"Apartheid is not a policy of oppression. It is a policy of good neighbourliness. It is a policy which says: let us not create situations in which friction will occur, in which strife will arise. Let each nation develop along its own lines. The Bantu do not want to be integrated into the European community. They want their own community life. They want to maintain their own customs, their own traditions, their own language. I am providing for the Bantu what every person wants: a homeland, a country of their own, the right to govern themselves. The alternative — integration — will lead only to the domination of one group over another, to racial friction and the destruction of both our civilisations. We are not robbing the Bantu of their rights. We are telling them: here is your place, develop it, make it your own, and we will help you."

Hendrik Verwoerd, speech to the South African Senate, September 1948. Verwoerd had recently been appointed Minister of Native Affairs under Prime Minister D.F. Malan, whose National Party had won the May 1948 election on an apartheid platform. Verwoerd later became Prime Minister (1958–1966) and is regarded as the architect of grand apartheid.