Are there any secret societies in South Africa?

I always watch these documentaries where it is said that some government officials and prominent people belong to secret societies that back them all the way as long as they keep it secret. Any of these in South Africa?

Christelle J had a very good answer and I won’t try and beat that by just getting more info from wikipedia and pasting it as an answer. You can read up about the Broederbond on your own on the links she supplied.

What I can tell you though is out of personal (sort of) experience…

My father was in the Broederbond when I was little, and he’s told me a bit about them out of his personal experience.

First off, they were, like she said, male protestant Afrikaners who wanted to further the cause of Afrikaners (white Afrikaans speaking South Africans), and yes, they eventually got tangled in the entire apartheid system and eventually became so intertwined with it that for all intents and purposes they ran the whole system.

What some people don’t know though, is the original reason they formed the Bond, was because after the Anglo-Boer war (which was basically an excuse for the British to assert themselves over the Boers, the only major problem to the British expansion in Southern Africa, in order to get their hands on the gold fields of the Transvaal, or the South African Republic, which was a Boer republic, and to further Cecil John Rhodes and his disciple, Alfred Milner’s plans for Britain to control Africa and build a railway from Cape Town to Cairo) Afrikaners were despised by the British and were empoverished because of the war and the British scorched earth and concentration camps tactics. In fact, most Afrikaners had lost all they had during the war. The Broederbond wanted to help the Afrikaners by furthering their interests in the economy and business ownership. The plan was basically to have key people identified and then use their influence to put other key people, all Afrikaners of course, in other key positions etc to eventually get a larger part in the then mainly English-speaking business sectors and politics.

Although they eventually strayed from their main objective, my father joined them for the same reason and eventually quit when he realised how corrupt and crooked, and intertwined with religious idealism the whole society was.

Well this is what he told me:

He was approached by someone, after they had done a thorough background check on him (you couldn’t be divorced or engaged in left wing or (and most people don’t realise this!) right wing politics) and then invited to join, though he wasn’t told what he was invited to join.

Then he was taken to a farmhouse, which was dark, and blindfolded, and then, after he took an oath to secrecy, the blindfold was taken off, the lights put on and… there was about 20 of the most important people in town! He knew many of them, but never knew they were part of the Bond. He said the feeling of brotherhood was very strong.

He told me you were only allowed to tell your wife you were a member, not allowed to tell anyone where you met, and were required to discuss and give advice on proposed legislation, government policy, etc. to the government of the day. There was an annual meeting which was guarded by the military, and almost all the ministers of parliament had to be members to get there. Every president of the Republic of South Africa was a member since the National Party won the elections in 1948. Of course, because only important and influential Afrikaners were invited to join the Bond and because of their secrecy and hand in government affairs, most Afrikaners came to despise them.

Eventually they changed their name to the Afrikanerbond and membership is now open to people of all races and also women.

As for other secret societies still in existence, the Freemasons are active in South Africa (interestingly, you could not be part of the Broederbond if you were ever a Freemason). Of others I don’t know.

Hope that helps.