The Zulu who wants to join the AWB
Says he’s tired of violence among black parties
THREE years after Eugene Terre Blanche’s murder, Piet Dlamini is still trying to join the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB).
The 37-year-old Zulu man from Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal is a most unlikely adherent of the AWB. He appears to be a devoted follower of the white supremacist organisation, but said he had found it difficult to join officially.
He said he was promised a membership card by Terre Blanche before the AWB leader was murdered in April 2010. The card did not arrive, but Dlamini has persevered. He said that once he had enough money he would go to Newcastle, where the AWB is said to have an office, and join the organisation. It would be a round trip of almost 250km.
The chances of him being granted membership, however, are nil. The new leader of the organisation, Steyn van Ronge, said Dlamini was disqualified on the grounds that he did not adhere to traditional white values.
“He can apply to be a supporter, but not a member,” said Van Ronge.
Dlamini said he met Terre Blanche in 2008 when the AWB leader visited Vryheid in an attempt to revive the organisation in the conservative northern Kwazulu-Natal town.
Dlamini said he stood, dressed in full AWB uniform, outside the local farmers’ union hall while Terre Blanche asked the audience for permission to allow the swart boer (black
He has accumulated a wardrobe of the movement’s uniforms and a vast collection of boeremusiek CDs and DVDs
boer) to join them inside.
“It brings back those good memories,” said Dlamini, showing a photograph of him and Terre Blanche shaking hands. “We talked to each other. My father is not alive today but his spirit is here.”
He met Terre Blanche again in 2009 at another AWB meeting in Vryheid and again he was the only black person in a white audience.
Dlamini has decorated his rural home with AWB posters and memorabilia. He has accumulated a wardrobe of the movement’s uniforms and has a vast collection of boeremusiek CDs and DVDs.
His little room also has pictures of former presidents PW Botha and FW de Klerk, Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder and Jan van Riebeeck.
Across a picture of Terre Blanche, cut from a magazine, Dlamini has written: Tot siens my beste vriend (Goodbye my best friend).
Dlamini said he was saving up to buy an ox to slaughter in commemoration of Terre Blanche’s death.
Paul Visagé, a senior member of the AWB, said Dlamini was not “a fully fledged member” of the organisation.
“He’s a great guy, ou Piet. He’s a very nice guy. He has a lot of respect for Eugene Terre Blanche,” said Visagé.
“He regularly phones the office and asks how the AWB is doing, but he is not a member.”
The Sunday Times caught up with Dlamini in Vryheid, where he works as a gardener. He dresses for work in AWB uniform, complete with camouflage cap.
He can speak Zulu and English but prefers to speak Afrikaans — a language he developed an interest in during his primary school days.
Of Terre Blanche, Dlamini said: “He may be gone, but that doesn’t matter. I chose this party because I was sick and tired of violence among black political parties. Besides, it’s my constitutional right to associate with any party of my choice.”
Dlamini said he did not live a typical Afrikaans lifestyle and continued to practise his Zulu culture like other people in the village, once an Inkatha Freedom Party stronghold.
“I play Afrikaans, English and Zulu music and I also do all the things that any Zulu would do, like slaughtering for ancestors and other things,” said the father of three children, aged between two and five.
His mother, Ruth Ngema, said she often asked herself how her son had become so obsessed with the AWB.
“I don’t know how he chose this party, but I have accepted that it’s his choice,” she said.
She said some people in the village had threatened him because of his political conviction, but he did not pay much attention to them. “A neighbour refused to give him a lift to work because he was wearing an AWB uniform,” she said.
Another neighbour, Ntuthuko Mhlongo, said he did not understand why Dlamini was so obsessed with the AWB, because it had done nothing for him.
“They can’t even build him a proper house. He is just happy to speak Afrikaans and to wear this AWB uniform, but he doesn’t benefit anything from it. He is suffering but the AWB can’t help him,” he said.
One of Dlamini’s employers, Karel Foord, a dairy farmer in Vryheid, said he did not know much about Dlamini’s AWB connection.
“He works here for two days a week and comes in his AWB uniform. I don’t ask him much about the AWB and how he became a supporter,” said Foord.