Max du Preez peppers his scathing attack on Solidarity and AfriForum with liberal quantities of loaded terms such as “hardcore nationalist,” “right-wing,” “fundamentalist ideologue,” and more.
Apartheid and accusations of racism are the final trump cards that are played against an Afrikaner organisation once all the other cards have been exhausted.
We will not be intimidated by false accusations that try to silence us when we attempt to protect the human rights and interests of South-Africans, including Afrikaners.
The motivation behind the Solidarity Movement’s “we will do it ourselves, and we will do it together” strategy, is an honest attempt to work with our fellow citizens in a spirit of mutual recognition and respect, to make South Africa a better place for all. The core of our culture remains ’a Boer makes a plan’.
We certainly do not long for the past under apartheid, but neither do we look forward to the future under the ANC.
Ever since I was a student, I have therefore sought a third way as an alternative to apartheid on the one hand, and a country dominated by a revolutionary movement with totalitarian tendencies on the other. As a Christian democrat, I advocated, following the example of Conrad Adenauer, a federal model as a third way for South Africa, as it safeguards freedom for all much better.
Misinformation
Like the ANC’s Secretary-General, Du Preez blames our “misinformation” for the deterioration in relations between South Africa and the United States, even though he knows that several media houses have had to apologise to us for falsely claiming that we made allegations of a “genocide”.
In the process, Du Preez ignores the fact that the ANC government is responsible for the diplomatic dispute due to its foreign policy and certain race-based policies that hamper economic growth and job creation while contributing to racial polarisation. Secondly, he disregards Solidarity and AfriForum’s efforts to persuade American decision-makers, using factual information, not to punish the country with tariffs, sanctions, and exclusion from AGOA simply because they disagree with the ANC.
These efforts, undertaken in the national interest, have repeatedly been undermined by ANC leaders through their continued and unnecessary actions against US interests.
Our engagement with the Trump administration is not based on taking their political side against the South African government. It is, however, in South Africa’s national interest to maintain good relations with the US government, as well as other countries. The ANC government’s long-standing neglect of these relationships compelled us, out of patriotism for the country, to intervene despite our differences with the ANC.
It is also our democratic right to inform the international community when the ANC breaches the 1994 settlement, for example, through attacks on Afrikaans schools and race-based legislation.
Fire brigade
AfriForum runs around 100 projects nationwide every day to make the country a better place by improving municipal services, repairing roads, combating crime through neighborhood watches, and upholding the rule of law. These projects may serve Afrikaner interests, but they also serve the broader public interest. We cannot provide all state services without state revenue. The ANC is elected, paid, and funded through our taxes to deliver public services. We are criticized for creating a so called parallel state, yet no alternative is offered for what we are supposed to do when the ANC allows one public service after another to collapse.
Voters who, despite the rotten and corrupt government under which they suffer, repeatedly vote for the same party become accomplices rather than victims. We therefore welcome polls indicating that increasing numbers of historic ANC voters wish to free themselves from their former party.
Nor is it clear what Max’s proposal is when Afrikaners are excluded, based on race, from services for which they pay taxes. He complains more loudly about the siren of AfriForum and Solidarity’s fire engine than about the radical arsonists who are governing the country into ruin while looting it.
Let me put it bluntly: the ‘Maxists’ helped propagate the Marxists into power, and now they stand astonished at the foreseeable consequences, and are angry with us for attempting to halt the decline and implement practical rebuilding plans. The anti-apartheid industry, which previously protested loudly against the former oppressive racial dispensation, is now deathly silent about the failed racial system that replaced it in the name of redress. Basic mathematics shows that laws against 5% young whites cannot improve the chances of 95% young black people.
Normality
Our Movement does not have an evil plan to revive the past, but rather a plan to create a normal future. We simply want what the people of the Western Cape, from where Max safely writes, already have: functioning towns, an effective civil service, safety, a say in matters that affect us, good race relations, and the political, economic, and cultural freedom to live our lives as we see fit, without endless race laws and a government ruling against us.
We are not simply asking for fair rulers; we know that greater freedom is a prerequisite for normality. We do not experience it as a democracy when Mr Panyaza Lesufi, with only around 34% of the ANC vote in Gauteng, effectively holds 100% of the power over Afrikaans schools.
Demographic democracy
South Africa is not merely a country of isolated individuals that can easily be governed by a central government with a standardised policy. Credible opinion polls show that it is a country of many languages and cultures, rather than four races or a single South African identity.
This heterogeneous population has survived various governments and dispensations and is far too complex to be governed through a simplistic majoritarian system. For roughly three decades, South Africa has been a demographic democracy in which people vote more according to identity than policy. The overwhelming majority of voters do not ask: “What does my party believe?” but rather: “Who is my party?”
Voting behaviour is not similar to consumer behaviour, in which people shift their support to the best product or service. This is not unique to South Africa. It is therefore good news for freedom and democracy that the ANC has been forced into a GNU at national level, and that the upcoming local government elections are likely to produce more coalitions that may hopefully save many towns and cities from decline.
Realities
Naturally, I hope that the majority of voters will vote the ANC out of power in the near future. But hope is not a strategy, and we must work with realities rather than wishes.
As David Welsh warned: “The comparative evidence from divided societies does not offer much support for the view that the salience of ethnic or racial identities will eventually give way to voting alignments that are shaped more by, say, class, interests or ideology.”
This does not mean that I have lost hope in democracy. For democracy to be sustainable, however, a dispensation must meet the conditions required for democracy. One important condition is cultural freedom, because democracy without cultural freedom generally amounts to freedom only for the demographic majority. We do not want special favours, but we do not want to plead forever on our knees for cultural rights and -room that are in the constitution.
Weather bureau
If Max genuinely believes that we welcome racial polarisation and the failure of South Africa, then he believes many other strange things as well. A single look at the country’s population composition, economy, divisions, and political realities clearly shows that good race relations and a functioning country are in everyone’s interest. Fortunately, although political relations may be poor, good personal relationships between people remain strong.
Max is correct that I began my career at the far-right Mine Workers’ Union (MWU). That is precisely why my colleagues and I transformed the organisation into a mainstream Christian-democratic movement.
It is also true that we did not believe the ANC would govern the country as successfully as, for example, Botswana has been governed. A thorough study of ANC policy convinced us that the party still clings to an outdated ideology with which it cannot successfully govern a country with such a large modern sector.
We concluded that, due to history, Afrikaners could become a vulnerable minority group and that a self declared revolutionary government could drive the most educated out of the country, to the great detriment of the country and all its people.
Our starting point was that a strong self-help movement would become necessary to counter state decay, implement practical solutions at the grassroots level, and protect freedom, democracy, and the legitimate human rights of Afrikaners and other groups. I therefore believed it essential to transform the former MWU into a modern network of self-help organisations founded on mainstream Christian-democratic principles.
We take no pleasure in watching the country steadily decline, like it gives the weather bureau no pleasure to see a destructive storm weather, against which they had warned for so long, finally arrive.
Compete or cooperate
We do not believe that the best solution for good race relations is to compete head-on with the demographic majority for political support. We therefore strive instead for cooperation based on mutual recognition and respect. The advantage of this approach is that common viewpoints on all issues are not essential, only shared interests like to make the country a better place.
This is the essence of our engagement and cooperation with numerous black and coloured groups and leaders across the country.
The French classical thinker Alexis de Tocqueville said: “The majority will accept the minority only if the minority gives up that which it values most.” I therefore believe in Ralph Sockman’s advice: “The test of tolerance comes when you are in a majority. The test of courage comes when you are in a minority.”
We look forward to continuing to play a constructive role now that both countries have appointed ambassadors to each other’s capitals.
South Africa’s motto is unity in diversity. Our cultural identity as Afrikaners does not conflict with our national identity as South Africans. Our Movement uses the constitutional space for diversity to build a cultural ecosystem that enables long-term survival. This will enable Afrikaners to make a sustainable contribution to the well-being of the country and all its people.
By Flip Buys, chairperson of the Solidarity Movement.
