Word: vorster
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...gladiator," "a saint" and "a savior." Dour and unsmiling, he sat stolidly, barely nodding his acknowledgment of the eulogies. When at last he took the platform, surrounded by the orange, white and blue posters of the National Party, which has ruled South Africa for 29 years, Balthazar Johannes Vorster, 61, could almost have been stepping to a throne...
...five minutes he had brought the crowd to its feet. When he wanted to drive home a point, it was not a jab but a double uppercut as he thrust both fists in the air. And when he wanted the world to listen?as he did last week?John Vorster switched from Afrikaans to deliberate and slightly accented English...
...audience was composed almost exclusively of members of the worried, defiant, 2.6 million-strong "white tribe" of Africa, whose Dutch forefathers first landed in Cape Town in 1652. More than any other man since their legendary 19th century Boer chieftain, "Oom Paul" Kruger, Vorster is their accepted leader. Said a party worker at last week's rally: "The people of this constituency have followed Mr. Vorster's career and been loyal to him in his worst and his best times. This time it has never been better...
Never better for Vorster's Nationalists, that is; the political arm of the Afrikaners held 123 of the 171 seats in the previous Parliament, and it stands to gain as many as 15 more in the national election on Nov. 30. The opposition parties that traditionally held the loyalty of South Africa's English-speaking whites are in disarray. As has happened so often in their tortured history, the Afrikaners once again are responding to threats from without and within by going into the laager (literally, camp)?an expression from the days of the voortrekkers, South Africa's Boer...
...seemed calculated to prove modestly effective. To be sure, it failed to create a defense crisis for South Africa, which is virtually self-sufficient in arms production. In fact, over the short run the U.N. vote may even have played into the hands of South African Prime Minister John Vorster, who is anxious to rack up a big majority in the country's Nov. 30 elections and can now point, once again, to the importance of national unity in the face of worldwide censure...