Violence, whiteness & the Dutch

Reformed church1
Cobus van Wyngaard 2

Introduction
Eighteen months ago, on the morning of one of our first meetings planning this particular conference, I
had a knife held against me, and my cell phone and cash stolen3. That was January of 2009. 2008 will be
remembered in our congregation as the year of violence. Specifically violent crime. For at least the
readers of the Afrikaans newspapers Kameeldrift became synonymous with violence and crime. It was
within these contexts that my own critical reflection on violence and theology was birthed. I am an
ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed church, a white church, which, as I shall argue in a moment, is
important to take note of.

The Afrikaner community, as well as the Dutch Reformed church in particular, has often been blamed
for its lack of critical self-reflection and self criticism (for example Fourie 2008:282; Van der Westhuizen
2007:6-7). It can also well be argued that white people in general for most of modern history lacked in
critical self-reflection concerning race, as can be seen in the blind spot that existed in white-dominated
scholarship concerning white identity.

The past two decades has seen a large amount of literature, both internationally and in South Africa, in
what is generally called “whiteness studies”. Taken seriously, I believe this can assist white people in
South Africa in their process of self-reflection, self criticism, and rethinking identity in a postcolonial,
postapartheid South Africa.

Whiteness studies in South Africa reveal very specific understandings concerning violence and crime in
white rhetoric, which is of concern for our topic under discussion. Simultaneously, I present this as part
of a broader quest: that of engaging studies on whiteness in reflection on the Dutch Reformed church.

The Dutch Reformed Church

It is not strange for the Dutch Reformed Church to be talking about being church in a context of
violence. Ever since 1994 violence has been on the agenda of every General Synod meeting of the
church. In 2002 a declaration on the calling of this church in Southern Africa was presented which has
remained influential in General Synod meetings ever since, and for now at least will continue to do so. In
1
Paper read at the conference on “Violence in the democratic South Africa: A challenge to theology and the
churches”, held at the University of Pretoria, 10-12 August 2010.
2
Cobus van Wyngaard is an ordained minister of the Dutch Reformed congregation in Kameeldrif, Masters student
at the University of Pretoria, and involved with the Centre for Public Theology at the University of Pretoria.
3
I wrote a blog post about this experience. January 27, 2009. the mugging.
http://mycontemplations.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/the-mugging/
this declaration the synod expressed its wish to make a difference regarding the problems facing Africa,
specifically Southern Africa. First, although this was not explicitly stated as being the biggest priority, on
their list of problems facing Southern Africa was violence. (General Synod 2002:604-605).

The synods representing congregations around Pretoria (as well as Limpopo and Mpumalanga) took
responsibility in writing a report on violence on behalf of the Dutch Reformed Church (Noordelike
Sinode 2008:28). Recently the Eastern Synod, representing parts of Pretoria as well as Mpumalanga,
again called into life a commission on violence, and examples can go on. And talk about violence and
crime in the Dutch Reformed Church is not limited to synodal meetings. In the Kerkbode, official
newspaper of the Dutch Reformed Church letters and articles has been raging over the years concerning
violence.

A clear picture of what congregations are doing in engaging violence are still needed. But examples
exist, whether such as the congregation which participated in taking an offer of water to Gethsemane to
call on God to save us4, or congregations actively engaging other role players such as local government
and police in dialogue and participation in responding to violence. At the very least we can say that the
Dutch Reformed Church has been responding to the challenge posed by violence in the democratic
South Africa in various ways over the past years.

However, the Dutch Reformed Church remains a white church. I repeat this because white identity in
South Africa has a strong influence on perceptions regarding violence and crime, and I will therefore
argue that in the growing discussion within this church concerning violence, the insights of whiteness
studies can provide helpful insights.

It is not strange at all to find reference to the Dutch Reformed church in works on whiteness and
Afrikaners in South Africa (see for example various references in Van der Westhuizen 2007 and Jansen
2009:72-73). Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer, when talking about apartheid, calls it “the ugliest
creation of man, and they baptized the thing in the Dutch Reformed Church” (in Steyn 2001:24). Indeed,
very little need to be said today about the historic connection between the Dutch Reformed Church and
white identity in South Africa.

The question, however, which need to concern us is the effect of whiteness in the Dutch Reformed
church today. It remains a white church, empirically, and, at least from my personal experience, very
little had been made of critical whiteness studies from within the Dutch Reformed church, or even in
thorough academic reflection on the Dutch Reformed church.

I’m from the white Dutch Reformed church

Maybe this is the point where I need to first confess the difficulty in applying critical theories on
whiteness on the Dutch Reformed church, while still identifying with this church. I see myself as wholly
part of this church. Indeed, I owe the very fact that I stand here today, and that I am able to critically
reflect on my own whiteness as well as the whiteness of this church partly to what this church has given
my through its youth ministry, theological education, and experience in congregational ministry.

4
http://www.kerkbode.co.za/archive_berigte.asp?id=728
I can identify with Melissa Steyn’s description of feelings of guilt and betrayal when writing from an
insider’s position (Steyn 2001:xvii), of intense emotional turmoil when writing this, while still seen as
completely part of this group. Steyn describe her contradictory emotions as “a clear indication of the
intersectional, insider-outsider nature of researching of one’s “own” group” (2001:xxxv). However, my
conviction that this self-criticism is needed within my own group has through this study grown stronger
than ever.

In Garner’s introduction to whiteness, he states that “(t)hinking of yourself as ‘white’, as the whiteness
problematic forces you to do, means you are trying to understand how you as an individual are
ensnared in the social relationship of oppressed and oppressor” (2007:location229). The same should be
said for an institution historically so strongly influenced by whiteness, and which still function as an
overwhelmingly predominantly white institution such as the Dutch Reformed church.

It has been pointed out that a dysfunctional guilt complex isn’t going to move white South African
forward (Steyn 2001:161), and this will be true for the church as well. But not talking about whiteness
denies the reality of distinct white discourses in society. My goal is not to provide excessive feelings of
guilt, but rather to find appropriate means to critically reflect on my own work as pastor and theologian,
and also the position of the church I am part of.

Whiteness studies
Within the broad history of academic reflection whiteness studies is a relatively new player on the block,
emerging in the early to middle 90’s (Garner 2007:location199; Steyn 2004:144). Simply noticing the
blind spot that existed in Western scholarship until recently already illustrate part of the problem of
whiteness:

As the privileged group, whites have tended to take their identity as the standard by
which everyone else is measured. This makes white identity invisible, “even to the
extent that many whites do not consciously think about the profound effect being white
has on their everyday lives”. In sum, because the racialness of their own lives is edited
out, white people have been able to ignore the manner in which the notion of race has
structured people’s life opportunities in society as a whole. (Steyn 2001:xxvi).

White people most of the time mainly talk about white people, we just couch it in terms of ‘people’
generally (Steyn 2004:144). We don’t think of ourselves as white per se (Garner 2007:location814).
Beverley Tatum point to this in the way that her psychology class use descriptors for. Woman would
mention their being female, while men won’t mention being mail. In their predominantly protestant
context Jews will mention their being Jewish, while protestants won’t mention being protestant. And in
similar fashion students of color would mention their racial or ethnic group, while white students would
rarely mention their being white (2003:location541).

White has not always been what it is today. Race has not always been what it is today. Studies in
whiteness point out that the “white race” was an invention of the colonialist era (Steyn 2004:144-145)
which created a certain privilege for those who were able to, and allowed to, identify themselves as
white. The importance of whiteness studies is, among other things, that it exposes the way in which
racial order advances whites in spite of their experience that their social space is neutral (Steyn
2004:144), or at times despite the fact that they experience themselves as the “non-powerful” (Tatum
2003:335) or even the victims of society (Steyn 2004:xxix, 156-157; Garner 2007:location260).

Whiteness studies grew out of African-American attempts at an anti-racist recasting the world through a
focus on existing power relations (Garner 2007:149). The focus on white people as a race ‘like any other’
brought to the fore that indeed whiteness is ‘unlike any other’, since for a very long time at least (and I
would agree with other who state that in many ways this continue today), white was the dominant,
normalized location. Everything else was measured according to distance from selected white norms of
society (Garner 2007:location 201).

Even with only a few thoughts mentioned thus far, it should already be clear that I agree with those who
point out that there is an inherent problem with this normalized white self-understanding. The key to
critiquing and countering racism and racial polarization is to be found in studying the privilege of the
racial elite, white people (Steyn 2001:xxix).

Within the social space in which I move (and this is not limited to the Dutch Reformed church, and does
not exclude the academic environment) one often find the sentiment that white people are tired of
talking about race, about Apartheid, and about the past. Maybe the emotions involved in explaining to
others from my own group why I seem to be opening up racial wounds is the main reason for reacting to
this, but I personally find one of the most important insights from whiteness studies, and postcolonial
studies in general, that it problemetize the idea that white privilege, racism and talk about race is and
should be a thing of the past. Of this Steyn writes:

…a desire to close the discussion on the past, is one strand within a general pattern of
denial. The appeal to let sleeping dogs lie hides the crucial issue of which dogs are still
holding onto the bones. It is an evasion of the extent to which the past permeates the
present, of how the legacy of social injustice continues into the future. It is a refusal to
acknowledge that sustaining “normal” white life perpetuates the disadvantages of
others. (Steyn 2001:112-113)

Internationally white discourse uses a type of colour blindness which denies the effects of racialization
(Steyn & Foster 2007:29) which furthers the attempts at maintaining the status quo. To take time into
consideration I will not refer back to this again, so let me just mention that this can be found in white
discourse in various societies, including South African white discourse (Steyn 2001:101-114).

What was said so far does not provide an overview of whiteness studies, but rather paint a quick
overview of some of the things I believe to be important in starting to use these insights when thinking
about public theology and the white Dutch Reformed church in South Africa. In bringing us closer to the
subject being discussed, I’d like to focus on a few particularities of white identity and discourse specific
to South Africa next, at times pointing to white Afrikaners, my “own” group, specifically.
Whiteness in South Africa
There is a strong focus in whiteness studies to particularize specific whitenesses (Steyn 2004:145).
Indeed, Garner state this is an important assumption in our study of whiteness: “(t)he meanings
attached to ‘race’ are always time-and place-specific, part of each national racial regime. Whiteness is
no exception” (Garner 2007:location102). This said the global influence on whiteness in South Africa
should not be underplayed; indeed, the connection with a global white race is part of what keep white
privilege in place.

Much of what shaped our understanding of whiteness in South Africa need not be repeated in detail.
Apartheid didn’t develop apart from the racialization of white people across centuries of colonization.
Steyn calls Apartheid “a logical, if extreme, interpretation of the trope of modern Western whiteness”
(2001:xxxi). Indeed, she points to influential voices such as that of Derrida and Hannah Arendt, among
others, who considered Apartheid to be the ultimate form of racism in the world (:23-24).

However, it is not only the extremity of Apartheid, nor only the fact that South Africa was one of the last
countries in Africa to achieve majority rule, that cause for a unique white self-understanding. South
Africa also has a comparatively larger group of white citizens than any other country in Africa (Steyn
2001:41),

(the) disruption of power in South Africa, where whites are continuing to seek their
livelihood in a situation where they have neither numerical nor political power, is
unusual in the history of whiteness. Most groups of whites left the countries they had
colonized if they had not attained numerical majority as settlers, and could not retain
political dominance. By definition, therefore, the circumstances in the New South Africa
problematize the way whiteness was constructed as the social positionality of
domination. (Steyn 2001:164)

In South Africa white people are not a majority nor in political power, as in for example Australia. Still,
they are a larger group than white people in other African countries.

But the fact that white people are neither a numerical majority, nor have obvious political power, do not
end our conversation about white privilege. In a case study on Constantia, the suburb of Cape Town, it is
beautifully illustrates how white people use every means at their disposal (legal expertise, money,
political savvy etc) to continue protecting white privilege (2002:123-139). In Constantia this means
maintaining the status quo. Things should remain the way it is (:135). White privilege is maintained by
continuing Apartheid’s sociospatial entrenchment, or by even stronger entrenchment into gated
communities, motivated by the more “acceptable” discourse concerning fear of crime (Lemanski
2004:109).5

Attempts at maintaining white privilege is not limited to socialspatial concerns. Steyn focus on discursive
practices by white South Africans used to manage their positionality to their greatest advantage (Steyn
& Foster 2007:26). It’s a battle over definitions and ideas rather than segregated living areas. “A great

5
Obviously affluent blacks can also be found in traditionally rich white areas
deal is at stake in the battle over whose definitions of the current and transforming social, economic
and political arrangements and developments should prevail, both within the country and abroad”
(Steyn & Foster 2007:26).

The way in which white people participate in the public discourse in South Africa, the themes occurring,
the meanings created and the understanding of reality being unpacked, remain ways in which white
privilege is being kept in place. This is not the same as saying that white self-description is remaining
stagnant. In research looking at letter to the editor in Beeld, it is pointed out how Afrikaners are
constantly redefining themselves as need arise, negotiating for themselves a reasonably acceptable
place in the new South Africa (Fourie 2008:281). Other analysis’ of white talk in the Afrikaans
newspapers point out postapartheid white discourses which attempts at keeping the systematic
Afrikaner advancement gained through apartheid intact, sustaining high levels of material, psychological
and emotional comfort (Steyn 2004:150-151).

One of the strongest themes in white discourse is talk about violence, through which white people in
South Africa, and the Afrikaner specifically at times, is recast as the victim of the new South Africa.
White talk on violence is of the utmost importance if we are to understand the role of the Dutch
Reformed church in a context of violence (Steyn 2004:156).

Violence and whiteness in the democratic South Africa

There is a perception that crime is becoming a worse problem, and a growing fear of crime. In a 1994
public opinion survey 6% of respondents considered crime to be a major concern. By 1997 this had risen
to 58%. This was significantly higher than the rise in crime (Lemanski 2004:105), and we have seen
yesterday how this trend which started shortly after 1994 has continued until today. While in 1998
whites felt safe in residential areas, by 2003, in spite of an excessive fortification, “their fear of the
increasingly unknown outside has exploded, leading to further fortification and, hence, deeper fear”
(Lemanski 2004:106). And there seem to be a vicious cycle where fear leads to entrenchment, and those
entrenched develop a growing fear.

Steyn points out how certain white discourses attempting to keep white privilege in place name crime as
South Africa’s greatest problem (Steyn & Foster 2007:33-34). Furthermore “(T)he slant in White Talk,
however, is that black people are criminogenic and violent, justifying stricter police and criminal justice
systems that affect black people disproportionately” (Steyn & Foster 2007:38). Black people are
specifically painted as responsible for crime and violence, and white people, at times specifically
Afrikaner white people, as the targeted victims of violence (Steyn 2004:156). The perception exists, and
is created, that black people hate white people (Fourie 2008:267).

Since the middle 90’s “whites see rising crime as representing the new (black) government's inability to
rule (i.e. protect citizens), blacks attribute increased crime to unfinished democracy and African
Immigrants” (Lemanski 2004:109). In an analysis of 2004 letters to the Beeld editor this same theme is
identified among white South Africans. These describe the apparent inability of the government as a so-
called “hidden agenda” of the ANC to get rid of the Afrikaner, working from the perception that the ANC
government doesn’t act because the victims of crime are white (Fourie 2008:264-265).
“While crime in South Africa is real enough, the choice to cast this as targeting primarily whites, and as if
Afrikaners are being singled out for persecution is a deliberate rhetorical option” (Steyn 2004:156). Up
to 1994 by far the majority of police stations were found in traditional white areas. Although this is
slowly changing “police resources remain disproportionately located in traditionally white areas and the
country’s city centres (Lemanski 2004:104; Minnaar & Mistry2004:38)6, and violence continue to be
much higher in townships – to name but two obvious points challenging white rhetoric concerning
violence.

Violence and whiteness in the Dutch Reformed church

Which bring us to the very important question: How does the Dutch Reformed church talk about
violence? Are the rhetorical strategies employed by whites in order to keep holding to the privilege
gained from an Apartheid system reinforced or challenged in the churches participation in the public
discourse concerning violence?

The official public statements of the Dutch Reformed church in the past 4 years has a very strong focus
on violence, specifically violent crime, but also violence against woman and children, and two
statements on Xenophobia.

Contrary to themes in white discourse identified above, creating the perception that violence is
primarily a white against black issue, and that blacks hate whites, official talk in the Dutch Reformed
church about violence as a rule recognize that violence plague people of all races. Sometimes explicitly
stated (“In our cities and townships the lives of innocent people - both rich and poor, black and white -
are willfully destroyed by mindless deeds of criminal violence.” (ASM 2008b)), sometimes in the
examples used (as part of a list of examples of violence around 2006, incidents on trains, which involves
almost exclusively non-whites, are mentioned (ASM 2006)).

In a report on violence and crime written for the 2007 General Synod it was specifically stated that
popular perceptions may not drive theological reflection. Most of the perceptions mentioned in the
introduction to this document concern perceptions about the inability or lack of political will in the
government to combat crime. The church is then called to give attention to responsible research
concerning the causes of crime (Northern Synod 2008:28-30). This can be read as a direct call to
challenge the dominant narratives which blame the inability of a black government for the current state
of violence.

On the other hand, numerous examples can be pointed out where the approach chosen by the church in
its public discourse reinforce the white talk about government identified earlier, although never

6
Minnaar & Mistry is a 2004 publication of the ISS. Although the claim is made of continuation of higher spending
in white areas, the figures used is still from 1995. Lemanski’s work, also from 2004, quote 1996 figures, but also
claim that this it still the case. Recent figures is needed, but for the sake of the argument I accept these sources
when they claim disproportionately higher police resources in traditional white areas.
accompanied with the blatant racist rhetoric found in the general white discourse. In a press release by
the moderature of the church in 2008, a number of underlying problems which the church believe
government should give attention to is listed. The underlying problems focus on inability of government
and police (ASM 2008b). Whether the problems are real or not are not the issue I want to point out, but
rather that these are the same problems identified within popular white discourse.

In another letter, titled as a witness to government, written by the three traditionally Reformed
Afrikaans churches, a number of elements which is leading to fear is mentioned. These include a number
of elements identified in whiteness studies as rhetorical tools which help keep white people in a
dominant position (even if not politically, then at least ideologically), such as:

 That it would seem as if the current government is not able to address violence.
 That the country is slowly falling apart and losing ground (thus implying that what was handed
over from the white Apartheid government is being lost)
 Racism is blamed on who blame things that is going wrong on racism, on language rights not
being observed, and on affirmative action (rather than on white dominance and privilege built
up over centuries) (ASM 2008a)

Although this is not an exhaustive analysis, but merely a few examples, and doesn’t yet reflect
congregational discourse at all, it does point out that at the very least the public discourse of the Dutch
Reformed church can be interpreted as support for much of white discourse on violence. Blatant racism
is being challenged constantly, but not white privilege, on the contrary, strategies employed to keep
white privilege in place can be found in the discourse of the Dutch Reformed church.

This said, let me move towards the end by making a few remarks on implications this might have for our
reflection on public theology within the Dutch Reformed church.

Public Theology and the white church in South Africa

Duncan Forrester talked about public theology as “theology which seeks the welfare of the city before
protecting the interests of the Church”(2004:6). Indeed, many would say that all theology should be
public theology, that theology by its very nature should be public theology. To quote Jűrgen Moltmann:
“From the perspectiveof its origins and its goal, Christian theology is public theology, for it is the
theology of the kingdom of God” (in Marshall 2005:11).

I believe we are at a point in history where there is general consensus in ecumenical theology that the
above two quotes ought in some way to be true. We generally agree that theology should take the well-
being of all creation as its concern, although we might differ on what this would mean.

On exactly what we should understand public theology to be, what the task of public theology is, there
continue to exist some confusion (Bezuidenhout 2007:5)7. But in one way or the other public theology

7
I attempted to explain some of the differences in a Masters dissertation, which also contain further references
(Van Wyngaard 2008)
talks about participation in the public sphere (Storrar 20118). It assumes that what we have is a public
sphere where issues of concern for the democracy or the globe can be debated, discussed, and a general
idea on what we as a group should be doing can be reached, and furthermore that theology and faith
can from its own repertoire of language contribute to this discussion. It remains critical of this sphere as
well, but nonetheless, in one way or the other, we aim to participate in the public discourse concerning
the future of this world

This said, let me point to a few factors which I believe the Dutch Reformed church should be taking into
account in our public rhetoric on violence, our formation of members who participate in the public
sphere on various levels, and the way in which congregations publicly react to violence:

 The challenged posed by whiteness studies, and I believe postcolonial studies in general, to
public theology within especially white churches, is to consider the welfare of the broader
public, and not a narrow public of privileged people. The danger that becomes illustrated by the
white church’s reaction to violence in South Africa is that the churches participation in the
public discourse on violence becomes a defense of “our people”, rather a participation in
seeking the welfare of society as a whole.
 The ability of white people in general to continue keeping themselves in a privilege position in a
post-colonial environment, and specifically the way in which violence can be constructed as
targeting specifically whites create an environment in which there is a constant danger that the
church’s participation is not in the public sphere, but rather in a white discourse (even though at
times elite and powerful voices from other racial groups will be made part of the conversation).
 If whiteness isn’t problematized, reactions to the very real problem of violence in South Africa
can become part of a broad rhetoric of keeping white privilege in place, and facilitate further
withdrawal of white people from their society, thus a continued segregation.
 Not talking about race by default keeps perceptions of white victimhood in place, and makes it
impossible for white churches to talk about and be involved in the broader problem of violence
in South Africa. Our reactions against violence perpetrated against our own group (although real
enough), might in effect contribute to the perceptions among white South Africans that violence
is somehow a “white problem” and that white people are those worse affected by violence.

Conclusion
I hope to have pointed out that issues concerning race is not “something we are done with” in the Dutch
Reformed church, and that we are still very much in need for self-reflection and self-criticism. In our
reflections on issues of race we furthermore are in dire need for insights into our own whiteness, to
challenge our notion that the problem lies with the black other.

The issue on the table, violence, is at the same time a very sensitive discussion in which to open up
issues of white privilege as well as a reminder that the church itself still participates in white discourse
which ultimately keep white privilege in place.

8
Paper delivered at a conference of the Centre for Public Theology at the University of Pretoria in 2008, to be
published in the January 2011 edition of the International Journal for Public Theology
In contrast to the popular white discourse the church has a task to point out the racialized nature of our
public discourse on violence, and challenge the strategies which exist in order to keep white privilege in
place. Furthermore a stronger emphasis on correcting the perceptions about victims of violence is
needed in order to truly participate in seeking the welfare of Southern Africa, and not just its white
inhabitants.

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accessed in August 2010.