Afrikaans must not be marginalised

Given his performance in the R22 million flag saga, it is not surprising that Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has been looking for ways to justify his existence. Now, apparently, he wants the Afrikaans language monument in Paarl (the Taal Monument) to be renamed “in the interests of inclusivity”.

Quite how people other than Afrikaners would want to celebrate a language which is not their own was not explained by the minister.

Interestingly, as Freedom Front Plus MP Dr Wynand Boshoff points out on our pages today, a previous endeavour by parliament to stop subsidies to the monument was turned aside when MPs visited the monument and were informed that the various pillars of the monument symbolise the different sources from which Afrikaans originated: European languages, various African languages, including Khoisan, and its Eastern roots.

Afrikaners themselves had to fight to have their language recognised as such, rather than as a dialect of Dutch. Yet, Afrikaans does indeed come with baggage: It is viewed by many as the “language of the oppressor” and was the spark behind the Soweto uprising in 1976.

So it is understandable that there is pressure to move away from it, especially at university level, where it is systematically being replaced by English as the language of instruction. In broad terms, that is no bad thing, given that English is the global language of commerce, trade and technology.

However, Afrikaans is the home language for more than seven million South Africans, making it the third most-spoken in the country. And, more than half of those who speak it are not white…a factor which further complicates the desire of some politicians to marginalise it.

Languages are part of the broad tapestry of our polyglot country – and they should be viewed as such and not homogenised in the name of political correctness.