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Award-winning publication focuses on faith, fear, and identity in 20th-Century SA

12 May 2025 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Dr Ruhan Fourie, a former fellow of the International Studies Group (ISG) at the University of the Free State (UFS), recently received the prestigious Desmond Tutu-Gerrit Brand Prize for Debut Work for his book, Christian Nationalism and Anticommunism in Twentieth Century South Africa (Routledge, published in South Africa by Christian Literature Fund).

A media release by the Andrew Murray-Desmond Tutu Prize Fund stated that the prizes primarily serve as motivation and recognition for writers to produce quality publications of theological and Christian work in all official languages of our country. The awards are given in recognition of extraordinary contributions to unity, reconciliation, and environmental justice in our country.

Currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology at the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Theology, Dr Fourie says the award is especially meaningful because of the book’s academic tone. “I hold public accessibility to scholarly work dear; so, to receive this recognition for a more scholarly work outside academia is very encouraging. When I got the call that I’d won the prize, it was met with great surprise and joy,” he says.

Challenging Cold War assumptions

In the book, he explores the deep-rooted fears that Afrikaners held about communism during the twentieth century. These fears are often assumed to be Cold War products, primarily shaped by the apartheid state. However, Dr Fourie’s research, undertaken as part of his postdoctoral fellowship in the UFS International Studies Group, challenges this simplified narrative. He approached anticommunism more broadly than merely opposition to the state-centred communist doctrine by focusing on the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which had the widest reach and deepest influence in the everyday lives of Afrikaners.

The book argues that while the DRC played a constant role in shaping an anti-communist imagination among twentieth-century Afrikaners, its influence shifted over time. “It ultimately concludes that anticommunism functioned as a vehicle for nationalist unity (and uniformity), a paradigm for Afrikaner identity, and a legitimiser of the volk’s perceptions of its imagined moral high ground throughout the twentieth century,” he notes.

Dr Fourie credits his time as a postdoctoral fellow (2022-2023) in the UFS ISG as a key part of developing his book. He describes the ISG as a place offering strong institutional support, valuable mentorship, and the academic freedom he needed to shape his ideas into a full monograph. As part of a research-led, student-centred, and regionally engaged institution such as the UFS – which is committed to development and serves as a hub of impactful knowledge – Dr Fourie found the right space to grow both his research and his contribution to the field of South African history.

Impact of UFS' academic environment

He spent a significant part of his emerging academic journey at the UFS. Besides the time he spent on his postdoctoral fellowship at the ISG, he also completed his PhD between 2018 and 2021 – marking a total association of six years with the university. “The ISG’s culture of scholarly rigour, academic freedom, mentorship, and institutional support under the guidance of Prof Ian Phimister, paired with collegiality and collaboration among peers, left a formative impression on me as an aspiring academic,” he comments.

Looking ahead, Dr Fourie is currently working on a project – a biography of anti-apartheid cleric Beyers Naudé. While based on solid academic research, the biography is being written for a wider audience and is aimed at trade publication, an approach that will bring Naudé’s life and legacy to both scholarly and general readers. His interest in Naudé runs deep; his master’s thesis on Naudé’s life was awarded a prize for the best Afrikaans thesis, an early indicator of the path his academic work would follow.

News Archive

Historians must place African history on world stage – Dr Zeleza

2017-05-30

From the left: Panellists Rev Henry Jackson,
Prof Irikidzayi Manase and Arno Van Niekerk at a book
launch and panel discussion on Africa Day hosted by the
UFS Sasol Library.
Photo: Mamosa Makaya

“African historians must take seriously the challenge of placing African history in world history, and in the history of our species, Homo sapiens.”

With these words, Dr Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Vice Chancellor of the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, stressed the continent’s challenge.

According to him the contest should continue to recover and reconstruct Africa’s long history. Liberating African knowledges can be done by: “Provincialising Europe that has monopolised universality, universalising Africa beyond its Eurocentric provincialisation, and engaging histories of other continents on their own terms.”

University celebrates Africa Month in various ways
Dr Zeleza delivered the ninth Africa Day Memorial Lecture, titled The Decolonisation of African Knowledges, at the University of the Free State (UFS). The lecture, hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), took place on 24 May 2017 in the Equitas Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus and was one of the ways in which the UFS celebrated Africa Month.

Scholars should immerse themselves in these thoughts
Dr Zeleza focused on two issues, which he said were interconnected. They were the unfinished project of decolonising African knowledges and the continent's positioning in global knowledge production.

He said Africa’s scholars and students should “immerse themselves in the rich traditions of African social thought going back millennia”. According to him the continent’s research profile still remains weak in global terms.

“It is imperative that the various key stakeholders in African higher education from governments to the general public to parents, and to students, faculty, staff, and administrators in the academic institutions themselves, raise the value proposition of African higher education for 21st century African societies, economies, and polities.”

“Colonialism is associated with injustice
and inequality, but what happens when
our liberators become our oppressors?”

Library celebrates with panel discussion and book launch
The UFS Sasol Library celebrated Africa Day by presenting a book launch and panel discussion on 25 May 2017, on the pertinent and current political theme of land redistribution with a comparative basis of land invasions in Zimbabwe.

Prof Irikidzayi Manase discussed his book White Narratives: The Depiction of Post-2000 Land Invasions in Zimbabwe, accompanied by Rev Henry Jackson who wrote Another Farm in Africa. A perspective of the economic implications of land redistribution in South Africa was discussed by panellist Arno Van Niekerk: Senior Lecturer of Economics at the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

Inequality still an African problem
The content of the books are a stark reminder of the burning issues of inequality and loss of identity of those who lost their farms in Zimbabwe, a collection of memoirs by white farmers and their families. Rev Jackson gave a religious perspective on reconciliation, forgiveness and the question of land ownership, saying that healing of injustice begins with forgiveness of past transgressions.

Van Niekerk highlighted that while land issues were important, “social cohesion is affected by the economic decisions that will be made”. In closing, Prof Manase called for serious consideration of what the future may hold. “Colonialism is associated with injustice and inequality, but what happens when our liberators become our oppressors?”

The panel discussion was attended by staff and students of the university, and was lit up by robust discussions on possible historical and future solutions to the question of land, decolonisation and political power struggles in Southern Africa and lessons to be learned from Zimbabwe.

UFS celebrates Africa Month (24 May 2017)

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