7. Jan Smuts and his ‘Sphinx’ Problem

To the question ‘Was Smuts a racialist?’ the response must be in the affirmative. The answer becomes more nuanced, however, if we ask what sort of racialist he was - working from the assumption that racism itself has a history and that not all racisms are identical. In this chapter, I shall make the case that Smuts's racialism was deeply grounded in his civilisational world view and his metaphysical philosophy - and also reflected in his persistent temporising. This leads me to conclude that Smuts was a profound racialist in a double sense: first, that he was committed to the preservation of Anglo-Afrikaner white supremacy and ‘Western civilisation’ and, second, that his philosophy of slow civilisational advance was bound up in a conception of humankind as a product of deep evolutionary time. Smuts's commitment to the advance of Western civilisation coupled with the right of white people to act as custodians of Africa (and Africans) remained consistent through his life.