OWN CORRESPONDENT and AFP, Cape Town | Wednesday 7.00pm.
A SPECIAL office will be established in the presidency to oversee minority language and cultural rights, Deputy President Thabo Mbeki announced in Parliament on Wednesday, during the debate on “The Afrikaner”.
Mbeki said the new office, to be called the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, will seek to make a finding on the implications of the Constitution’s provisions for self-determination.
The new Commission — and the existing Pan South African Language Board — will be consulted on issues of language policy by the government.
Mbeki presented a government report, which outlines the concerns of Afrikaans leaders — that Afrikaners are being marginalised by government action or inaction on language issues, education, affirmative action, crime and the economy.
Mbeki said that while affirmative action is necessary in South Africa, job applicants are not currently selected solely for being black. He pointed out that whites continue to dominate management in the public service.
On the issue of education, Mbeki said the government agrees with the predominant policy at Afrikaans universities — expanding English curricula while maintaining Afrikaans courses. A new educational council is proposed for overseeing primary and secondary educational policy.
The deputy president said the government continues to consider Afrikaners an important South African community, while pointing out that there is no single, meaningful definition of an “Afrikaner” any more.
He quoted former editor Harald Pakendorf as saying, “[Afrikaners] are not separate enough from the rest of South Africa to be discussed as such.”
In its consultations, the government met as many different Afrikaans organisations as possible, all of which acknowledged their limited representivity.
Freedom Front leader Constand Viljoen said Mbeki has fallen far short of Afrikaner demands.
He accused Mbeki of being condescending and “paternalistic” in his treatment of Afrikaners and said he had not consulted Afrikaans leaders widely enough.
New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk told Parliament that the NNP, unlike the Freedom Front, believes Afrikaners “are an integral part of this nation.”
“We know, for Afrikaners to survive and to prosper, everybody must survive and prosper,” Van Schalkwyk said.