Word: strijdom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Dutch hymn, Let God's Blessings on Him Fall. Then the paneled teakwood doors swung open, and out into the early spring sunshine of Cape Town strode the man they had just elected Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa to succeed the late Johannes Strijdom. White-haired, pink-cheeked Dr. Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (pronounced Fair Voort) looked more like an off-duty Santa Claus than a hard-fisted authoritarian. Yet in his eight years as Minister of Native Affairs, he had proved himself pre-eminent among all the racists crowding the South African stage...
...Strijdom's program had simplicity: he hated the tie with the British Commonwealth, he hated "British-Jewish capitalism," he hated the threat to the 3,000,000 whites of South Africa of 11,000,000 slowly awakening blacks, coloreds (mixed bloods) and Indians. He was one of the first advocates of apartheid (segregation ). When he took over as Prime Minister in 1954, succeeding Daniel F. Malan, a man of the same stamp, his administration rammed through laws that packed the Supreme Court and Senate, began the mass resettlement of natives into reserves. He was suspicious of all outsiders...
...Strijdom leaves his gifted pianist widow and a son and daughter. An earlier marriage to Actress Marda Vanne broke up after a year, is rarely mentioned by his Nationalist followers, among whom divorce is shameful. At his death, Strijdom had not cut all ties with Britain (there are economic advantages in staying in the Commonwealth), but the Union Jack is no longer flown, and God Save the Queen is no longer South Africa's anthem. In his honor South Africa's state radio played solemn music and the official anthem, Die Stem van Suid Afrika (The Voice...
Until a successor is named, Minister of Justice C. R. "Blackie" Swart would serve as acting Prime Minister, but life will be little different with Strijdom gone. What had given him power was the depressing fact that, to most Afrikaners, Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom's combination of righteousness and ruthlessness seemed to reflect a common ideal...
Died. Johannes Strijdom, 65, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa; in Cape Town (see FOREIGN NEWS...