Word: malan
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Calvinist divine, a predikant (i.e., pastor) of the Dutch Reformed Church, he has a contagious sense of mission, derived somewhat illogically from Calvin's doctrine of predestination. As Malan sees it, God made unalterable 1) the "superiority" of His chosen race, the Boers; 2) the "inferiority" of all other races...
...Malan is convinced that he has been "elected" by God to lead the Boers to a "New Jerusalem," by which he means a Boer republic...
Thou Shalt Not. Malan got religion early. He was born of French Huguenot stock in a farmstead named Allesverloren (Everything Is Lost), which snuggled among the soaring mountains and vine-garlanded valleys of West Cape Province. In his parents' devout household, the rule was "Thou Shalt Not." Each evening "Danie" and his younger brother Fanie were called indoors to hear spade-bearded Papa Malan reading from his family Bible to his black servants...
...Papa Malan had intended his elder son to take over the farm. In accordance with Boer tradition, he earmarked for the future master a fine riding horse. Curled up with a book, Danie didn't even go to the stable to see which horse was his. "You'll never be a farmer," sighed Papa Malan...
Rivals. One of Malan's school friends was a long-legged Boer farm boy named Jan Christian Smuts. The Smutses and the Malans were neighbors, and twice each month Jannie Smuts and Danie Malan sat down together to polish off a huge Sunday dinner of pumpkin and mutton. A brilliant scholar and athlete, young Smuts went off to Stellensbosch University to study poetry and philosophy. Four years later, Danie came plodding after. He was barely 20, yet he had already developed a double chin. Smuts met him at the station with a cry of "Dear Danie," tapped...