Our friend Dr. Dan Roodt, founder of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG), is nothing if not original! His rightist organization is applauding Jacob Zuma, a different kind of original, for the overtures Zuma is making toward the much-maligned and disenfranchised Afrikaners.
I like this tack. It’s unexpected. So few are the truly interesting minds around, and Dan certainly is one. Sure, I’m flummox. But I’m also intrigued. Read on:
PRAAG (the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group) joined in the standing ovation that Jacob Zuma received from the assembly of Afrikaner delegates at yesterday’s meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton. For perhaps the first time since the early nineties, Afrikaners had spoken frankly about the many issues bothering them in the new South Africa, such as the domination of English monoculture, violent crime, land reform, the new gun laws, corruption and the dilapidation of state resources such as the SABC, SAA, Eskom and others.
After the gathering, Dr. Dan Roodt, leader of PRAAG, told reporters: “I feel very positive about the outcome of the meeting and have the impression that foreign, especially British, influence on the ANC is diminishing. It is almost as if Zuma has some pangs of nostalgia for the old, Afrikaner-run South Africa, with its discipline, sense of patriotism, successful agriculture, frugal public salaries and respect for law and order.”
Roodt continued: “There was never any reason for conflict between Afrikaners and blacks in the past as we have understood each other and cooperated for almost two centuries. However, outside elements, ranging from Britain and Sweden to the die-hard English communists of South Africa, incited conflict in our country so as to place us on the same path as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, with its radicalism, ethnic strife and failed states.”
Under Mbeki Afrikaners were vilified as “settlers who failed to depart”. In his speech to the assembly, the leader of PRAAG stated that “after 1994 the ANC had lacked a model to deal with a large indigenous Western minority, speaking its own language and not English, French or Portuguese”.
He went on to say that “Zuma is wise in appreciating that the radical Africanist model is a failure, as seen in Zimbabwe and many other postcolonial African countries. From his statements during the meeting, Zuma is clearly an admirer of the Afrikaner model of development with its emphasis on discipline, education, hard work, caring for the poor and successful agriculture”.
The president of the ANC has accepted an invitation to visit the Voortrekker Monument, as well as a camp of the Voortrekker youth movement. Dr. Dan Roodt said: “I think Zuma’s interest in Afrikaans culture is genuine. He should also visit the Afrikaans Literary Museum in Bloemfontein to discover perhaps the greatest cultural edifice in all of Africa, the prodigious output of Afrikaans works and translations in the twentieth century but which has been sadly neglected and even threatened during the rule of Thabo Mbeki.”
Roodt also responded to a statement by the DA that Zuma had displayed an “ethnically and racially blinkered world view” in calling Afrikaners the only “true white South Africans”.
“The DA is itself blind in its colonial liberalism that denies the multiethnic character of our state.”
No doubt, Bantu and Boer might have been better off without the British. (The same can be said of the Israelis and Palestinians.) Still, Dan knows as well as I do that the proof is in the pudding. Unless Zuma brings back the death penalty, and stops the racially motivated culling of whites in South Africa and the appropriation of commercial farms—it’s all talk.
But Zuma and Dan are shaking things up.
Check out PRAAG (where my column is occasionally featured).
Update (April 12):”Zuma Insulted Afrikaners: Zille.”
Helen Zille, quite an impressive woman, heads the Democratic Alliance: the liberal, minuscule, opposition to the South African One Party State. By her telling, Zuma was “patronisingly trying to ‘curry favour'” with Afrikaners.
If so, it’s long overdue.
The reason for Zuma’s pro-Afrikaner tack, claims Zille, is this: “By seeming to flatter, I can actually fool you all into forgetting about the corruption allegations against me. By pressing the ethnic button, I can also distract your attention from the ANC’s power abuse.”
Moreover, “It is the well-known ‘divide and rule’ tactic, which authoritarian racist governments always use to divide their opponents,” she said in her weekly newsletter on Friday.
All very plausible. However, what Zuma said about Afrikaners being the only true South Africans among whites is indubitably true. And rather perceptive, I might add.
This is what undergirds the BBC’s David Harrison’s fine book, The White Tribe of Africa.
