The intitiative to form a new Afrikaans organisation drew the support of the Afrikaans establishment – but not its traditional critics, writes Rehana Rossouw
CONRAD SIDEGO, former South African ambassador to Denmark, assured the last speaker at a meeting of Afrikaans people at the weekend that the colour of her skin had nothing to do with the fact that she had the last word.
Sidego traded wisecracks with Olga Sema, the only black woman to address the gathering, assuring her that no slight was intended when he decided she would speak last.
Asked afterwards who Sema was, Sidego was at a loss. He knew she was from Gauteng, but he was unsure why she had been billed as a speaker. After inquiring from others, Sidego established that she worked in the Gauteng Education Department.
Sema’s contribution to the gathering was that she loved the Afrikaans language, and held it more dearly than her home language, Northern Sotho.
She was the only black woman present. The who’s who of Afrikaner business, academia, art and media were there: the vast majority of the 80 invited guests were Afrikaner men, but there was a sprinkling of Afrikaner women and fewer than 10 black people.
The initiative’s steering committee had invited luminaries to debate their proposal to launch an overarching Afrikaans organisation to co-ordinate the disparate actions of the existing 200 organisations servicing the language group.
At the end of the meeting, steering committee member Ton Vosloo, Nasionale Pers’s executive chairman, appealed to the gathering to forward names of coloured and black people who would be interested in joining their ranks.
Not everyone who attended was enthusiastic about the initiative. Sceptics voiced fears that the organisation would be dominated by Afrikaners and would further their aims, rather than those of all Afrikaans-speakers.
The initiative would have to guard against turning its language struggle into a bid to retain privilege, warned Dr Mahmood Mamdani, a Uganda-born professor of African studies at the University of Cape Town.
He questioned whether it could be an attempt by the “privileged” Afrikaner community to recruit foot soldiers from its less fortunate “cultural cousins” – coloureds who spoke Afrikaans as a first language.
Dr Neville Alexander, chairman of the Pan- South African Language Board, said he did not believe the time was right to launch an organisation to promote Afrikaans. “It could be dangerous if it is done in isolation from other language groups. Racial conflict could be disguised as linguistic conflict,” he warned.
“We do not want to see a situation where we advantage a small group rather than everyone in the country. All this would serve to do is deepen the trenches in South Africa.”
Van Zyl Slabbert said he was “ambivalent” about the movement. “I don’t want to damage the initiative, but I have reservations,” he said. “Who are Afrikaners? I haven’t worked that out yet. We come from different worlds.”
Cabinet secretary Jakes Gerwel, who attended the meeting in his personal capacity as an Afrikaans-speaker, said he had a basic suspicion of an attempt to organise Afrikaans speakers. He questioned whether the initiative was in response to the Afrikaner’s loss of political power in South Africa.
“Among working class communities on the Cape Flats, where people also love the Afrikaans language, I have not picked up a need for an Afrikaans organisation,” he said.
He said these people had a legacy of being ostracised in South Africa, but would continue speaking Afrikaans for many years.
The gathering received a tongue-lashing from Afrikaans writer Antjie Krog, who said Afrikaners had a culture of intolerance.
“Whether they are in the PAC or the AWB, they are intolerant. Afrikaners do not want to share, they want to rule the roost (baas van die plaas). Somewhere, they will rule, even if it is in a volkstaat,” she said.
“They didn’t want to share their language with coloureds, they wouldn’t share their houses and toilets with blacks.”
Her problem with launching an organisation was that it would be controlled by Afrikaners. She asked if she would be regarded as intolerant if she said she did not want to be part of an organisation which was anti-government, anti-ANC, anti-truth commission, anti-English and anti-nation building.
One of the more ardent proponents of the initiatives was Afrikaans writer Breyten Breytenbach who said minorities were under pressure to remain silent in the new South Africa.
“We are not looking to launch a nationalist organisation, an ethnic organisation, a cultural organisation or a kraal,” he said. “We have no mandate to unite all the other groups which exists.
“But there is a widespread feeling that something should be done, although we have no more privilege than others and deserve no special treatment.”
Christo Wiese, registrar of the Reserve Bank, introduced himself as a capitalist to the gathering. He argued the movement should take a privatisation route, financing private schools, for instance.
Professor Hermann Giliomee, who was on the steering committee of the initiative, said 30% of Afrikaans speakers earned less than the minimum wage. He asked whether they would be subsidised at private Afrikaans schools. “I am also sceptical of private Afrikaans television. Who is going to take responsibility for coloured Afrikaans- speaking people?”
Stephan du Toit, who introduced himself as an Afrikaans speaker from Transvaal, suggested the Legal Resources Centre be approached to assist with legal assistance to battle for the constitutional rights of Afrikaans. “We no longer have the political rights that we so craftily awarded to ourselves under apartheid,” he pointed out.
The meeting ended with a decision to form an exploratory committee, which would remain in contact with all who attended the first meeting and sound out others who were interested in joining.
A further meeting would be held in June next year, and the appeal went out to make the next meeting more representative; for participants to bring along black people they knew who would be interested in joining them.