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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
Biker Diego Singer assaulted by Boksburg metro-cops
11:36 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
Motor-biker Diego Singer, Uruguay immigrant, punched in the face, rammed off his bike by increasingly brutal Boksburg metro-cops
11 October 2011 source: Kempton Park journalist Bernice Maune - - “Brutality is fast becoming a dominant characteristic to describe Ekurhuleni Metro Police officers. Following evidence of metro police abuse in Germiston last week targeting Mrs Shantall Gopal, a 23-year old mom; this week Glen Marais resident Diego Singer, who is from Uruguay, has also added his voice to the seemingly growing number of assault victims at the hands of the metro-cops.”
Metro-cop knocked Uruguay immigrant Diego Singer off his bike, bruising his leg: a man in civilian clothes then assaulted the white immigrant while he was handcuffed and sitting in back of the police-van: and civilians said to be ‘police officers’ then were allowed to rob his cellphone and helmet-cam:
Mr Singer was on his way home on September 28 2011 when a metro-cop allegedly stopped him by ramming into his bike at the intersection of Voortrekker Road and Greyilla Street. Singer said he was knocked off his bike, causing a bruise to his left leg, as he initially refused to stop. He believed the officers were just trying to get a bribe from him. According to him he saw nothing wrong with his driving and would not stop because he believed the officers would try to bribe him. He admits his conduct was wrong. "They accused me of reckless driving and I admit I was wrong to not have stopped," said Singer.
However - when he was handcuffed and bundled into a van, his helmet hit the ground, releasing his helmet camera. "They laughed at me and said that was what you got for trying to run from the police, and that I would never put this on You Tube. "I use the helmet's video camera in case of an accident so the police could know how it happened." Singer said his camera was confiscated or stolen: it was given to an alleged officer in civilian clothing who drove a purple Mahindra. He tried to contact his wife by cell phone but was prevented from doing so. "A man in a civilian shirt and short pants came to the back of the van to check on me. He saw me using the cell phone, started shouting to everybody, saying ‘why they didn't search me. How could they let me use the cell phone?’
"He opened the back of the police van and told me to give him the cell phone while I was talking to my wife. He grabbed my phone with one hand and with the other punched me with his fist on the left side of my face. I almost lost consciousness and started bleeding from the left side of my lip.
‘I know where you live -- I will come and get you if you speak up:’
"Another officer came to see what happened and he was told I hit myself and bit my lip to make it bleed," recalled Singer. "Before he left he come to the window of the van and said I had better keep quiet. He knew where I stayed so if I said anything, he would come to get me." Singer was merely issued a fine and released. He appeared in court, pleaded guilty and paid the fine.
Singer said he was alarmed at the nonchalant attitude of the officers on the scene. "How could they allow that (civilian) man to intervene with an arrest? This needs to be stopped. Until now I have not received my helmet and camera back." Singer said he intended to open a civilian case of assault as well as a case with the police.
Supt Wilfred Kgasago, metro police spokesman, said ‘the incident was viewed in a serious light and had been forwarded to the office of the deputy chief of police operations. "The integrity and standards unit has been informed of the complaint and an effort to get a statement from the complainant and those who allegedly caused this will be made in order to get all the facts," said Kgasago.
http://www.looklocal.co.za/looklocal/content/en/kempton-park/kempton-park-news-general?oid=4771256&sn=Detail&pid=490115&Metro-police-ram-motorcyclist-off-his-bike
Videos taken by bystanders of metro-cops attacking distraught young Indian mom Shantall Gopal, 23: in Germiston
http://www.looklocal.co.za/looklocal/content/en/germiston/germiston-news-crime?oid=4741250&sn=Detail&pid=490065&EMPD-lives-up-to-its-name
Boksburg metro-cops manhandle Indian woman Shantall Gopal, 23: she was waylaid enroute to her trying to fetch her sick two-year-old daughter from school, when she was pulled over on Rietfontein Road by an unmarked vehicle. They turned out to be Boksburg metro-cops - who already have a history of pulling over lone women and assaulting them. She became terrified and frantic to get away - as she needed to urgently fetch her child from school. Civilians, from the sound of it Afrikaans-speakers, accused the cops of harassment and assault, and filmed the incident – and then put it on YouTube:
http://bit.ly/ro7FLF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq3mBopbw9Y&feature=player_embedded
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Lawyer of SA asylum-seeker expects many more…
South African government actively intervenes in the rights of its white citizens to obtain political asylum abroad:
"White South Africans have much stronger cases TODAY than when Huntley brought his claim and yet you wouldn’t think so by reading this article:" link
"We always knew and felt that this matter was headed to our top court and the particular reasoning gives us confidence to move in that direction.
"Mr Huntley's next step has always been to have a new refugee hearing -- but we want the country's top court to weigh in on the matter before he gets this second hearing...'
"In other words, the Federal Court of Appeal did not even go into the merits of the appeal on the basis that we 'did not have standing in the court'. Of course, we have always believed that we have had standing and would now like the Supreme Court to confirm that fact.
" Just another example of a reporter not understanding the order itself and how it fits in the Huntley context... '
Russell Kaplan also writes that the article on October 10 2011 at News24.com provided rather misleading information, noting: " If you read the article carefully, hopefully you will notice that Mr. Huntley has not been denied his refugee claim but rather denied standing in the FCA court -- on the grounds of SA government pressure on the lower federal court and whether he will get a fair second hearing.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/SA-man-loses-refugee-case-20111009
background: http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/12/lawyer-of-sa-asylum-seeker-expects-many.html
Kaplan anticipates many more cases:
Flashback December 8 2009 – Censorbugbear-Reports’ editor heard from Russel Kaplan, lawyer of white SA asylum-seeker Brandon Huntley. that ‘all South Africans who fear persecution or risk to their lives on account of their skin colour can proceed with their long term plans including refugee claims in Canada.” The lawyer expects more applications to follow. Moreover, he believes they now have greatly increased chances of succeeding.
Huntley's case is very similar to the Polish Roma cases:
Kaplan wrote: “ Although Brandon Huntley was the first, I anticipate dozens of cases over the next few years with stronger and stronger evidentiary foundations. I believe many future cases will be successful irrespective of what happens to Huntley. The reason for this is that we have so much new evidence that comes out daily that these cases will be stronger and stronger. This happened with sexual orientation cases when they first started (not in South Africa). Now sexual orientation cases are main stream. I expect the same will happen with racial cases from South Africa. I modeled Huntley on the Polish Roma cases – very similar factually - and these continue every year (my office does about 10 cases per year). Anyone and everyone you know who wants to proceed ala Huntley should do so.” http://www.facebook.com/n/?inbox%2Freadmessage.php&t=1193901772205&mid=1877215G3d35e136G11b908dG0
contact information for Ireland and Canada lawyers dealing with SA political asylum cases:Irish republic: Sollicitor Owen Swaine: address: 14, Father Griffin Road, Galway, County Galway, Ireland telephone (091)861382
Canada: SA-born Lawyer dealing with political asylum cases for South Africans in Canada: kaplan@travel-net.com Russell Kaplan, 838 Somerset Street West, Suite 30, Ottawa, Canada, http://www.travel-net.com/~kaplan/index.swf tel Canada 91 613 233 799 – fax Canada 91 613 – 233 088
Immigration statistics for Canada: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/research-stats/facts2008.pdf
USA Trey Sucher, Attorney, Laz L Pittman, 1556 South First Avenue, suite R, Iowa city IA 52240 tel USA 319.337.4090 treysucher at pittmanimmigration.org
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Another succesful reason for residency in Canada: Porphyria – an Afrikaner genetic affliction:
One Afrikaans family was granted permanent residency in Prince Rupert in British Columbia because they had fled from SA’s abundant sunlight to the Canadian town which has the lowest recorded sunlight hours per year in the country. The Vivier family, whose members all suffer from familial porphyria – an potentially deadly allergy due to extreme sensitivity to sunlight which occurs often in Afrikaners -- asked to settle in the town of Prince Rupert with their children because it had the least sunshine hours per year in Canadia. The family said their health and quality of life was greatly impaired in South Africa where they were forced to remain indoors most of the time. They were allowed to resettle in the small north-western Canadian town.
- We are building a database -- Readers are also requested to let me know at a.j.stuijt@knid.nl if you know if any other lawyers in other countries which deal with political asylum applications for South Africans specifically. We will add them to our list of names upon verification.
ANC-regime tries to legally block, publicly demonise white asylum-seekers:
The South African government - while denying its white citizens access to the labour market with a bevy of black-racist laws -- also choses to interfere in the basic human rights of white South Africans who plead for political asylum abroad. The ANC regime lodges‘formal legal objections’ against these citizens’ applications in those countries concerned. In its attempts to demonise all white South African citizens who are applying for political asylum abroad, the ANC-regime in October publicly also blasted Diane Louise Jefferson, 22, a SA asylum seeker in Ireland, for her ‘tarnishing the integrity of all South Africans, black and white and to damage the country’s reputation…’ The regime has also been actively demonising Brandon Huntley and lodged objections against his political-asylum application in Canada.
The ANC-regime's interference in the rights of Mrs Jefferson to live in Ireland didn’t work: Mrs Jefferson obtained a five-year residence-permit in Ireland after testifying of her fears of criminal racist discrimination in her homeland. Owen Swaine, Miss Jefferson's lawyer, said his client, who lives in Doughiska, County Galway, had no immediate family left in South Africa. The SA government has lodged legal appeals against the decision, paid for by SA taxpayers… However, said her lawyer, she’s terrified that she would be forced to return: "Her apprehension in returning is two-fold," he said. "One is she's been in Ireland as a child, has no family connections in, and would be a stranger in South Africa. She is of limited financial means and if deported would effectively be abandoned there, and a female abandoned in any area of the world is more likely to fall victim to crime. "In addition to that, being a South African, she takes a keen interest and has read about the wide level of violent crime, which heightens her fear of returning as a young woman." view report:
Miss New Zealand is an expat Boere-meisie:
Picture left -- this baie mooi meisie is Magdalena Schoeman, this year’s Miss New Zealand-World; with granddad Fanie, 86 in Oudtshoorn. This gorgious Afrikaans lass emigrated with her parents at the tender age of six, but is scheduled to compete in the Miss World title in the country of her birth 13 December. South African emigrants are acknowledged ‘strebers’ in their adopted countries, often noted for their tough work-ethic and ‘Boer makes a plan” approach to life. More than 1-million white South Africans have already legally emigrated since 1994 due to the high crime rate. However sometimes, they also apply for political asylum – but only when all other legal avenues are closed to them…. Picture from Oudtshoorn Online: http://www.diehoorn.co.za/category/fotos/Many other white South Africans – mostly Afrikaners -- are however at the same time, also being rejected for political asylum and even forcibly returned to South Africa, -- and especially the USA makes itself guilty of this inhumane treatment: anbd willfully returning these terrified families to their homeland also means that these members of the country’s most visible, very small and defenceless white minority not only face a constant survival battle in the most violence-driven society on earth with the highest murder and homicide rates – 89 murders/homicides a day, combined -- but also face a lifetime of having to survive against all odds, being denied job rights due to the ANC’s anti-white employment laws -- in a country where “ whites” are denied land- and business-ownership and where Afrikaners even are being denied the right to run their own-language educational facilities in the land of their forebears -- and all for purely racist reasons.
SA gv’t uses non-racial SAPS crime statistics to try and ‘prove that criminals weren’t targetting whites…
- Oddly enough, in its argument objecting to the asylum-application in both Canada and Ireland, the ANC-regime not only demonised the persons involved personally, but used its own non-racial ´official crime-statistics ´ to try and prove that Ms Jefferson was not targetted by ‘anti-white racist criminals’. How would they know that since they don´t maintain ´racial crime statistics. We do on Farmitracker.com...
- http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/08/government-fails-to-release-cruelty-in.html
- http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/07/security-minister-orders-probe-into.html
Following is the SA government’s argument used in their formal objection to Ms Jefferson’s application:
- response to residency application by South African citizen in Ireland.
- “The South African government rejects the reasons given by Ms Jefferson, a South African, in her application for residency status in Ireland namely that she fears "criminal racial discrimination" if she were to return to the country and that she feels "she is at a greater risk" to be the victim of crime ( SAPS ). http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=146251&sn=Detail
- “This is untrue and inaccurate to suggest that crime is racially motivated and that a particular section of the South African society is more likely to be exposed to crime than any other. “The South African government has reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to provide safety and security to all South Africans, black and white, and not only to a select section of its population. “ (…)
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71656?oid=146251&sn=Detail
related reports:
- Canadian immigration facts and figures : http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/research-stats/facts2008.pdf
- Canadian asylum request: http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/08/white-man-gets-refugee-status-in-canada.html
- Irish asylum request: http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/09/white-sa-woman-requests-asylum-in.html
These two American-born children of Mrs Carol Herbst, left, were forcibly returned in 2006 from the USA after the Afrikaner family had been denied political asylum. Beeld newspaper reported that the Herbst children and their mother Carol were also amongst the targets of a violent armed hijacking gang after her husband Wentzel returned from the Kentucky-Fried-Chicken outlet in Delmas in April 2008, during which Mrs Herbst' brother-in-law Jimmy Watson was shot dead and the Herbst children Darian (5) andTeagan (3), left, had to flee for their lives. The mother said the children were badly traumatised by the violence. The children were born in the US while the Herbst couple awaited asylum-procedures for six years. She told the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld that the US 'can now see the kind of country they have forced our family to return to.' The USA said that ‘violence’ is not accepted as a criteria for allowing asylum.
Graphic: by http://www.CJCP.org.za. Children – especially female children -- are the most-endangered of all the people in South Africa, a report by the Institute for Security Studies warned last year. On the above chart it can be clearly seen that tens of thousands of children are targetted for rapes, indecent assaults, murders, and attempted murders each year and thousands are also abandoned and kidnapped. Yet the US government chose to deport these two tiny US-born children with their vulnerable Afrikaner mom back to this most violently-criminal society on earth…and they took this decision only because the family in question was of white Afrikaner origin – and had moreover, submitted in their application that they were being targetted by black criminal gangs because they were ‘whites’. The USA rejects applications by any asylum-seekers who claim that they are being targetted by any violent crimes – even if these ‘crimes’ clearly are a specific genocide targetting the Afrikaner people. The US government obtained ‘advice’ from the SA embassy before passing judgment against this family. Children and young girls also face a new danger, recorded recently by SA investigative journalist/producer Susan Puren, indicating a growing trend where specifically white girls and women are arrested under false pretences, taken to police stations and gang-raped by arresting police-officers and their colleagues. Carte-Blanche TV programme: clips http://beta.mnet.co.za/carteblanche/Article.aspx?Id=3793 Contact Susan Puren at Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=759019553&ref=ts 
Boer woman world’s first female piloting Gripen supersonic jet
Gripen first for Afrikaner woman fighter pilot Major Catherine Labuschagne
- source: journalist: Janine Erasmus - Major Catherine Labuschagne completed her maiden solo flight in the South African Air Force's Gripen Jas 39C in October 2010 - becoming the first woman fighter pilot ever to fly the supersonic aircraft.
Labuschagne, who is identified by her call sign of Siren, is now the only female member of the SA Air Force's (SAAF's) elite 2 Squadron. The squadron, which flies the single- and dual-seat Gripens, is based at Makhado Air Force Base in Limpopo province. This was formerly known as Air Force Base Louis Trichardt . Today it is also referred to as ‘the Fortress of the North’, or Castrum borealis as it is the most northerly of South Africa's bases.
Established in the 1940s, 2 Squadron has earned many battle honours, including El Alamein in 1942, South East Europe in 1944 and 1945, and Korea from 1950 to 1953. Lieutenant Colonel Glen Gibson is the unit's officer commanding.
Major Labuschagne trained on the venerable Impala jet before graduating to the Hawk 120 lead-in fighter trainer in preparation for the step-up to South Africa's most formidable aircraft. Pilots are required to accumulate about 430 hours on the Hawk and pass several courses before they can sit behind the controls of a Gripen.
Dedicated and meticulous
She got her wings in 2000 and, a decade later, is one of South Africa's most highly skilled women pilots. Although she's never felt that she's had to work as hard as her male colleagues, the going has been tough, Labuschagne admits.
"You need to be dedicated; you need to be meticulous; you need to work hard, be committed to what you do; and definitely must have passion for what you do," she said in a recent television interview.
Labuschagne boasts 1 900 flying hours, of which 1 000 have been on military jets. Back in 2004 she also made military history as the first woman to fly inside a Gripen -- but it was from the back seat of the two-seater 39D. Today she is among the first group of locally trained Gripen pilots to complete their operational conversion course – the initial six received their training in Sweden.
The other local graduates are Lieutenant Koobendra Chetty (Saffron) and Lieutenant Colonel Gys van der Walt (Samurai). The three complete their training in 2011 with Major Lance Mathebula (Lancelot), who trained in Sweden.
Gripen instruction takes place at 85 Combat Flying School, based at the Centralised Training Centre at Makhado and operating under the motto Detrimento sumus (Destruction is our business). The centre offers a computer-based instruction system and a virtual aircraft training facility, also known as a simulator. According to 2 Squadron's OC Gibson, the approximate ratio of air and simulator sorties is 50:50.
SAAF setting the example
The Gripen is a single-engine fighter built by Swedish manufacturer Saab. Besides the SAAF, which was Gripen's first export client, the craft are currently in service in the Czech, Hungarian and Swedish Air Forces. The SAAF has placed an order for 17 single-seater 39C craft and nine two-seater 39D craft, and in April 2008 took delivery of its first Gripen.To date, 15 of the nimble fighters have arrived in South African airspace, and the order is expected to conclude in 2012. The Gripens will replace the fleet of Cheetah fighters, some of which have been in service since 1986. The Cheetahs, which are basically refurbished Mirages, have now been retired.
Before the Gripens could formally join the SAAF fleet, they had to pass a stringent two-year test programme to adapt the craft to local systems. "South Africa was the first export customer to select Gripen, and its recognition of Gripen's capabilities and its faith in Saab has inspired other new Gripen customers, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, the UK's Empire Test Pilot School and, more recently, Thailand," says Saab president Åke Svensson. Svensson adds that the success of future negotiations with other countries depends to a degree on the performance of the aircraft in South Africa.
BAE Systems South Africa CE Mike O'Callaghan says the purchase of the Gripens and Hawks has revived the country's defence and aerospace industry and enhanced its reputation internationally. The UK-based BAE Systems is that country's biggest defence contractor, and manufactures the Hawk fighters.
With a maximum speed of Mach 2 – twice the speed of sound, or about 2,400km/h – and a highly advanced sensor system, the Gripen is widely regarded as the world's top medium-weight fighter aircraft. During last year's 2010 Fifa World Cup, Gripens and Hawks were responsible for much of the security in the air.
First published by MediaClubSouthAfrica.com – get free high-resolution photos and professional feature articles from “Brand South Africa” 's taxpayer-funded media service.
http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/catherine-labuschagne.htm#ixzz1aRm0CVta
Picture: http://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforce/aircraft/20/gripen-c
SHOOT BOER hatespeech has to be challenged:
‘Afrikaners would've had no place in this country…
- Shoot the Boer hatespeech had to be challenged in court’
… writes historian Hermann Giliomee
10 October 2011 “The main issue in today's politics is whether the Constitution will flourish as a living document to which people of all classes and ethnic origins can appeal or whether it will become a dead letter. In the Afrikaans community the issue has recently surfaced in a polemic between Adriaan Basson, a journalist of City Press, and Kallie Kriel, who leads Afriforum, the civil-rights affiliate of the SA trade union Solidariteit.
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Black crowd chants hatespeech in support of suspected killers of Boer-leader Eugene Terre’Blanche – a handful of Boers brave their anger by showing up with Boer and AWB-flags in support of the Terre’Blanche family:
ABOVE and LEFT: During an earlier court-appearance, Kill the Boer and “Shoot the Boer” chants were heard outside the courtroom in Ventersdorp from an aggressive crowd supporting the two murder-suspects in the slaughter of AWB-leader and local farmer Eugene Terre’Blanche . The UK Telegraph at that time, quoted comments from this crowd: “as one of the accused was brought out of the Ventersdorp courthouse, scores of black youths, some armed with bricks (picture above) erupted into whistles, cheers and ululation. A woman described the two accused males as ‘heroes’, adding: ‘We are going to stand by them all the way’. Student Jerry Mooltsho, 20, was quoted as saying: ‘they (the suspects) have shown their anger towards the regime, Terre’Blanche deserves his death’. Terre’Blanche, old, ill and defenceless when he was attacked while sleeping in his homestead, had by then already forsaken his crowd-pleasing Boer-nationalistic political rhetoric for religious evangelism before he was slaughtered: (partially dismembered), just a few months after ANC youth league leader Julius Malema started chanting ‘Shoot the Boer’ and “Kill the Boer’ from public platforms. Picture left: on October 10, 2011 a small group of Afrikaners and Boers braved the anger from black ANC-demonstrators who showed up at the trial, photographed by Volksblad.
-----------------------
Videos: Nelson Mandela and ANC military wing founder Ronnie Kasrils sing Kill the Boer; Julius Malema sings Shoot the Boer:
VIDEOS ABOVE: Two Gauteng High Courts have banned this crowd-chant as ‘inciting racial hatred’ in April 2010. The ruling African National Congress has appealed against each ruling made against it ever since: proving that they support Malema completely. Malema himself is using this chant widely and has gained such a huge personal support-base with it, that he now is seen as a direct threat to President Jacob Zuma’s political power. The US-based Genocide Watch organisation has placed the 4-million ‘Whites’ in South Africa and the few thousand Zimbabwe whites as being in the penultimate stage of all-out Genocide because of Malema’s racial incitement: the man also also has close political links with Zimbabwe’s ruling regime and has even called for the overthrow of peaceful, democratic neighbouring states such as Botswana.
_________________________________________________________________
Gioliomee: ‘ANC treats minorities as the threat to their idea of national unity’
Giliomee: “ The place of minorities in South Africa is a burning issue in South Africa, as in other democracies where the ruling party considers the demands of minorities troublesome and even vexatious. Such parties, and the ANC is no exception, treat community-based minorities and any form of (ethnic-cultural) nationalism as the threat to their idea of national unity For the ANC there is no unity in ethnic diversity but dangers in diversity. This belief has deep roots in African history where the (British, French and German) colonial rulers exploited ethnic divisions in African societies in a policy of ‘divide and rule’.
The Constitution of 1996 offered the hope of a new path to democracy and tolerance of ethnic minorities, but that hope soon faded. Demands of Afrikaans-speakers for the recognition of language rights in schools and universities were soon denounced as longing for the past and a threat to national unity. The court action of the trade union Solidariteit against the singing of the song ‘Shoot the Boer' was dismissed as an attack on the ANC's political traditions.
As could be expected, Solidariteit, in taking legal action on the song, was immediately branded as an organisation that tried to capitalise on Afrikaner nationalist sentiments and was intent on pursuing destructive nationalist politics. Nationalism is an enemy that must be destroyed by any means.
Nationalism is often depicted as the 'Dark God that wrecks nations'. But nationalism is not the enemy that causes catastrophes in one multi-national country after other. It is the failure of the constitutional democracy that cause the rise of nationalism.
The enemy is made up of people who abhor diversity, who want one nation, one language, one history, and of politicians who undermine and assail the Constitution.
South Africa has always been a conglomeration of stubborn national (ethnic) communities:
The tension between assertive minorities and an intolerant government is far from new. It is an old story that crops up often in South Africa. Only the terms and the concepts change. The underlying reason is that South Africa has always been an ‘empire' - a conglomeration of stubborn national (ethnic) communities rather a nation united behind respected leaders and inspiring goals.
From the earlier times there were always government leaders and the acolytes who assured people that the country had never had it so good and all communities should be thankful for the privilege of living under such progressive rule. For the British imperial government of the nineteenth century its the most popular subjects were the "Cape Dutch"; a small elite who underwent a form of assimilation through which they surrendered their language and every other form of difference in order to become part of the "progressive majority" in the British empire.
Alexis de Tocqueville, the great political scholar of the nineteenth century, knew precisely what was being asked whenever minorities were expected to conform. "There are communities in which the members of the minority can never hope to draw the majority over to their side," he wrote, "because they must then give up the very point that is at issue between them."
‘The cold indifference with which the Dutch Boers were being treated by the British as a subject and inferior race…’
The writer Olive Schreiner - who had been a governess on Eastern Cape farms in the 1860s and 1870s - understood how aggrieved the the Dutch colonists were by this "progressive" haughtiness. "But that which most embittered the hearts of the colonists was the cold indifference which which they were treated and the consciousness that they were regarded as a subject and inferior race ... [The] feeling of bitterness became so intense that about the year 1836 large numbers of individuals determined for ever the colony and the homes they created."
The British’ inhumanity towards the Boers – fuelled Afrikaner nationalism:
At the end of the century Alfred Milner - a "progressive" reformer if there ever was one - coldly engineered the Anglo-Boer War. Afrikaner nationalism was driven by memories of this inhumane war, anti-imperialism and through the struggle for equal status between the Dutch and English languages.
In the competition between the two big white communities between 1910 and 1990 the term "minority" was never used. Instead, it was seen as a struggle between two "nationalities" or "races" (the "Anglo-Saxon" and "Boer" or "Dutch" races.)Just after Union some English speakers believed that it would be "progressive" if English evolved into the sole national language. The Union constitution required that Dutch and English should enjoy equal status, but many English speakers rejected any practical efforts to secure real equality between the two as a form of racism. The revered writer CJ Langenhoven once posed the key question to an English speaking politician: "Why is it that my politics is always racism and your racism is always politics?"
The term ‘minority’ became popular only after the First World War:
The term "minority" first entered into popular use after the First World War. It was used to refer to the "national minorities" of Eastern Europe, each with their own culture, national history and area. In British-American parlance the term minority only really acquired weight in the 1930s, but with a completely different meaning. A "minority" was overwhelming used to refer to individuals from disadvantaged or stigmatised groups such as, for example, black people.
The different meanings of the term minority has occasioned great confusion. At a Moscow conference in 1988 Russian academics warned ANC representatives against alienating the Afrikaner minority if they wanted to govern a prosperous and stable country. The academics used the term minority in the East European sense and they were also worried over the fate of Russian minorities in some Soviet Republics.
ANC delegation wanted to hear nothing of Afrikaners 'as a minority', which could lay claim to certain rights as such.
The ANC's Pallo Jordan said that 'while the acknowledgment of minority rights in the Soviet Union was progressive and a prerequisite for empowerment and self-determination' it would be "reactionary" in the South African case. "It would subvert the rights of the majority and preserve the power of the oppressor minority.' At the time the Afrikaners were a national community which wielded its political power in a futile effort to define all ethnic groups as national minorities while Afrikaners ruled alone.
Afrikaners are quietly determined to claim their Constitutional Rights and to resist Stigmatisation:
Today Afrikaners do not conduct themselves as stigmatised minority. The defensiveness of the first ten years of the new order has given way to a quiet determination to lay claim to constitutional rights, to develop new strategies and to resist stigmatisation. Solidarity and AfriForum function as dynamic catalysts for communal action.
‘Shoot the Boer"
Among the minorities in South Africa there is an increasing realisation that we now live in a state where the drums of blood and land are being beaten ever harder. In VS Naipul's novel A Bend in the River, which was set in independent Zaire, Salim, a member of the Arab minority, describes a reality that is also applicable to the minority communities of South Africa. A character in the novel says: "The world is what it is, men who allow themselves to become nothing have no place in it."
Two weeks ago in Business Day colummnist Steven Friedman wrote that the judgement in the ‘Shoot the Boer’ case was ‘unwise because it reifies the white minority's economic and cultural dominance’. I think there are some double standards at work.
---- It seems to go like this: Any victimisation of minorities is wrong except if it upsets the Afrikaners. If the song upset the Afrikaners there must be something right about it…
But what would have happened if other communities had been targeted? How does "Kill the Jew (or Englishman) and kill the capitalist" sound? Silence in the face of such vilification as "Kill the Boer" would reduce the Afrikaners to a powerless minority required to live on its knees. People who, as Naipaul phrases it, have "no place in this country."
A symbol of identity: Afrikaans is being reduced to powerlessness:
The Afrikaans language remains the most important symbol of Afrikaner social identity. Just as before 1950 those who campaign for Afrikaans as a public language are attacked when they question the growing dominance of English in government, business and the universities.
But it would be wrong to blame only the government.
Dutch academic author Gerrit Komrij placed his finger on the biggest problem: Afrikaans is being reduced to powerlessness by Afrikaners themselves. Komrij said Afrikaans is "living dead." It is like a "healthy, struggling body which is having its limbs cut off." Komrij concludes: "Whatever the future holds for Afrikaans, it is the Afrikaans speakers who are the biggest threat to the language.Without much pressure from government the University of Stellenbosch has over the past decade reduced Afrikaans-medium classes to ten percent. In some departments the extinction of Afrikaans-medium is in sight.”
But the example of the (the Protestant-Christian University) Potchefstroom under the visionary leadership of Dr Theuns Eloff, which has secured a proper place for Afrikaans, will haunt the other universities.
‘What ultimately matters is the determination to keep going’ – William of Orange:
The struggle will continue despite the best efforts of the "progressives". It will be a long, merciless, struggle but not necessarily a hopeless one.
Winston Churchill liked to quote the Dutch statesman William of Orange - who said in the seventeenth century:
"Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. What ultimately matters is the determination to keep going."
This is an expanded version of an article that first appeared in Die Burger and Beeld.
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page72308?oid=260478&sn=Marketingweb+detail&pid=90389