Afrikaners must get involved and work with other South Africans to improve the country, National Action (NA) leader Cassie Aucamp told Bushveld farmers at Koedoeskop in Limpopo province on Wednesday night.
The former self-proclaimed Afrikaner supremacist-turned-moderate now believes all South Africa’s inhabitants must ”pull in the same direction” and that Afrikaners needed to work with — and not against — the rest of the country.
”I entered Parliament in 1999 as representative of the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging (AEB) and now I lead a party that understands we are not an isolated group with special problems but a group of people within a diverse country who cannot afford to separate ourselves from what is going on,” Aucamp said at the meeting near Thabazimbi.
He said Afrikaners could no longer survive on their own in a small corner of the country.
”But we don’t need to sacrifice who we are in order to survive,” he said explaining that Afrikaners needed to accept there was a new South Africa but they did not have to give up their culture.
He said many Afrikaners marginalised themselves by calling for homelands or asking white people to stick together and not vote.
”Over the two years since our inception the NA has realised there is strength in diversity and that the needs of South Africa have to come first,” Aucamp told the gathered crowd of approximately 200 people.
Looking into the future of South African politics, the former cleric predicted the African National Congress would not rule forever and that coalitions of parties would eventually rule the country. – Sapa