Assault on Afrikaans

The assault on the Afrikaans language, waged by British imperialists in the 19th century, is now being continued by the South African Constitutional Court.

The imperialists wanted to impose their English language on all South Africans; ConCourt wants to do the same. Like Cecil John Rhodes, it seems to think this European language is superior and must be used exclusively.

In soccer, the players must abide by the referee’s decision; but we are allowed to criticise it. In a constitutional democracy, we must all abide by the judge’s decision; but we are allowed to criticise it.

The ConCourt majority judgment in the recent case, AfriForum and Another v University of the Free State (2017), is appalling.

The applicants were appealing against the decision by UFS to use English only as the primary medium of instruction. ConCourt ruled against them, believing that it was quite right for a European, colonial language to be the only primary language at an Afrikaans university.

The reasons given in the highly political majority judgment are absurd. It describes Afrikaans as the language of the oppressor. But English was the language of British oppressors.

It says white schools in the past were “better-resourced” than black ones. That’s true, but English white schools were even better-resourced than Afrikaans ones.

It suggests Afrikaans is racially divisive. More nonsense. The majority of Afrikaans speakers are not white.

The real reason for antagonism to Afrikaans by certain black leaders is clear.

The Afrikaners are proud of their language and their culture. When they came to power, they developed excellent Afrikaans schools and universities, with dedicated teachers devoted to their students.

So many black African leaders are ashamed of their languages and culture, and prefer those from Europe.

When they came to power they did not develop good schools and universities teaching in their languages. They preferred the colonial language. Many black teachers, notably under the SA Democratic Teachers Union, care nothing about their black pupils.

They send their own children to former model C schools teaching in English, often with a majority of white teachers.