Stirrings in the heart of Die Volk

Detribalised, marginalised and satirised. The Afrikaner, conventional wisdom would have it, is no longer a factor in South African politics.

Hermann Giliomee, author of The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, takes a contrary view. He wrote in Beeld that while working on the second edition of his magisterial history, it became apparent that there was a “stirring” within the Volk.

Afrikaners are learning that it is possible to mobilise from a minority position, especially in defence of cultural and language rights. He cites the alliance of Afrikaner groups that forced government’s withdrawal of the controversial Expropriation Bill.

One reason for this stirring is that the Boere can no longer hitch their wagons and head off in search of new pastures, as was their wont. The second Great Trek — heading overseas and elsewhere in Africa — has been stymied by the global downturn.

“With the escape valve of emigration mostly closed and with an inefficient and vacillating president, South Africa could become a very interesting place in the next five years. Minorities … could be in a position to assert themselves again. The Afrikaners’ last chapter is a long way from being written,” asserts Giliomee.

His predictions evoke mixed feelings in this particular, happily detribalised, Afrikaner. There is an unattractive streak of self-pity in the Afrikaner character which, when combined with inflated self-regard, can be unbearable. Not to forget how negating Afrikanerdom in the past has been of other groups’ sensitivities. Ask the Jews, Catholics, gays, English-speakers and blacks.

Afrikaners admittedly also have admirable strengths. There is a scary ability to endure hardship and take on vastly superior forces, in the unshakeable belief that they will overcome. And then there is their unquenchable love of this land.

So if Afrikaners are shaking off their political torpor, on balance it’s good news. While one cannot but stifle a snigger at their new fondness for constitutional checks and balances, one can take consolation in the fact that everyone will benefit if they pursue democracy with the same doggedness that they advanced apartheid.

After all, someone needs to stand up to the African National Congress and the legendary pugnacity of the Afrikaner makes them well suited to the task. Let’s face it, Anglophone South Africans of all races are too mobile internationally and instinctually iconoclastic even to begin to stand together.

This is aggravated by a honed anglophone instinct for appeasement. Look at the craven head-bobbing from business at the first sign of government displeasure, as when FNB backed off from its anti-crime crusade, a few years back.

Not that Afrikaners are immune. Giliomee has previously bemoaned the constant attempts by Jewish and Afrikaner elites to placate the government at any cost: “The implicit argument is that interracial and interethnic peace is quite fragile and needs regular gestures … of goodwill by white communities.”

The problem with Giliomee’s prediction of a “stirring” is the decline in Afrikaner cohesiveness.

Their schools and universities are becoming anglicised, both through government pressure, as well as through the voluntary embrace by many of English because of the doors it opens. The only instantly identifiable Afrikaner leaders are defunct (FW de Klerk), defected (Marthinus van Schalkwyk), or deranged (Eugene Terre’Blanche). Their churches have lost their moral and cultural chokehold and the Broederbond — once a feared home-grown Illuminati — has morphed into a benevolent Boere equivalent of Rotary.

Afrikaners are divided and distracted, apolitical and apathetic. One must hope then that the ANC makes the same mistake that the colonial British government did. Goad them until they are really gatvol. Then the Boere might bestir their comfortable lard-arses and actually do something constructive.

If that does happen, morons like ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, chanting songs calling for the killing of the Boere, are likely to regret their taunts.

Giliomee on the Afrikaners: Twenty traumatic years:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=163258&sn=Detail
Interview with Giliomee: Sixteen questions:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=153834&sn=Detail