What to do with the Afrikaners? And what should the Afrikaners be doing? Whereas the latter question has been a subject of intense debate among Afrikaners since 1994, the former one is not really being debated by the wider South African society.
The majority of South Africans do not seem to think there is an ”Afrikaans question”, except in so far as they occasionally become aware of some Afrikaners who (as they see it) make an unnecessary fuss about Afrikaans, and seem hostile to our post-apartheid democracy.
Most debates among Afrikaners go unnoticed by the government and wider society, except when they take extreme forms, as in the Boeremag case, or when Afrikaners are at one another’s throats, as in the debate about the award of an honorary doctorate to the late Bram Fischer by the University of Stellenbosch.
Yet Afrikaners are here to stay. They have rights and interests like everybody else, and much to offer in terms of culture, capital, skills and historical experience. They have already contributed much, over three and a half centuries, in terms of statecraft, infrastructural development, economic growth, technological innovation, cultural creativity, and political emancipation.
Their history also has its dark chapters, but that does not disqualify them from claiming a future in South Africa on terms they can accept. Today, few Afrikaners hark back to apartheid, and most have embraced the realisation that their destiny is bound to that of the country as a whole.
Unlike other historical settler communities in Africa, Afrikaners have not retained foreign passports or solidarities. In fact, the word ”Afrikaner” (literally: ”African”) originally meant someone born in South Africa, in contradistinction to first generation immigrants or expatriates from Europe.
It was an Afrikaner statesman (JBM Hertzog) who, long ago, coined the slogan ”South Africa first” (much to the dismay of those who still owed their first allegiance to the British Commonwealth). Post-apartheid South Africa owes its sovereignty as an independent state to this Afrikaans republican tradition.
The clearest illustration of Afrikaners’ bond with South Africa is their language, which they consciously chose to standardise and develop, and to substitute for Dutch as the official language alongside English (and, later, nine African languages). They share this third-largest language in the country (after isiZulu and isiXhosa) with most coloured and many black South Africans.
People often think that, when Afrikaners ”fuss” about their language, they do so to dissociate themselves from other South Africans. But it is a last-ditch effort to hold on to that which binds them to this country and continent.
Over the past decade, Afrikaans has experienced an unprecedented decline in all high-status domains. There is no indication so far that the government is serious about arresting this trend. A growing number of Afrikaners are coming to see this as a major threat to their well-being as a South African community and an insult to their human dignity.
Much of contemporary debate among Afrikaners is about how they should be tackling this problem. Some advise caution in the light of the oppressive past associated with Afrikaans and the political realities of South Africa, while others prefer a more militant approach. Some believe that the language’s future is tied up with a wider struggle for some form of self-determination for Afrikaners, while others would prefer a solution within the present political order, for instance, along the lines suggested by the Constitution.
Most are convinced that the destiny of Afrikaans is somehow tied to that of the other indigenous languages, and feel strongly for the valorisation and development of those languages as well.
Afrikaners’ apparently ”newfound” enthusiasm for multilingualism is often criticised as a front for what is perceived as a selfish concern for their own language. But is it not possible that speakers of a threatened minority language with a long history of struggle for recognition may really have empathy with the plight of other marginalised languages? Or that a community who once experienced the empowering effect of having their language recognised and developed may have a sincere desire to share this experience with others?
And is it inappropriate, if multilingualism is also in their own interest, to pursue that interest in a way that takes the interests of others into account — to want, in the words of the Afrikaans poet NP van Wyk Louw, not merely to survive, but to ”survive in justice”?
I do not believe that Afrikaans is threatened with extinction. The Afrikaners’ history suggests to me that they will not accept a situation where their children can no longer be taught through their mother tongue, where no university uses Afrikaans as a language of science and scholarship, or where Afrikaans disappears completely from the government and civil service, the courts, commerce and the media. Afrikaans will continue to be used in all these ways. The only question is where and how.
Ultimately, the ”where” and ”how” of the future of Afrikaans will be determined, not by the speakers, but by the government and wider society. If Afrikaans is allowed and assisted, next to other languages, to survive and flourish as a full and equal official language in a non-racial, democratic South Africa, then that is where the future of Afrikaans lies.
However, if the government continues to neglect and undermine Afrikaans and the other indigenous languages, as it has consistently been doing, it would be playing into the hands of those Afrikaners who believe that their language can only be preserved in some isolated enclave, whether in the form of separate institutions or of an Afrikaner state. I, for one, sincerely hope that this is not where the future of Afrikaans and South Africa lies.
Is this not one good reason why all South Africans should start debating the ”Afrikaans question”?
Dr Gerrit Brand is an assistant editor at Die Burger. He was, until recently, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University. He is also a co-worker of the Taalsekretariaat, and secretary of the Multilingualism Action Group