Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Marchers burn Malema poster
Right-wing parties say Afrikaners are living in a de facto dictatorship
AFRIKANER political party Front Nasionaal set itself on a collision course with the EFF after burning an EFF T-shirt and a poster showing the face of party leader Julius Malema.
Yesterday the party led a march to the Union Buildings to hand over a memorandum, addressed to President Jacob Zuma, signalling its intention of establishing areas for Afrikaners to live out their heritage and exercise their right to self-determination according to the constitution.
After burning the EFF T- shirt, the crowd began singing Die Stem, South Africa’s old national anthem, before heading off to the Union Buildings.
Francois Cloete, the party’s treasurer, said Malema was targeted because he always targeted Afrikaners in his speeches.
“He calls us white settlers and we are saying he is a black settler in southern Africa. The burning of the EFF T-shirt is us setting fire to those beliefs that we are outsiders in our own country,” Cloete said.
Other organisations in the march were the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, the Boer Afrikaner Volksraad, the Herstigte Nasionale Party and Verkenners.
Front Nasionaal’s lawyer Marius Coertze read out a manifesto at the Union Buildings, saying just because all adult citizens could vote, this did not mean that South Africa was a democratic state.
Most legislators at all levels of government were “people very different from ourselves”.
They had different sets of ethics, languages and values, which meant many laws ran contrary to Afrikaner ethics and values.
This meant Afrikaners were living under conditions of a de facto dictatorship.
“We refuse to accept the aforesaid oppression simply due to our numbers. We refuse to be a ‘minority’ under conditions of tyranny by the majority. We demand self-determination in a territory ( or territories) governed by ourselves.”
Before the march, Abel Malan, chairman of the BAV, had a speech prepared and read out by Paul Kruger, the BAV legal representative.
Malan said the government could not form a special unit to protect the lives of Boer farmers like it did for the protection of the rhinos.
“Our lives are worth less than the lives of wild animals in this country. So be it then – but no one must wail when they reap the fruits of our counter-actions,” he said.
“FW de Klerk and his spineless mob of humanistic Afrikaners surrendered to your ( ANC) terrorist war against civilians by signing away the whole country to your masses via a one-man, one-vote election.
“However, any nation that is pushed to the brink of extinction by a racist government earns the right to reverse that process, by whatever means. Mr Zuma you must take note – should you continue to trample upon our legal right to selfdetermination, you will leave us with no other choice than to fight you until the bitter end,” Malan declared.
The march was poorly attended, which Cloete said he had expected because many the members could not get off work. He said the numbers should not be considered as an indication the movement lacked support.