Jan Taljaard
THE full realisation of what the changes in the country mean has finally hit h ome to the right wing, says Henk van de Graaf, editor of the Conservative Part y mouthpiece, Die Patriot.
Thus “more than anything else, 1996 has been a year of reflection” – a quiet y ear for the far right.
But “to interpret this silence as a death notice, quiet consent or an acceptan ce of our part in the rainbow nation would nevertheless be wrong,” says Van de Graaf.
“Up until the election there were a lot of us who thought that a change of gov ernment would never take place and then, all too sudden, we found ourselves co nfronted with a given fact.
“In early 1994 and even right up to the elections, a lot of rightwingers actua lly believed that we would simply retake the country. Life under an African Na tional Congress government was not even regarded as an option and we were ther efore not prepared for the changes that would come in such fields as education , health care and local government.”
These changes started to hit home this year, resulting in an informal repositi oning among rightwingers.
Of course, Van de Graaf does not refer to himself and those sharing his views as the “far right” or “right wingers”. He uses the Afrikaans “behoudendes (tho se who conserve)” or simply “Afrikaners”.
Nor does he use any of the fire and brimstone rhetoric of yesteryear. He talks quietly about a new spirit – one he believes is bringing the right wing toget
her across the traditionally sharp party-political and organisational divides.
“Ordinary people – not the usual party politicians – are now rallying around i ssues such as education, and you will find people who used to oppose each othe r vehemently across party-political lines are now supporting each other in pro jects such as the establishment of CVO [Christelike Volkseie Onderwys] schools ,” he says.
“Added to this, no political party of the right can any longer lay claim to be ing the true representative of the Afrikaner. Some of those who regularly used to make the claim, can indeed not claim anything else anymore: The Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging [AWB] is struggling to keep its leader out of the courts an d it remains to be seen if the Herstigte Nasionale Partie will open its doors in the new year.”
Van de Graaf believes that the repositioning will continue in future as the go vernment is increasingly marginalising the Afrikaner.
“Even if the Afrikaner wanted to be part of the so-called rainbow nation, he i s not allowed to play his part,” Van de Graaf says. One such instance is the i ncreasing side-lining of the Afrikaner by affirmative action.”
Van de Graaf also regards the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a thinly disguised hate campaign against the Afrikaner.
“The events surrounding Sarafina II and the premiership of the Free State also do not bode well for the much vaunted democracy of our new South Africa,” he
says. “In the end the Afrikaner will have to get his own territorial area – a volkstaat if you like.”
He readily admits that while a volkstaat is the ideal, it will not come about in the near future. Maybe some time in the next century, he carefully submits.
While the newspaper he edits is still the official mouthpiece of the Conservat ive Party, Van de Graaf would like to see it become representative of the aspi rations of the broad right-wing formation he is alluding to. “It is much too e arly to talk about anything like that now, but Patriot already has a fair degr ee of autonomy.”
Surprisingly enough for someone with such strong feelings of adherence to Afri kanerdom, Van de Graaf was born in Holland, and emigrated to South Africa with his parents while still a young boy.
Despite his obvious disillusion with the current state of his adopted country, he has no plans to leave the country. “I am an Afrikaner and my five children
were born here. This is where we will live – someday hopefully in a territory
governed by Afrikaners.”