Chapter 7
Mental Health Care During Apartheid in South Africa: An Illustration of How "Science" Can be Abused
Alban Burke
The one thing that really is trying to tyrannise through government is Science. The thing that really does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by pilgrims but by policemen - that creed is the great but disputed system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in Eugenics. 1
1. Introduction For many decades South Africa has been a country that has been in the international limelight. It is known for its long history of human rights abuses, repression, racial segregation, forced removals from homes and land, pass and curfew laws, violence and poverty. All the governments in this country up to 1994 have been guilty of poor human rights policies; however, this paper will only cover the period from 1961 to 1994, the so-called Apartheid era of South Africa. The cornerstone of"apartheid" (separate development/segregation) was based on "scientific" research, and contrary to popular belief, did not originate in South Africa as a random idea of Hendrik Verwoerd. In the late 1800's, science was embracing both the medical and physical, and moving away from the idea of man as a spiritual being. In 1798, Thomas Malthus published an essay entitled Principle ofPopulation. The central tenet of the essay was that a population increases exponentially and would, if unchecked, lead to the population size outstripping food supply. Charles Darwin was so impressed by this idea that he included it in his theory of evolution and natural selection. 2 However, these ideas were twisted around and racial differences and racial superiority became a focus in research; a whole new "discipline," called eugenics was born. The term "eugenics" was first coined by Francis Galton in 1869 in his book "Hereditary Genius." The term came from the Greek "eugenes," meaning "good in stock," and claimed to study the hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. Galton claimed that judicious mating could "give more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable." In the 1900's in Germany, eugenics and psychiatric genetics were being enthusiastically studied and taught as a new and important branch of science. The illogical process of importing economic principles into biology by 88 Mental Health Care During Apartheid in South Africa
Darwin and Galton did not go unnoticed, however. Friedrich Engels conunented:
The whole Darwinist teaching of the struggle for existence is simply a transference from society to living nature of Hobbes' doctrine of bellurn omnium contra omnes and of the bourgeois doctrine of competition together with Malthus' theory of population. 3
There was also much resultant propaganda about this new methodology.4 These views found their way to South Africa through Hendrik French Verwoerd, who has been credited as the father of Apartheid. Verwoerd was an eminent scholar. He was a lecturer in Psychology and later Sociology at Stellenbosch University. From 1926 to 1927 he studied in Germany, where he came into contact with Fisher, Binding and Hoche, who were all supporters of an idea of human heredity and racial hygiene, at the Leipzig University. It is interesting to note that official biographies of Verwoerd make no mention of this time in his life, or about his connection with eugenics. From 1928, he held a chair in Applied Psychology at Stellenbosch and then left academia to become the editor of a newspaper.5 Dr. Malan, a clergyman and Prime Minister of South Africa in 1948,6 was a close friend ofDr. Verwoerd, and he firmly believed in Verwoerd's concept of Apartheid. The idea behind Apartheid was to force Black South Africans to live away from whites in other conununities, sterilizing the Black South Africans, prohibiting intermarriages and even allowing "medical" experiments on the black population. In 1950, Malan appointed Verwoerd to be Minister of Native Affairs, placing him in charge of all Black South Africans. In this time several new laws were passed such as the prohibition of Marriages between Whites and Blacks and forced relocation, which were designed to separate poor whites away from blacks by giving poor whites property and taking away all property rights from blacks.7 Verwoerd finally became prime minister of the Republic of South Africa in 1958. As cabinet and prime minister, his racially discriminatory views were turned into various laws and acts. His views on racial issues and his eventual apartheid structures were supposedly not malicious, but appear to have been a result of his great involvement in psychiatric genetics and the position of the institutions and educators under which he studied.8
2. From "Science" to Law The Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing international economic recession, combined with a devastating drought, had an adverse effect on the South African economy.9 The majority of South Africans were thrown into abject poverty and by 1939 some 300,000 whites were considered to be living in "terrible poverty"; the majority were Afrikaners. There was