homesteads. Isie Smuts is put under house arrest despite her pleas to be sent
to a concentration camp with other Boer women. The harsh treatment of Boer women and children provokes Smuts and his men to fight on with renewed desperation and anger. British welfare campaigner, Emily Hobhouse, brings world attention
to the plight of the Boer Women and children. [ Music ] 'There was a dear little chap of about four and all that was left of him were big, brown eyes and white teeth set in lips stretched back too thin to close. He was emaciated. It is difficult to describe what it is like to see all those children in a state of collapse. After a while they carried the corpses out at dawn and instead of passing through the town they went to the cemetery another route. The sudden realization of the death rate dawned upon me. It was a death rate which had never been seen except in the times of the great plagues. The whole talk was of death, who died yesterday, who lay dying today and who would be dead tomorrow. [ Music ] The war, which lasts for two and a half years witnesses the loss of over 4 000 Boer combatants and 22 000 British soldiers. 28 000 Boer women and children and 14000 black inmates died in British concentration camps. Many of them were dumped in the veld in makeshift camps after their farmhouses were burnt down as a result of Kitchener's scorched earth policy. The brave, but beleaguered Boers, having lost their republics and suffered much, eventually submit to defeat with the signing of the Peace Treaty of Vereeniging. [ Music ] With Smuts as one of the Boer delegates, the signing takes place here at Melrose House, Pretoria, ... now preserved as a museum. [ Music ] [ Music ] Smuts contributes to the wording of the Peace Treaty. The Boers hand in their arms. [ Music ] [ Music ] 'When he went back to his commando at Okiep after the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging Treaty, when he had announced that the war had ended, one of the members of his commando called out "Jannie Smuts, jy het ons veraai". You betrayed us! ' It was at this point that Smuts pours out his innermost feelings to Emily Hobhouse :Smuts: "You know it is really curious how different people are constituted. I could spend all my days in peace and quiet and would prefer that state of existence; whereas you seem to be made for battle, and for the excitement which accompanies great endeavours and achievements." 'My dear General Smuts.....Perhaps nature intended you to be a philosopher rather than a fighter, but circumstances made you that.' Paul Kruger passes away in 1904 and a year later Smuts joins other Transvaal Generals forming the People's Party under the leadership of Louis Botha to protect Afrikaner interests and to this end the General Pass Regulations Bill which controls the freedom of movement of blacks, and which, as State Attorney, he was instructed to draw up in 1898, is now implemented. Fresh from a hard fought war against the British from whom his people had trekked into the hinterland to escape their rule, Smuts knows they will never now readily submit to black domination. This statue in the Drakensberg commemorates Piet Retief's daughter who said that she would rather cross the mountains barefoot than submit to British rule. [ Wind ] 'The Afrikaner dilemma was never adequately understood and still isn't. There are still people who think that they were somehow primitive, but the Afrikaners had been here for as long as white folk had been in the United States. They saw themselves as forming a nation that was no longer a colony of the Netherlands. Now can you be a nation in a country where others are the majority?' By pandering to Afrikaner nationalism through segrationist policies that were to become more draconian under National Party rule and would eat away at the freedom of movement, choice, and both personal and economic development of a large sector of the population, Smuts compromises his fervent belief in human freedom as the cornerstone of peace that is central to his philosophy of Holism. He quotes Pericles' funeral speech as capturing the essence of the freedom he believed in. Smuts: "Freedom is the most ineradicable craving of human nature. Without it, peace, contentment and happiness, even manhood itself are not possible. Happiness is freedom and freedom is courage. That is the fundamental equation of all politics and all human government, and any system which ignores it is built on sand." The kind of freedom that men like Steve Biko even died for. 'We see a completely non racial society. We don't believe for instance in the so called guarantees for minority rights because guaranteeing minority rights implies only a portion of the community on a race basis. We believe that in our country there shall be no minorities, no majorities. There will be just people and those people will have the same status before the law and the same political rights before the law. So in a sense it will be a completely non racial society.' 'The freedom he was fighting for was for us to live, black and white, all us to live in this country peacefully and because we are all human beings created by God.' [ Music ] Smuts leaves for England where he is able to talk the leader of the newly elected Liberal Party, Campbell Bannerman, into granting responsible government to the two Boer Republics. Elated with Bannerman's magnanimity, he sees it as a gesture which wipes out a century of wrong. Smuts: "They gave us back our country in everything but name." Only 3 years later South Africa became the Union of South Africa, all four of the colonies becoming one and Smuts was quite convinced that it was in the political and economic interest of South Africa to be friends with the British Empire as it was known then. 'What he did was the right thing. He could have chosen the path of Hertzog or Dr Malan or other particular Afrikaners and that would lead to the isolation of Afrikaners and of South Africa in the end.' 'Smuts is the architect of South Africa. I don't think the country would exist at all if it wasn't for him. I really don't think Union would have happened if Smuts hadn't held the thing together. His primary collaborator is Merriman...Merriman doesn't have the constituency; he can't really hold the Boers and the Englishmen together in the way Smuts was able to. He was not easily defeated; he keeps trying literally inter generationally; he doesn't give up. The second big thing that Smuts was careful about, which this state is not, is controlling the wealthy. So what Smuts does and there are many examples of this, the best is the Gold Act of 1907 which essentially nationalizes all mineral resources in South Africa. After 1907 all the new mines that are built, all East Rand mines for example, were built with the state as the primary equity holder and 50% of the profits or more, often it was up to 80% of the profits coming out of the gold mines, was taken by the state and those profits were used very carefully to build up good schooling, good health care system, good road infrastructure. The problem was that Smuts was also very good at drawing a boundary in saying that the community that benefits from this will be primarily its residents in the cities. He spent a lot of the money on the land bank as well in helping white farmers.' In unifying the old colonies, Smuts attempts to unify Boer and Brit within them by working with Botha to create the SA Party which follows a pro-British white-dominated rule, giving whites complete control over all race groups. [ Music ] A year later in direct response to the suppression of the rights of the black majority, the ANC is formed. The following year under Botha's government the infamous Native Land Act is introduced reserving 93% of the land for white ownership, the implications of which are far reaching, and in 1918 the 'Natives in Urban Areas' Bill is drawn up, designated to force blacks into locations. [ Music ] 'Smuts never had a real racial policy. He ducked away from it. He was a segregationist all along the way.' He saw political integration as an inevitability but was not prepared to facilitate the process. Smuts: "When I consider the political future of natives in South Africa, I must say I look into shadows and darkness, and then I feel inclined to shift the intolerable burden of solving that sphinx problem to the ampler shoulders and stronger brains of the future." 'He is criticized as being racist in the international community and was put out of power for being too liberal in his own home country. So he was a man of remarkable intellect and a man who had a deep appreciation for humanity. He was not a racist he never was and what today would be seen as racism should, I think, be seen in the context of the times in which he was forced to act. If he had promoted in parliament some radical liberal motion, he would have suffered a note of no confidence within 24 hours which would have defeated him and probably much of what we know today.' Smuts' segregation policies which includes Indians having
to carry passes brings him into direct conflict with Mahatma Gandhi. Ironically Gandhi, born into the same imperialistic world as Smuts, holds strong racial views for at least the first 12 years of his time in South Africa. In 1906 he wrote in an Indian journal. [ Music } But while Gandhi talks of racial differences, Smuts views the differences more in cultural terms. Smuts: "When I was, about the same time as you, studying in England, I had no race prejudice or colour prejudice against your people. In fact if we had known each other we would have been friends. Why is it then that now we have become rivals we have conflicting interests? It is not colour prejudice or race prejudice, though some of our people do ignorantly talk in those terms, but then there is one thing I want you to recognize. It is this. I have no racial legislation, but how will you solve the difficulty about the fundamental differences of our cultures? Let alone the question of superiority; there is no doubt your civilization is different from ours. Ours must not be overwhelmed by yours. That is why we have to go in for legislation which must in effect put disabilities on you." What is significant about both Smuts and Gandhi is that both experience change over time in their fixed attitudes towards racial and/or cultural differences. For Smuts it is a transition from a colonial paternalistic mindset that regarded blacks as barbarians who had to be civilized in western traditions to someone in the closing years of his political life who had come to empathise with the suffering of the disenfranchised and was beginning to loosen the rigid restrictions of segregation. For Gandhi it is the change from a smart young lawyer who arrives in South Africa in a suit and leaves many years later in sandals and cotton kaftan, reaching out to all humanity. 'At the time that he makes certain statements regarding the African people, he was very, very young. He was living in a different country, it was in a different environment and his political ideology and philosophy in life had not quite developed. And we find that over a period of time, his integration and inter-action and his assimilation in different communities, particularly in South Africa during the colonial and post-colonial period, made him aware of different cultures, different linguistic groups.' After the Indian Relief bill in 1914, a friendship develops between Gandhi and Smuts who says it is his misfortune to have opposed and imprisoned such a great man. [ Music ] [ Music ] ..... a turn of events that jettisons Smuts onto the world stage. Britain's ultimatum to Germany to withdraw troops from Belgium expires and the British Empire, including South Africa, is automatically at war. But first Prime Minister Louis Botha and his deputy Smuts have to deal with rebellion on the home front led by former Boer War General Christian de Wet. 'When the first war broke out many Afrikaners went into rebellion. They were unhappy with the fact that South Africa was going into the war on the side of Great Britain. After putting down the rebels under General de Wet, Smuts and Botha turn their focus on invading German South West Africa securing a surrender within 4 months. Attention later turns to German East Africa where Smuts is given the command of the troops with the rank of Lieutenant General. He moves into a vast, wet, maleria-infested terrain. [ Music ] His opponent, General von Lettow-Vorbeck is forever on the retreat but never declares defeat. In a 10-month gruelling offensive, with more soldiers collapsing from illness than wounds, Smuts pushes ahead, relentlessly gaining control over a huge territory. He leaves for London where he serves on the Imperial War Conference. He is lionised and feted with invitations, Honorary doctorates and freedom of cities. He is also accepted by the war generals against whom he had fought in the Anglo Boer War and shakes hands with his former enemy Lord Milner. During the conference he introduces the concept of the dominions as autonomous nations under what he terms a British Commonwealth, knowing full well that this would pave the way for their eventual emancipation. Smuts so impresses Prime Minister, Lloyd George with his astute mind and clear thinking during the conference that he invites him to join the British War Cabinet. [ Battle ] In response to German air raids on London, Smuts advocates the creation of an air force to strike at the heartland of the enemy's armaments. and he amalgamates the British Flying Corps and the British Naval Services into the Royal Air Force creating the most powerful airforce in the world. [ Cheering ] [ Gunfire ] [ Gunfire ] The overwhelming courage shown by his country's forces in this war was demonstrated when the South African brigade held onto Delville Wood on the Western Front despite the loss of 80% of their men. [ Music ] At the end of the war, Smuts sets about drafting a resolution for the creation of the League of Nations, a World Peace-Keeping body that would work towards the prevention of future wars. His resolution is approved by the War Cabinet and, as the predecessor to the United Nations, its creation is an historic moment for the world and Smuts becomes an international icon. Smuts is strongly opposed to the harsh terms imposed on Germany by the big three :America, Britain and France, predicting they would not bring lasting peace in Europe. His words prove prophetic because the humiliation of Germany paves the way for the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of the 2nd World War. Smuts returns to South Africa little knowing that a mere three weeks later Louis Botha would die, casting him in the role of Prime Minister. He is viewed in awe as a respected international figure but also as someone austere and remote who has lost touch with his own people. "He was seen as a world player, someone on the world stage while the Afrikaner was looking in general for somebody who was an Afrikaner. We are God's own people. We need a leader that will lead us. I think that Smuts will, as an Afrikaner, be remembered more as a politician that paid attention to world politics and not to Afrikaner politics". Hertzog had used Smuts' absence to garner support for Afrikaner nationalism, outside British rule, which gives birth to the National Party. Adding to his troubles is a post World War 1 mood of Bolshevism that promotes the rights of the working class and sweeps across the world. In South Africa it feeds into the Rand Rebellion of 1922 which starts when black miners are brought in to take work from their white counterparts at lower pay. Smuts immediately brings in the army and the airforce to quell the rebellion. His quick and forceful response is akin to the sometimes hasty and decisive actions he took as a Boer Commando. [ Gunfire ] 'In 1922 the state comes very close to falling over and before there are several events, 1914 is exactly the same in which the rebellion essentially threatens the state and Smuts holds the thing together. He declares Martial Law and the perpetrators are rounded up and incarcerated. His radical response to the miners' strike further reduces his popularity amongst white voters. He makes an effort to appease them by introducing the Native Urban Areas Act restricting movement into towns to those blacks serving white labour needs, but this does little to address his dwindling popularity and his party loses the election to the Nationalists under Hertzog the following year. Five years later with the 1929 Wall Street Crash, South Africa's economy takes a downward turn and coincides with the worst drought the country has ever witnessed. The deteriorating economic conditions are blamed on the government that is steadily losing support. Smuts sees his opportunity to join forces with the Nationalists through a coalition under the new United Party, with him serving as Deputy Prime Minister to Hertzog. Hertzog entrenches segregation even further by introducing the Natives Bill Act and the Colour Bar which prevents blacks from practising skilled trades and they are completely taken off the common voters role. This creates a fertile ground for apartheid when the National Party comes into power in 1948. Smuts' view on Afrikaner nationalism by this stage has changed radically, which doesn't make for a comfortable fusion with Hertzog's party. 'In 1929 he called Afrikaner nationalism a negative thing that would lead to the death of nations whereas friendship with the British Commonwealth would open new roads for us and in that sense I think Smuts was quite correct.' Now, no longer in the driving seat, he shows the first sign of a change in his attitude towards those whose plight he has ignored for so long. In a letter to Margaret Clark in 1931, he writes :"We are once more in select committee over Hertzog's Native Bills. The way out is as dark as ever. The Native Bills Committee is pursuing its mischievous course, and I fear the Natives will be completely excluded from the House of Assembly. The anti-Native element shows no abatement and forms a most melancholy and mischievous sign of the times. I hate these useless colour distinctions which are no good and simply act as pinpricks to the Coloured and Native people. But it seems to belong to the very framework of our South African outlook to put things into colour lines. It is more the fear complex and largely has unconscious sources. But to me it is often very distressing. The Natives think that Fusion means they are now without champions and that the Nationalists viewpoint has won." [ Music ] Storm clouds start building over Europe with the impending 2nd World War. and Smuts visits Europe in 1934 where he makes two important speeches, one at St Andrews University where he accepts the rectorship and he calls for Britain to take the initiative in Europe against Fascism and Nazism and the other at the Royal Institute of International Affairs where he says that fear complex on the one hand and inferiority complex on the other are the two negative forces dominating Europe. His speeches are hailed by the British press. [ Music } [ Music ] 'Two of the most influential new studies of the global political system around the United Nations: a book by Mark Mazower called "No enchanted Palace" and a new book by Timothy Mitchell called "Carbon Democracy". ... these are really influential studies of transnational history by eminent professors; one is at Princeton the other one at NYU. They both place Smuts right at the centre of this constitutional order that emerges through the United Nations _ the one at Versailles and the other at the United Nations negotiations and most of that is not known by South African historians _ few people actually really understand how key Smuts is in the crafting of the world system that emerges outside South Africa, particularly this idea of national self-determination. So after Versailles every state is supposed to relate in some way to a nation and that's pretty strange when you look back through the course of time that very few states have that characteristic. Mitchell's argument is that Smuts using this Boer history, saying that people of Eastern Europe should have self determination.' [ Engine sound ] 'I can still remember the day war was declared, I was playing with my toy cars on the floor in our home on a farm in the Eastern Cape. My father had just acquired a radio, which was a very rare instrument in those days, and I heard this sonorous BBC voice saying Britain and Germany are at war, now! [ Music } Prime Minister, General Hertzog, resigns after being outvoted in the House of Assembly in the decision to take South Africa to war. Deputy Prime Minister Jan Smuts, who won the day with his strong argument as to why the country should side with the Commonwealth in supporting Britain against Germany, becomes the new Prime Minister of South Africa's ruling United Party. Smuts: "This is a war forced upon us all; it was forced upon us by the brutal and unscrupulous drive for world domination that Germany under Hitler has made her ambition." The news that Smuts is taking South Africa into war in support of their former enemy further alienates many Afrikaners. Afrikaner women march on the Union Buildings to protest South Africa's entry into the war. 'My father disappeared very quickly and went off for training and Smuts of course was the hero figure for all of us; we were fighting against the evil Hitler ...and of course we had a 5th column in our midst of the Ossewabrandwag, and my father spent a good part of his early spell in the army guarding intern prisoners. Among whom were John Vorster, later a Prime Minister here and of course lang Hendrik van den Berg the chief of BOSS _ The Bureau of State Security.' South Africa is totally unprepared for war. Smuts builds up his armed forces. Smuts: "South Africa sent forth her sons to the north in order to safeguard the freedom and liberties which are our heritage as a united nation. The people of South Africa have already taken part in one great war which menaced its future security in common with that of other countries Now, again, war came from the same quarter. Germany and her satellites are once more destroying the freedom loving countries of Europe and threatening to dominate other countries including our own." A major setback occurs in June 1942 when Rommel's forces overrun Tobruk and some 12000 South African soldiers are taken captive. With fresh troops he rallies his men and four months later South Africa and allied forces reverse the situation and win a great victory at El Alamein. Allied forces including the fighting Springboks are victorious in Abyssinia and are mobilized in Italy and Sicily. South Africa's fighting forces under Smuts prove to be among the best in the world. 'Smuts was a constant companion to many of us. We used to get gifts which came from Isie Smuts, his wife, and there were constant messages that came from Smuts as well and so the saying amongst us young soldiers was .... Jannie Smuts is our shepherd and all well be well.' [ Music ] Smuts is welcomed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill into the Imperial War Cabinet and in 1941 promoted to the rank of Field Marshal. He wins the respect of allied leaders in the West. Churchill, especially, holds him in high esteem even wanting to appoint him as acting Prime Minister while he is away in Tehran. When looking out over a field of dead soldiers we have a glimpse of the sensitive Smuts. "Even though these were the faces and sufferings of our enemy, one had a deeper sense of the common humanity which knows no racial distinctions". Smuts may have been a brilliant military strategist, but he was no warmonger, he viewed war as a means to an end in the interest of nation building. Smuts: "Memorials, of course, have more than one use. They serve to remind us what is past, of great deeds of heroism and sacrifice; they also serve as a pointer, and sometimes as a warning, to the future. It is in these senses that the South African War Museum may be regarded as a Memorial. It will remind us, I hope, not only of the part we played in the recent great struggle to save civilization but also of the horrors, the loss of life and the devastation, and serve as a warning to us to create a world in which we shall never have to use again the weapons of death and destruction we see here today, or those more dreadful weapons to follow them." [ Music ] [ Music } Thousands gather in Johannesburg to Smuts' peace speech and call for a new world order. Smuts: "A world order in which a new human society can arise within the framework of an organized international peace order." [ Music ] Smuts' crowning glory comes after the war when he arrives in San Francisco to sign South Africa up as a member of the newly formed United Nations. Britain's Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, hails him as the doyen of the Conference - "quite unrivalled in his intellectual attributes and unsurpassed in experience and authority". But in a changing world which now upholds the fundamental rights of the United Nations Freedom Charter of which he, himself, had drafted the preamble, there is severe criticism of his domestic policy in which the majority are still disenfranchised. [ Music ] 'They were diminished. Imperialism died with World War 2 and Smuts somehow didn't realize that was happening... with all his intellect, all his understanding of politics all his understanding of reconciliatory politics - it just didn't register with him _ it didn't register with Churchill either. Churchill thought the Empire was going to continue for a 1000 years! Smuts just failed to read the key moment of his time!' Smuts: "Here is the author of the great Preamble of the Charter, exposed as a hypocrite and a double-faced time-server! They are of course right and so is dear South Africa. But look at this bad fellow who is responsible for it all." 'The tragedy of Smuts is that he was a man of enormous intellect ... there are few like him ... I mean he has to be one of the giants of history in terms of the range of the specialties that he engaged in, and was recognized as such by all sorts of people from Einstein and other great men, certainly Churchill did, but the pre World War II world did not recognize people who were not white westerners. Somehow they were behind in terms of civilization. That was what World War II changed and the sad thing is Smuts should have known it. World War II in his own words and those of Churchill was against racism. Hitler was the ultimate racist ...... exterminating the Jews. World War II was the war that made the world realize that racism was no longer sustainable. [ Music ] The criticism does little to mar his post World War 2 optimism :the South African troops have been on the side of victory, the country is a member of the United Nations and the economy is looking buoyant. In 1947 he brings the British Royal family for a grand tour of South Africa. All-in-all he feels he has more than delivered to the South African electorate and looks forward with confidence to another term in office as Prime Minister, but the Royal visit further alienates the Nationalists who see it as another move to strengthen the British Monarchy in the Union. [ Music ] 'When the time came in 1948 and he was defeated - this was a huge blow, a shock! and this man Malan who had been in our minds pro Nazi. I think he had become so embroiled in global politics that he lost sight of what was happening on his own home patch. He thought that he still had the Afrikaner vote...he just took it for granted.' There was also a fear of Jan Hofmeyr, Smuts' Deputy Prime Minister. 'He was a liberal to the heart and he openly said there's only one solution for South Africa's racial problems and that is one man, one vote, and to say that in the '40s was a terrible thing to do and I think that also played a huge role in people saying, no, no, Smuts is not young any more, Jannie Hofmeyr is 53 or 54 so he might well become the next prime minister and then we're down the drains.' 'For the Afrikaners to change and accept one person, one vote meant giving up their country, as they saw it - and I had to deal with this as a political correspondent and as a commentator that was opposing them, but I had to understand why it was so difficult and why in the end I believe they could never do it unless an Afrikaner told them they had to.' The Afrikaners were further concerned about being overwhelmed by blacks coming into white areas. 'South Africa had really undergone an industrial revolution through the war - black people swarmed into town _ the black issue had become big; they had taken a lot of the jobs that the departed soldiers had taken and they were rubbing shoulders up against Afrikaners who had left the rural areas left their farms to come into town to accept jobs as the industrial revolution expanded and urbanization had taken place. South Africa changed, and indeed the world had changed, and he didn't notice the change. But perhaps one of the greatest flaws in this man of genius that lead to him losing the election was ironically his very intellect. He did not easily take advice from others. 'He couldn't really entertain other opinions, he was a man of his own kind and he believed in himself.' Smuts is totally crushed at losing the 1948 election. The grand dream of a prosperous, liberal and united South Africa that he had envisaged, has come to naught. Smuts did not prepare South Africa for the change that ultimately South Africa would have to make. Instead of being an instrument of change towards democracy for all within his own country, he has paid service to Afrikaner Nationalism and European imperialism neither of which proved to be compatible. [ Music ] [ Music ] 'Apartheid was a new thing _ it was a strong thing and in the end not because of Smuts' dealings but because of the Afrikaners themselves who believed they were a Herrenvolk, the only people who could survive on this earth. With leaders like Malan, Strijdom and of course Vervoerd they became a people upon themselves and they believed they would rule forever, like Ian Smith, for the next 1000 years and this was entrenched in 1956 by Advocate JG Strijdom, Prime Minister, who said in parliament :"There's no question about it. Die wit man is baas in Suid Afrika. ... the white man is boss in South Africa ... no other ways about that", and the people applauded him.' 'It took an Afrikaner in the shape of PW Botha to first say, "We have to adapt or die"... and that is why it is so disappointing that Smuts the Afrikaner genius didn't recognize it.' But Smuts did recognize that transformation was inevitable although he, himself, did very little to facilitate it. Smuts: "My feeling is that strong forces are at work which will transform the Afrikaner attitudes to the natives." At the opening of the Voortrekker Monument, a year before his death, he made an appeal to the Afrikaner community to embrace reconciliation in race and colour relations :Smuts: "On the top of the Andes Mountains of South America there rises a monumental cross called the Christ of the Andes. May this moment of our historic beginnings be a symbol of the same kind _ the Christ in Africa _ a symbol not only of past strife, of the blood and tears, but also of our reconciliation and eternal peace - and of our view to pursue in our race and colour relations as well, the just, the good and the beautiful." Smuts dies in 1950, heralding in a 40 year period of Apartheid, one in which racial and cultural divisions are entrenched with the population being legally categorized into four boxes, Whites, Coloureds, Indians, and Blacks... a move which militated against any form of Nation building. [ Music ] The size of Smuts funeral in Pretoria is an indication that there were few who did not recognize that here, indeed, was a great son of South Africa. [ Music ] At the top of his favorite haunt, Table Mountain, is a plaque with a quote from Shakespeare which is a fitting tribute to Smuts ... a man who, for all his flaws, was a brilliant scholar, philosopher, ecologist, military and political strategist, and champion of world peace ... a man who made his mark as an international icon and put South Africa on the World Map! [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ] [ Music ]
