The policy document of the Afrikaanse Demokrate was completed last night, and the new organisation’s 50 active members are expected to turn out in force under an AD banner at Sunday’s welcome home rally for the eight released political leaders.
”We’ve found that a lot of AfriÂkaans-speaking people arc hesitant to join other organisations because they don’t feel uncomfortable with the language or style,” AD representative Linda Dietrich said this week. ”What we’re trying to do is create a bridge facility for people who want to feel part of the broad movement in our society.”
She said the new group would not be ethnically based and would be open to anyone. Most current memÂbers are white and ”coloured” people whose first language is Afrikaans. No decision has been taken on the question of affiliation to the United Democratic Front, but Dietrich said the thrust of the organisation was in line with that of the Mass Democratic Movement (MDM). The AD’s policy document supports the call for a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa, backs the MDM’s negotiation pre-conditions, and takes a strong stand in favour of a non-sexist and ecology-conscious society.
Dietrich said the AD was not fightÂing for Afrikaner rights. ”Rather we’re trying to create an organisation al base for Afrikaans-speakers and to show that its not only Nats and AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging) people who speak Afrikaans.” The organisation has not yet emÂbarked on a membership drive but has attracted the interest of hundreds of Afrikaans-speakers from Johannesburg, Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Pretoria, according to Dietrich. ”Eventually we’d like to go national, but at the moment we’re still preparing for a Johannesburg launch.”
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
