South AFrica: a volkstaat of the mind

[Harold F. Schiffman]

A volkstaat of the mind

Cornia Pretorius


31 March 2006 08:06


Maties has spoken. The university community has voted to take back the
university from those who want to allow English to creep too deep into the
heart of Afrikanerdom.  And some would see the universitys choice of four
new council members as a first, small victory for neo-Afrikaners who are
seeking to rebuild Afrikaner nationalism and an Afrikaner identity, with
Stellenbosch as their rallying point and home. The campaign was fiercely
contested in the columns of Afrikaans newspapers, at the gates of
Afrikaans schools, inside walled retirement villages and in cyberspace.
The university is in danger, a frail tannie, arriving on campus with a
heap of completed ballot papers from her peers, reportedly said.

The take back drive was managed by Afrikaans cultural organisations such
as the Federasie vir Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge, better known by its
acronym FAK. Their candidates were professor emeritus and historian
Hermann Giliomee, former deputy vice-chancellor Christo Viljoen, professor
emeritus and poet Lina Spies, and Jacko Maree, a former MP and Ladysmith
attorney. Pitted against them were journalist Ruda Landman and businessmen
Christo Wiese, Michiel le Roux and Gerhard van Niekerk. The results --
based on 12,6% voter participation in the convocation and 14,5%
participation in the donor community -- were released on Saturday.  It was
a victory for the Giliomee camp. All four new council members have been
vocal opponents of the extension of the T-plan -- teaching in both
Afrikaans and English -- within the universitys faculty of arts.

Maties language policy, adopted in 2002, provides for the use of both
English and Afrikaans in arts, principally to accommodate African and
coloured students whose first language is not Afrikaans . Each module is
marked with a T (dual medium) or A for Afrikaans. In 2003, virtually all
the first-year modules were included under the T-option, to provide for
the 2004 intake. As these students progressed, the option was extended to
the second year. But when it came to the crunch -- the stamping of modules
with a T -- a fierce controversy erupted between those for and those
against. Currently, the language policy is under review -- a process that
will no doubt be closely scrutinised by the newly elected council members.
They are bent on protecting Stellenboschs character as an Afrikaans
university and, indirectly, on saving the future of Afrikaans in schools
and other South African educational institutions.

This is according to an e-mail, widely circulated before the election, in
which former Maties were urged to vote for the Giliomee group. Though the
representatives of the convocation and the donors who serve on the council
are only a third of the total number of council members, a clear result
will steer the battle for Afrikaans in a new direction, the message
declared. But the council election has not only been about Afrikaans. It
is about Stellenboschs direction as a South African institution and the
pace of change there. It is also about the place and role of Afrikaners or
Afrikaanses. With its strong historical links to Afrikanerdom, the
university is a barometer of the thinking of an influential group of
Afrikaners. And in some circles, the outcome of the Stellenbosch taal
debate is a straw in the wind for other indigenous languages.

Dumile Mateza, sports boadcaster and Xhosa language activist, told a
gathering of student journalists last week that there was much to learn
from those who were fighting for Afrikaans. I am a follower of the
Afrikaans debate, he said. [But] if it runs into a taalstryd [language
struggle], I am not getting involved. I have a problem with what Giliomee
is doing. Stellenbosch vice-chancellor Chris Brink makes the same point:
Insofar as the taaldebat [language debate] is a debate and not just a
campaign, it may be considered as representing the interplay between two
directions of thought regarding the future of Afrikaans. There are those
whose point of departure is that Afrikaans should be protected, and that
the best way of doing so is by making rules. And there are those who
believe that Afrikaans should be promoted, and that the best way of doing
so is by making friends.

In No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch, Brink offers a
comprehensive response to a debate that has been hijacked by a small group
of people, some of whom may be seen as abusing the language.

He argues that the language debate is also a political campaign about
Afrikaner identity. More than 10 years into democracy Afrikaner
nationalism is taking shape again. And it is using the issue of Afrikaans
as a language of learning at Stellenbosch to further its goals.

Calling them neo-Afrikaners, Brink believes their core agenda is a
volkstaat of the mind -- people who share the same beliefs, assumptions
and views about themselves, but want somewhere to congregate. That place
is Stellenbosch.

Brink proposes an alternative to a university that is narrowly Afrikaans,
with some room for other language-speakers. He says that it is not the
universitys job to save Afrikaans and be exclusively Afrikaans -- in way
that will isolate it as parochial and regional -- it can win more friends
by managing the language issue, rather than policing it.

I believe that it is perfectly possible for Stellenbosch to promote
Afrikaans as a language of teaching and science in a multilingual context,
without being a rule-driven Afrikaans university using mechanisms of
exclusion and compulsion as envisaged by the taalstryders [language
activists], Brink says.

There appears to be some common ground between the Afrikaans language
activists and Brink and his supporters.

Combining forces in a more constructive way -- multilingual universities
receive no financial support from the government -- could make the friends
that both sides need.

Failing to do so will merely confirm the suspicions of many South Africans
that the debate about Afrikaans, as conducted by the neo-Afrikaners, is
not and has never been about Afrikaans only.



http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=268254&area=/insight/insight__national/