How the Afrikaners are making a comeback 30 years after the ANC took power
Ernst Roets
More than three decades have passed since the political transition in South Africa in 1994. The world celebrated as the African National Congress (ANC), led by Nelson Mandela took power in what was widely held to be the first democratic election in South Africa. The celebration was repeated in 1995 when South African won the Rugby World Cup – which was interpreted as a sign that the South African political project was working, and it was repeated in 1996 when South Africa adopted what was described as the most liberal, most modern and most democratic constitution in the world.
The BBC produced a documentary entitled Miracle Rising, in which celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Bono and Charlize Theron analysed the situation in South Africa, explaining the extent to which political transition must have been the result of divine intervention. South Africa also became the post-child success story of the United Nations – an example that the application of modern globalist ideologies to diverse societies leads to success.
Nelson Mandela present the Rugby World Cup trophy to Francois Pienaar in 1995
Of course, other than the fact that the transition did not lead to the civil war predicted by many, there really was not any tangible indication that the system would work. The celebration at the time was largely because people really liked the ANC and especially Nelson Mandela who had received saint-like status as a result of his passionate plea for reconciliation despite his imprisonment, and because of the fact that the written text of the South African Constitution was a manifestation of liberal democracy. At the time, it was almost impossible to counter any of this. The narrative was just too strong. And attempting to provide a counter-argument, or to caution against the prospects of a socialist ANC-led government, was met with aggressive accusations of racism and anti-democratic sentiment.
People seemed to forget that most Afrikaners also wanted to bring an end to the apartheid system, which was built on the idea of different homelands for different peoples, but eventually became a bizarre and indefensible system of forced separation, complete with benches and beaches allocated according to race. The question was not whether the system should end, but how it ought to be ended, and more importantly, what to replace it with. Yet, arguing that a system built exclusively on Western individualist human rights in a country as big and diverse as South Africa would not be a sustainable alternative as it would not make proper provision for the aspirations of the diversity of cultural communities, was met with fierce scepticism. Arguing such was interpreted as an attack on democracy.
F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela
It was a devastating time for the Afrikaner people. Everything that could be labelled as “Afrikaner” was fundamentally discredited and labelled as racist and backwards. We could not even use the word “Afrikaner” to describe our community, not because of some law, but merely because it was widely held as inappropriate to be an Afrikaner. Also, almost every Afrikaner institution collapsed – including the political parties, cultural organisations and pressure groups. This is partly due to the fact that many of these institutions were in some way dependent on, or linked to the state.
Yet, things did not turn out the way Oprah Winfrey, Bono and Charlize Theron predicted. The political wave at the time was deliriously in favour of the new South African government and the ruling ANC – a movement that proudly described its own ideology as a blend of race nationalism and socialism. And so, in a twist of tragic irony, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a self-ascribed nationalist-socialist movement became the celebrated face of liberal democracy.
At the time, the young Flip Buys, who became the leader of the mostly Afrikaans Mine Workers Union of South Africa held that in evaluating politics, it is more important to consider the tides than the waves. Even though the waves were overwhelmingly celebratory, the tide was also clear – no socialist, revolutionary movement has ever been able to govern responsibly. When the ANC took power, they made sure to state that they should not be thought of as a political party or a government, but as a liberation movement in power, still committed to revolution. This should have been an obvious red flag. Yet, the celebratory mood was just too overwhelming to be concerned about such inconveniencies.
And so, the Afrikaners started to plan. The price of abandoning our identity, culture and tradition was just too high, even though this is what was expected of us. The New South African project can be summarised in the words of Samora Machel: “ … for the nation to prosper, the tribe must die”. In other words, for the new South African identity to succeed, the cultural communities whose members are South African citizens should dissolve. This is because the ANC and its cheerleaders regarded culture and communal identity as “backwards” and “tribal thinking” that belong in the past.
It was at this time that the Afrikaners decided to build a movement. The most probable prospect for the future, based on what we can learn from historical experience, was that South Africa would not be the success story that was celebrated from the rooftops.
We have learnt the very important lesson of the dangers of statism – the Afrikaners spent much of the second half of the 20th century building a strong state, which, first, became morally indefensible, and second, was overtaken almost overnight and immediately turned against us. As a result of the fact that we are a numerical minority, the prospect of changing things through elections became unrealistic.
And so, our circumstances have led us to rediscover a fundamental truth about the human condition. It is the most important fact on which not just Afrikanerdom, but the West was built. First and foremost, it is the fact that by nature people are communal creatures. We instinctively wish to preserve our communities and the things we have inherited, even though modern globalist ideologies are vehemently opposed to this. Second, is the fact that the only way to prosperity and success is through community institutions.
Even though responsible citizenship remains important to us, we recognised that the state would only bring problems and no solutions. If we wanted to survive as a community, we had to find our own solutions. We became inspired by the words of the Afrikaner religious leader, Father Kestell who during the 1930’s said “’n Volk red himself” (A nation saves itself) and eventually adopted this to the slogan for our times: “Ons sal self” (We will do it ourselves).
And so, the Afrikaner project of the 21st century is aimed at ensuring a future for our communities through the building and strengthening of a network of community institutions. It started by rebranding the Mine Workers Union as Solidarity, rewriting its constitution and Buys’s announcement that this institution should form the basis of a new movement of institutions. Even though virtually all the Afrikaner institutions collapsed by the end of the 20th century, in just a few decades, the Solidarity Movement as we know it today has grown into a network of more than 50 institutions that actively work in various spheres of the Afrikaner community life to ensure a future for our community.
These institutions include:
· the Christian workers’ institution, Solidarity;
· the civil rights group, AfriForum;
· the community upliftment institution, the Solidarity Helping Hand;
· the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations, the FAK;
· several academic institutions, including the Solidarity Support Centre for Schools, the trades’ training college, Sol-Tech and the institution for higher learning, Akademia;
· several media institutions, including Maroela Media, the largest Afrikaans online news platform;
· the property development company, Kanton;
· the Orania Development Company, OOM; and dozens more.
We believe that the only sustainable future is one in which communities take responsibility for themselves through their own institutions and in which mutual recognition and respect and peaceful coexistence are encouraged. As a result, our approach is based on what we might call bonding and bridging. Bonding implies working actively within our own community and taking pride in who we are and what we stand for. Bridging implies reaching out to other communities to cooperate with regard to the matters we agree on.
Meanwhile, the political dispensation in South Africa seems bound to fail. By almost every conceivable metric, South Africa is on the road to failure. Yet, expecting solutions from the government is simply too far-fetched. We will work with the government where we can, but we are grateful for the fact that we have rediscovered what it takes for a community to flourish.
For these reasons, the words of Winston Churchill that the future has already happened, even though it is not distributed evenly, resonate deeply with us. We believe that in some important ways the future of the Western world has already happened in South Africa as far as the crisis is concerned. But more than that, we also believe that in some important ways the future is already happening as far as solutions are concerned.
Dr Roets is Head of Policy at the Solidarity Movement and Executive Director at the Afrikaner Foundation. The Afrikaner Foundation is aimed at garnering international support for the Afrikaner people and the institutions of the Solidarity Movement. You can support the Afrikaner Foundation at http://afrikaner.org/support.
