This is an adaptation of Dries Wiese, chairman of the Afrikanerbond’s national council, comments on minorities during an Afrikanerbond area meeting in Randburg on Saturday 30 September 2023.
An ANC that clings desperately to power is dangerous. A desperate ANC will grab any straw and this makes the fate of minorities dangerous. The ANC has its eyes on the 2024 elections and will therefore continue to disdain the Constitution and promote its own ideology.
We see how different pieces of legislation will already have an enormous effect on minorities this year, regardless of their constitutionality. The Bela legislation targets Afrikaans education. The fair employment law has minorities in its sights. The national health insurance targets private medical care, the expropriation bill will have a devastating impact on all South Africans, especially in the context of economy, home ownership and food security. The so-called hate speech bill is going to define hate speech even further and we know what its impact will be.
Just last week, a street name in Johannesburg was changed again while the infrastructure is crumbling. It can be seen as just another street name, but Dr. William Nicol was a theologian and worked diligently on the expansion of Afrikaans schools.
In the same week, the planned press conference of the National Planning Commission, which is to review the National Development Plan (NDP), was stopped by senior government officials. We have read in the media that the report is highly critical and points out that the NDP has missed its targets and goals relating to inequality, poverty, jobs and unemployment, energy, a low-carbon economy, GDP, economic growth and investment levels. , missed everyone.
From the summary of the report we read: “Instead of a competent state on which the plan is based, we have an increasingly corrupt state; instead of a seamless planning system we have an incoherent planning system that is poorly implemented and not aligned with the strategic goals of the NDP.”
What is equally important is the reference in the report that “social cohesion and cohesion have fallen off the government’s priority list and are superficially worded”. We experienced it. Afrikaans schools are targeted in Gauteng because the government itself cannot build the schools that address the need, the Afrikaans Language Monument in Paarl was addressed by the responsible minister about the Afrikaans in its name and so we can continue. The education legislation wants to turn excellent schools into education battlefields.
A few years ago, the ANC leadership admitted in conversation with Afrikaner organizations that they had dropped the reconciliation ball. However, nothing was done about it. Now the planning commission is also shaking the government’s cage on social cohesion.
Apartheid is constantly blamed for the mistakes of today. However, if there is one core truth that Afrikaners have learned in its just over forty years in power, it is that South Africa can only succeed if the interdependence of all South Africans is recognized and respected.
As Afrikaners, we actually realized very late in our attainment of political maturity that we had not applied it. We now also see and experience on a daily basis how we are becoming more and more an unequal society and where we are becoming more and more a society that is increasingly divided along racial, language and cultural lines. That is why we cannot remain silent today.
Our interpretation of the ANC’s desperation on the way to 2024 is that more and more actions and statements will take place that do not bode well for South Africa and especially mean a worsening situation for minorities.
Affirmative action and black economic empowerment will be intensified for the sake of cadre deployment.
Certain economic cornerstones such as property rights will come under increasing pressure. Factions of the ANC’s statements are already creating domestic and foreign uncertainty.
South Africa’s food security will be compromised by the state’s inability to reasonably and fairly apply and carry out land reform and protect vested interests.
Our education is going to weaken more and more with the increasing hold and power of teaching unions and the unwillingness of the government to manage the entire education crisis.
The ANC government’s continuous gambling with the school system and ill-conceived models have led to the following failures since 1994:
- Outcome Based Education (OBE)
- Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS)
- Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS, also known as CAPS)
- More than 80% dysfunctional schools according to education experts
- Before 1994 it was “Liberation before Education” which introduced successive generations into South African society who received no or poor education. The ANC cannot boast of educational achievements, on the contrary just like the current energy crisis, it is one of the ANC legacies that will take many more generations to recover.
It is parents and governing bodies who manage schools to levels and islands of excellence. It should rather be encouraged, but the islands of excellence do not match the ANC’s pursuit of mediocrity to substandard.
Service delivery will increasingly weaken as the know-how and experience, especially in the technical areas of service delivery, is lacking.
The tax burden will fall ever more heavily on all taxpayers – this must be seen against the background of the ever-expanding social safety net that includes grants and free housing, medical and education.
Crime is increasing in ferocity and the government’s harsh statements about crime are unfortunately not detectable in the harsh reality experienced by all South Africans every day.
Civil society and especially minority groups should raise their voice more and more against the atrocities of today.
The time is now more than ripe for us to take up the constitutional spaces that are offered to us and no longer rely on the government to do it for us. Therefore, we can only succeed if we take up the spaces offered by the Constitution together with the diverse communities and minorities of South Africa.
