- For the Afrikaans culture that once saw itself as South
Africa's only future, the choice of Stellenbosch to host the congress of
the African National Congress can appear as a marker on the road to extinction.
A thousand towns could have filled that role, but the ANC picked the Cape
Dutch architecture and giant oaks of Stellenbosch. For some Afrikaners
it is as if the nemesis had reached the citadel.
-
- Founded on the banks of the Eerste river in 1679, it
is the oldest settlement after Cape Town and the university is the repository
of the Boer language and identity.
-
- The buildings are so well preserved they seem frozen
in time but the ANC's fifty-first conference later this month will dispel
any illusions that the clocks have stopped. Apartheid gave way to democracy
in 1994 and the new South Africa is about change.
-
- It has become clear that many Afrikaners - academics,
artists, farmers, doctors - consider themselves to be under attack by the
ANC government. In schools and offices, on farms and air waves, they say
they are fighting for cultural survival.
-
- Among them are right-wing militants who have started
bombing state infrastructure and black townships. Only one person has died
but in a message yesterday the Boeremag group claimed responsibility and
said the campaign may turn bloodier over Christmas.
-
- 'We declare that these attacks mark the beginning of
the end for the ANC government and we accept full responsibility for it.
This is the end of the oppression of the Boerevolk and we give all honour
to God.' The government had refused to meet the group's demands, despite
the effort to minimise deaths, so a new phase, 'Operation Elohiem of Revenge',
would be launched over the 'false worldly festive season'.
-
- The statement added: 'We hold the ANC responsible for
casualties resulting from such attacks.' The Boeremag has complained of
a crime wave against whites, but analysts said its driving force was the
perceived erosion of Afrikaners' culture.
-
- The plotters numbered fewer than 1,500 and had no chance
of overthrowing the state, but they tended to be well educated and drew
from a well of resentment shared by many Afrikaners, according to a report
last week from the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.
-
- 'Some of the more reasonable grievances should be addressed
to isolate the bomb planters. To crack an isolated terror cell is possible.
To defeat a band of saboteurs who are abetted in their actions by a growing
group of sympathisers in the country's rural hinterland is almost impossible,'
said Martin Schonteich, a researcher at the institute.
-
- It is a message few in the ANC want to hear. The party
spent decades fighting a brutal, racist regime which murdered opponents,
imposed Afrikaner culture and starved blacks of advanced education.
-
- Thanks to the statesmanship of Nelson Mandela, Walter
Sisulu and other leaders, South Africa was shepherded away from civil war
and towards reconciliation.
-
- One of the world's most progressive constitutions enshrined
the oppressor's tongue as one of 11 official languages and, with English,
the language of higher education.
-
- 'The sustained development of Afrikaans will be ensured
through including it as a primary, but not sole, medium of instruction,'
said Education Minister Kader Asmal.
-
- Despite retaining most of their wealth, many white Afrikaans-speakers
see things differently. A tiny minority, perhaps two million out of 43
million, they see not generosity and forgiveness, but spite and discrimination.
English is replacing Afrikaans in the courts, in Parliament, in schools
and universities, on radio and television, on street signs.
-
- Stellenbosch, many of whose academics helped forge apartheid,
is one of several universities to lose its status as an Afrikaans-medium
institution even though it tends to be the language of 'Coloureds' as well
as whites in Western Cape. Two out of 21 third-level institutions have
been set aside for Afrikaans.
-
- A primary school in Middelburg last month lost a legal
battle to stay Afrikaans, even though the judge accused the authorities
of wanting to phase out all Afrikaans schools in the province in defiance
of the Schools Act.
-
- It was as if the British Empire were striking back from
beyond the grave, said Jaap Diedericks, station manager of Radio Pretoria.
'After all we fought for - over centuries - our kids are now being forced
to speak only bloody English.' Hundreds of white farmers have been murdered
and affirmative action policies are blocking jobs to whites. Young Afrikaners
are following the example of the Booker Prize novelist, JM Coetzee, by
emigrating.
-
- The Group of 63, a group of left-leaning Afrikaner intellectuals,
has caused an outcry by linking the bombing campaign - which it condemned
- to ANC policies. 'There is a serious risk that the alienation among Afrikaners
might escalate unless the underlying causes are addressed, and might erupt
in further violence.'
-
- Dan Roodt, an Afrikaner commentator, said the descendants
of Dutch settlers who dominated the twentieth century wondered if they
had a future. 'What nation-building really means in South Africa is the
complete destruction of Afrikaans culture and the Afrikaner identity.'
-
- In such a climate it was perhaps inevitable that the
thrashing of the Springboks by England was viewed as symptomatic of an
enfeebled tribe on the wrong side of history.
-
-
- http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,851307,00.html
|
