We Afrikaners are once again skunks

Howdy, aspiring exiles. Here we are again, back to 16 June 1976, when white Afrikaners were the skunks at the southern tip of Africa.Thirty years after Afrikaner leaders negotiated a peaceful transition to democracy with the ANC – and as Afrikaners began to flourish materially and culturally once again – we find ourselves back in the doghouse.And who do we have to thank for this? AfriForum and Solidarity, and all those who have normalised and mainstreamed their macho Afrikaner nationalism and victimhood in recent years. Yes, Media24 and RSG, I am pointing at you.I was a young reporter for Beeld in Soweto on 16 June 1976, when violence erupted in earnest. The sheer anger of young black people, many just a year or two younger than me, shook me to my core. The placards and slogans all protested against the imposition of my mother tongue in black schools.Afrikaans was the language of the oppressor, and the oppressor was my people, the white Afrikaners. I had a moment of Piet Retief-like dread.I felt something similar in the past few days as I read and heard the comments from black South Africans on X, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and talk radio after US President Donald Trump announced “refugee status” for Afrikaners and an end to all US support for South Africa.It’s as if decades of reconciliation efforts by Afrikaans figures like the Betereinders, Leon Wessels, Breyten Breytenbach, Beyers Naudé, Roelf Meyer, Antjie Krog, Barend la Grange and many others have been undone overnight.All South Africans are now paying the price for AfriSol’s (AfriForum and Solidarity’s) yearslong international campaign to paint white Afrikaners as an oppressed and endangered group in their own country – a campaign that has now found fertile ground with Trump, Elon Musk and the Maga brigade.I have made myself rather unpopular and been a repeated target of AfriForum’s sharp tongue for warning, over the past few years, about AfriSol’s aggressive fear-mongering among right-wing groups in the US and Europe.Remember, Flip Buys, Kallie Kriel and Dirk Hermann hail from the old Conservative Party/Herstigte Nasionale Party ideological orbit – Buys was once an organiser for the racist white Mineworkers’ Union and later served on the Volkstaat Council. These men always sang the same tune: foreign nations should not interfere in South Africa’s internal affairs. People who supported sanctions against apartheid were labelled traitors.And now that South Africa is an open democracy – a constitutional democracy with a Government of National Unity spanning ideological and demographic divides – AfriSol is calling for sanctions against our country.In response to the widespread backlash over Trump’s executive order on South Africa, Buys, Kriel and company are suddenly donning their patriotic hats in press conference after press conference. “We are staying here; we don’t want ordinary South Africans to suffer under Trump’s new policy; it’s not our fault, it’s Cyril’s fault.”What did they expect?What exactly did they expect their international campaign to achieve if it was successful? A polite diplomatic note from the White House with a smiling emoji? A friendly “come on, guys” from Western governments?Flip and Kallie, your newfound so-called patriotism comes a little too late. You placed ethnic nationalism above the interests of our country and its people. You sought sanctions against our land, and now that you have them, you must own up and not wash your hands of the consequences.My colleagues Piet Croucamp and Pieter du Toit have meticulously pointed out in recent days how Trump and Musk are parroting nearly every talking point of AfriSol: Afrikaners’ farms are being summarily confiscated; they are being murdered by the thousands; their children are denied a future because they are white; Afrikaans schools are being taken over; Afrikaners are second-class citizens suffering under racial laws.The reality, of course, is entirely different: White unemployment is lower than in any other group; not a single farm has been confiscated since 1994; white South Africans remain overwhelmingly wealthier per capita than black and coloured citizens; people are not being attacked on farms because they are white and Afrikaans; Afrikaans is thriving more than any other indigenous language; our Constitution protects fundamental human rights and the rule of law.Afrikaans speakers are entitled to promote and preserve their language, but Afrikaners are not victims. Along with other white South Africans, we remain privileged and vastly overrepresented in professional and economic spheres.Yes, we have every right to complain about the inept ANC, the decay, the crime and the corruption – but we suffer far less under these issues than the black working class and the unemployed. Most of us pay for our own healthcare, security and transport while the state fails us.Buys and Kriel have a new habit of responding to criticism of the Solidarity Movement with this question: “Would things be better if we didn’t exist?”That’s like an abusive father defending himself by saying: “But I put a roof over my kids’ heads, give them food and clothes, and pay for their schooling.”Afrikaner Christian nationalismSolidarity is indeed a formidable organisation that has achieved much in tertiary education, community security, legal activism and assistance for impoverished Afrikaners. Its efficiency and decisiveness contrast sharply with the inept state, making it attractive even to those who don’t buy into its central ideology of Afrikaner Christian nationalism.AfriSol plays an overwhelming political role, yet it is not a political party, its leaders are unelected and they are not accountable. Their agendas are their own – much like Musk’s.The fact that hundreds of thousands of Afrikaners are paying members of Solidarity and AfriForum does not give the movement a mandate to negotiate with Trump or anyone else on behalf of “the Afrikaner”.Their strategy is brilliant: They demonstrate how things can be done, trade in fear and grievances, and the more capital they accumulate, the more they dominate Afrikaans discourse. They are the only bull in the Boer kraal.Especially Rapport, Beeld and RSG have normalised AfriSol’s ethnic Christian nationalism over the past few years by calling it a “civil rights organisation” rather than an Afrikaner rights organisation and giving its executives a platform at every opportunity. This, while AfriSol already has its own media empire – Maroela Media, Pretoria FM and others.Of course, the ANC is also complicit in the US’s decision to impose sanctions, and possibly scrap the Agoa trade agreement and cut South Africa off from the World Bank and IMF while undermining its G20 leadership. Cosying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and aligning with Iran, Venezuela and Cuba was reckless ANC hubris. Hosting naval exercises with Russia while it invaded Ukraine was madness.Yet, South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice cannot justifiably be used against us – it has garnered support from many nations, including Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Turkey, Egypt and Mexico.So what do we do now?We treat it like road rage. If someone cuts you off and jumps out to punch or shoot you, just smile, make a peace-seeking gesture and drive away. Otherwise, you might get shot.But let’s not pretend something hasn’t fundamentally shifted. A diplomatic visit to Washington won’t fix this. Trump is a transactional man, and he holds the fate of our economy in his hands. He is seeking tangible undertakings and changes. And please, let Cyril Ramaphosa and Ronald Lamola speak on the latest conflict, not the ANC’s wild jackals, Gwede Mantashe, Nomvula Mokonyane or the spokespeople for departments and politicians.It will be a bitter pill for the ANC to swallow, but they will have to do it in the national interest (and ultimately their own interest). If you are an Afrikaner reading here, please speak up and let your fellow countrymen and women know in every conceivable way that not everyone is like Flip and Kallie and Ernst and Dirk and Jaco. That we believe that we need to enter into discussions with our own political leaders if we want to solve our problems, we don’t need external bodies.“Ik wil niet loopen, k’ben een Africaander, al slaat den Landdrost myn doot, of al setten hij myn in den tronk ik sal nog wil niet swijgen.” (Translation from Dutch: I do not want to leave, I am an Afrikaner. Even if the magistrate kills me, or puts me in jail, I will still not keep quiet.) — Hendrik Briebouw, 6 March 1707, at the Stellenbosch Magistrates’ Court.You have yourself a nice day now, pardner.Max. *This version of the article, which was originally published in Afrikaans in Vyre Weekblad, appeared in Daily Maverick

We Afrikaners are once again skunks

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Namibian Sun 2025-02-20

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We Afrikaners are once again skunks

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Namibian Sun 2025-02-20

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