Speech by Flip Buys, Executive Chairperson of the Solidarity Movement to the Summit on the Future , Helpmekaar (Mutual Support) Plan 2020, Saturday, 10 October 2015

A dream comes true

Introduction

“I’ve come to plead for a nation, frail among the nations, that its name not be blotted out and banished to utter stillness.” (Free translation from Afrikaans.)

Ladies and gentlemen, this stanza from NP van Wyk Louw’s “Dieper Reg” (Deeper Right) recently struck me afresh when a lonely old lady approached us to help stop her grandchildren from leaving the country, “because I want to be a grandmother of children in South Africa, not a ‘granny’ for children in Australia.” There are probably grandparents in this audience who know what it means to long for one’s grandchildren.

That stirring request from an ordinary grandmother made me realise why we are here today: It is the task of our generation to create the circumstances in which Afrikaners may live permanently free, safe and flourishing in Africa – not merely as individuals who are fighting for survival. A vigorous, organised Afrikaner community, feeling at home in Africa, would indeed create the faith in the future for South Africans to stay here and to render a sustainable contribution to the country and all its peoples.

By that, I do not mean that we should laager or mobilise ourselves against our fellow citizens; we should rather establish such conditions as to keep us from neither leaving the country nor withdrawing into it. We are not living on an island; therefore, as a cultural community, we should at the same time build bridges to the greater Afrikaans language community “outwardly”, as well as to all the other people with whom we are sharing this beautiful country. Because, if we merely emphasise the differences, the crags and divisions would only widen; we would thus be playing into the hands of radical populists who wish to see the country go up in flames.

Although we are Africans and South Africans, we may also call ourselves Afrikaners because no community on earth could be expected to deny its existence and thus sacrifice its history as well as its constitutional right of existence and other rights. Because, worldwide, history has shown that, once national unity is weakened to the point of incorporation with the majority, the price to be paid becomes too dear.

To be on one’s own side does not mean opposing others. Apartheid is a thing of the past: in the eyes of the world, Afrikaners are no longer the bad guys. It is therefore no longer acceptable that the ANC should attempt to intimidate us by burdening us with a guilt complex, as the political hostages of the past. If Afrikaners do not care for themselves, nobody else will. Now we may and must side with ourselves!

Our Movement organised a Crisis Summit on 5 May this year to reflect on the double crisis of state decay and second-class citizenship. At the time we said that, fortunately, the state had not yet decayed, with many positives still evident to counter any thoughts of complete failure. Yet we also cautioned that there were warning signs because important sections of the state had already weakened or degenerated to the extent that, if not stopped in time, they would pull down the rest of the state as well.

We also sounded a note of warning about the growing peril of second-class citizenship for groups such as Afrikaners, where majority rule started changing into majority domination – because the ANC wishes to control every aspect of our lives.

But problems are not solved by merely talking about them; they are solved by doing something about them. Van Wyk Louw rightly said that a nation’s continued existence was not founded on abstract rights or dynamic leaders, but on acts through which the people daily affirmed their right of existence.

We therefore made an undertaking to you that we would work on practicable solutions, to be introduced at the Summit on the Future. The plans we submit here today are the result of successful pilot projects that we have tested over the past five years; these projects have been enhanced with inputs from the public, and honed through the good offices of 20 able project teams who have worked on them for months on end.

However, in order to actually make a systemic difference, they have to be fundamentally accelerated, broadened and carried out on a large scale. We do not suggest that they are the ultimate and only answers, or that we can solve all the problems ourselves. However, our history has proved that when ordinary people work together, they achieve extraordinary results – even under unusual circumstances.

Together with their families, our Movement’s 330 000 members mean that we probably represent more than a million people, and we do not at all pretend to be speaking or deciding on behalf of all Afrikaners. Our action plans, however, are in support of Afrikaners’ right to be able to permanently live in Africa as free, secure and prosperous citizens; moreover, our plans seek the benefit of the country and all its peoples.

Helpmekaar Movement

We regard this plan as the third major “Helpmekaar” (mutual support) movement in the Afrikaner’s history, through which the people themselves have accepted responsibility for the future. The first movement started a century ago, after the War, when our ancestors played a decisive role in rebuilding the country after the “scorched-earth” policy of the English.

The second movement started with the then “Reddingsdaad” (bailout) congresses of the thirties. We are of course aware that times have changed and that the circumstances, now and then, are completely different. Yet the lesson from history is still valid, namely that miracles are possible when a community consolidates itself into robust self-help organisations, building a common future together.

We realise there are problems affecting all South Africans. When the forest is on fire, saying you are not a tree will not save you. If the forest burns, we will be consumed as well. If the state falls, it will fall on all of us. For that reason, we try to help wherever we can to solve national problems in cooperation with other communities, regardless of whether the problem is poor governance, failing water, electricity or security.

We will work together with any grouping to help prevent the country from decay or collapsing into a “democracy” without freedom. Of course, our policies on various matters would sometimes differ from those of other groups; however, if we have the same interests at heart, at least we could join hands on specific issues.

We could therefore cooperate on a basis of interests, rather than policies. Building outward bridges in our country is just as essential as inward bonding. Nevertheless, I do not think we could be expected to do the government’s job; they were elected, they are paid and funded from our taxes to deliver services. Our job is to keep them accountable and liable for such service delivery.

There are also problems that affect all Afrikaans-speaking people and which our Movement, as a member of the Afrikaanse Taalraad (ATR), takes up with the authorities. Then there are problems, though affecting all South Africans and all Afrikaans-speaking people, are specifically distressing the Afrikaner as part of a cultural community. These comprise issues such as racial legislation, the criminalisation of our history, vandalising Afrikaner monuments, the attacks on universities, schools and other institutions built up by our ancestors, and the abuse of political power to stop up the constitutional spaces for our cultural freedom.

The ANC always claims that political freedom without economic freedom only means freedom for the rich. However, it is even more accurate to say that political freedom without cultural freedom only means freedom for the majority!

Our Helpmekaar 2020 plan is not an attempt to return to the past; it is an attempt to build a better future. It is also not an effort to isolate ourselves, to establish parallel governmental structures, to instigate racial polarisation, to laager or to establish an apartheid “volkstaat”. Although we are working both with and in the realities of the country, we do not resign ourselves to it because we expect more from ourselves.

Our entire strategy is directed at establishing greater and growing independence through dynamic self-help organisations. These would be rather complementary to the weak or reluctant state structures, and the objective is to empower ourselves to be able to make decisions and to implement them ourselves. Through these self-help structures, we wish to lessen our dependence on poor state decision-making by means of strong and independent community structures.

Experience elsewhere in the world has shown that a minority group in an open community needs strong institutions in order to survive successfully. Whereas the ANC avails itself of state power, state institutions and funds to further its interests, the Afrikaner needs strong self-do institutions to protect its fundamental interests.

It is therefore the purpose of our plan to make it possible for people to stay here and neither leave the country nor withdraw themselves. Just call it a competitive alternative to emigration or to the sliding track on which the country is now sliding downhill.

However, it does sound odd when the ANC government pushes us out of the civil service, workplaces or universities, while at the same time saying that Afrikaners should not stand aside. Or when their racial policy hampers white people’s opportunities in the workplace and business world, yet they would accuse us of racism when we do something about it. And since when is it right-wing politics to protect one’s constitutional rights?

I therefore wish to repeat Langenhoven’s question to Mr Zuma today: Why is your racism always only politics, but our politics always racism? Rather stop driving our children out of universities and colleges on the grounds of their race, under the pretext that Afrikaans restricts admission, or that everything should represent the racial composition of the country.

Minister Nzimande does not only want to hear less Afrikaans on our campuses; he wants to see fewer Afrikaners there! And when we started the superhuman task of rebuilding a world-class Afrikaans university with the ten-rand notes of ordinary folk, the Minister showed the bizarre impudence to make uninformed announcements that there was no more room for Afrikaans universities!

From crisis in 2015 to solution in 2020

There are people who may think it odd when we say that a community should accept responsibility for its future, as if the idea were quite out of the ordinary. Not a single government on earth could hope to do everything for everybody, let alone a government governing against a section of its own citizenry! Wouldn’t it be quite irresponsible to abandon one’s future into the hands of a mere government – just ask the Greeks, the Zimbabweans or any other nation?

Yet a successful country does consist of an effective state sector, a growing private sector, and an active community sector. But the collapse of the state sector may also cause the downfall of the other sectors, as it happened in Zimbabwe when the government’s crushing of its citizens’ political and civil freedoms resulted in an unemployment rate of some 90%.

In the same way that an economy consists of the sum total of all its enterprises, a community sector consists of the sum total of all community organisations in the civil society. Where the purpose of an economy is to raise the living standard of the populace, the purpose of a community sector is to raise the quality of life as well.

It is therefore our dream, from a crisis in 2015, to have attainable solutions in place by 2020, thanks to Helpmekaar plans, which would firmly position us on the road of our vision towards a future where we as a community could permanently live free, safe and flourishing in Africa. Of course, we realise that not everything would be moonlight and roses by 2020; however, we believe that workable plans with measurable objectives, carried out by strong organisations, would take us much further than merely shutting our eyes, voting every five years and hoping for the best.

At the same time, we wish to quash the feelings of despondency among our people that, being bereft of political power, they should feel utterly powerless at the same time. This is not true! Let us rather focus on workable plans making a perceptible difference in people’s lives – that is the way to create a future.

“National unity through national diversity”

The condition for the success of any plan is that the greatest possible number of Afrikaners should support it and actively assist us in its implementation. We wish to create a future for an entire community, not just for a faction. But to obtain this critical mass support, the most important and sometimes divergent viewpoints will have to be a part of this plan. Plans for “national unity” are not useful because they presuppose that all Afrikaners should support a single plan.

It is wishful thinking that everybody should or would agree to the plan – nowhere else in the world has this happened. Therefore, contradictory as it may sound, the most important requirement for unity is that there should be room for diversity. Our point of departure is that people do not have to agree on everything in order to continue working together on the issues they do agree on.

Luckily, the things we agree on far exceed the points of difference, and these should not be a reason for division. We should therefore demonstrate the democratic forbearance to cooperate in the plans we feel we can support, and not to oppose those we judge differently.

Planning for the Helpmekaar 2020 Plan

It is obviously not possible to deal with the planning of Helpmekaar 2020 in full within the limited time. More information will be made available to you during the course of proceedings today, and additional information will be made available on the Summit’s web site. Should you still be interested in more detail you can contact the particular institution directly in that regard. Therefore, please bear with me when I will only outline the framework of our 2015 – 2020 Plan, only focusing on a few highlights to explain the extent of the planning. Then you will understand why I say a dream is coming true – the dream of a modern Helpmekaar Movement comprising strong self-help organisations that work towards a future in which we can be permanently free, safe and prosperous!

Co-operation with opposition groups

A case can be made out that Afrikaners should, by definition, not set themselves up in a block against the ANC but should rather to try to reach political settlements with government on burning issues. However, cooperation with opposition groups is also important even though there might not always be common views.

Our view is indeed that better government is not feasible in the short term and that a better dispensation, and not just a better government, is needed to overcome problems. We would welcome new rule but we are not convinced that it would solve all the country’s problems – our country’s challenges go much deeper than politics.

The following common interests can serve as a basis for cooperation with opposition groups:

1.1 There are common nationalist-socialist opponents such as the ANC and the EFF;

1.2 It is in our joint interest to work together to prevent too much power ending up in too few hands;

1.3 Protection of the rule of law;

1.4 Help prevent that the pursuit of equality undermines freedom;

1.5 Organised cultural groups that promote their rights and interests form an integral part of the checks and balances needed to prevent a tyranny of the majority;

1.6 As parties standing for freedom, liberal parties should offer space for the freedom of cultural groups. Political parties may not, for political reasons, be silent on issues that affect the fundamental interests (racial discrimination) of their coloured and white voters;

1.7 It is an alternative to the ANC’s state ideology of (totalitarian) transformation;

1.8 Increasing state control undermines the freedom of society as a whole and poses a threat to solutions for poverty and unemployment;

1.9 The battle of ideas for an open and free society must be won;

1.10 Race-based policies contribute towards the decay of the state and are driving skilled minorities out of the country.

However, our Movement is not interested in entering party politics because we “weigh more than we count” and because, on a balance of numbers, we would not make a difference of any real significance in Parliament. We believe we can accomplish much more outside party politics, and [by entering party politics] we would simply introduce unnecessary division in the ranks of our movement without achieving any benefit.

National community network

The Solidarity Movement realises that we cannot achieve everything on our own. Hence, we are keen to forge partnerships with other organisations that represent Afrikaners with the aim to establish a national community network. This network, with structures from local level to national level, should coordinate the implementation of plans and should achieve greater unity.

For this reason we would be keen to involve successful organisations with significant support or interest that, broadly speaking, share our views, Christian-democratic values and our views on cultural autonomy. We would be pleased to establish the details of such involvement in conjunction with interested partners.

Helpmekaar framework plan for community self-reliance

I therefore have the privilege to give you a cursory outline of our 2020 Helpmekaar Plan. The Heads of the Movement’s various member organisations will then provide you with more details.

Our plan for 2020 rests on the following 22 pillars:

The establishment of a national Afrikaner community network;

Plans for maximum autonomy within the framework of the Constitution;

Making use of all possible constitutional spaces and opportunities;

Promoting Afrikaans as a fully functional language;

Plans for functional towns and cities, for their services and for the environment;

Plans for decent work and equal opportunities for employees;

The improvement of community safety in all towns and cities;

The promotion of a normal, balanced history;

Expanding Afrikaans media;

Healthy race relations, mutual recognition and respect, as well as building partnerships;

Engaging with the authorities with the aim to reach agreements on burning issues;

Supporting Afrikaans children and schools;

Expanding Sol-Tech as the only Afrikaans technical training college in the country;

Developing Akademia into a fully-fledged, world class Afrikaans university;

Protecting our monuments and heritage in collaboration with partners;

Establishing a countrywide social network for children and vulnerable people;

Protecting the rule of law;

Promoting the market economy and property rights;

Fighting corruption and promoting clean administration;

International liaison with the diaspora and international partners;

The mobilisation of capital in support of these objectives; and

The promotion of Christian values and family.

Financing of the Helpmekaar Plan

The challenge is that many wealthy Afrikaners haven’t realised how much the country has changed, and they accept nonchalantly that the new generation would cope by themselves. And thus, the new generation and the less privileged are left to their own devices instead of helping them to help themselves, for the best helping hand still is the one at the end of your arm.

The result is that essential institutions, such as the Solidarity Helping Hand, don’t even receive the crumbs coming from the prosperity boom many Afrikaners have experienced in recent years. Help is in particular necessary to ensure that vulnerable people, such as children, the elderly and people with disabilities are cared for and to empower the new generation through proper education and training to be self-reliant. The challenge is that this prosperity was founded on historical investments in this community but that this momentum is now waning, except in the case of a small elite group. For this reason, we have to invest in the new generation.

It is true that our main challenge is to deliver “public services” without receiving tax revenue, and without letting people pay twice for a service. The Movement consists mostly of non-profit organisations and its financial resources are not inexhaustible. Therefore, it is our strategy to “generate big money with small change” through the regular “Helpmekaar” contributions of thousands of ordinary people.

This is how we have succeeded thus far to invest R50 million in Sol-Tech with the ten rand contributions of trade union members as the largest single amount. The same goes for Akademia, although we are privileged to grow much faster than would otherwise have been possible thanks to larger donations from a few benefactors.

The R3,5 billion the Solidarity Movement is going to mobilise over the next five years is made up in the first place by funds generated by the institutions together with their members and supporters. AfriForum, trade union Solidarity and the Solidarity Helping Hand will receive R1,8 billion in membership fees (and donations) by means of which those institutions have to fulfil their core duties.

Over and above this membership fee, members and supporters of the trade union and Helping Hand will contribute a further amount of R276 million in five years towards initiatives such as the Building Fund, Legal Fund, Study Trust and special donations to Helping Hand. In addition, the Movement also generates revenue by mobilising Afrikaans buying power, and obviously also from payments for services rendered such as the study costs of students.

Projects such as the development of educational facilities for Akademia and Sol-Tech and other property expansion projects, as well as Helping Hand’s special projects, such as the School Bag Project and the Lunchbox Project, will amount to R333 million. Businesses within the Solidarity Investment Company that are not training related, such as Properties and our Financial Services Company, are expected to contribute around R168 million of the total amount.

Training involves the total turnover of Sol-Tech, Akademia, Virseker and the Study Fund.

Contributions from our partners are obviously not included in this .

Plan for constitutional self-reliance

Staatsafhanklikheid of -onafhanklikheid is nie nou prakties haalbaar nie. Therefore, our proposal involves a third possibility, that is to say a middle way, namely Afrikaner autonomy – which is not a shortcut either.

Obviously, there will be criticism about this plan’s feasibility but this should well be offset against the feasibility and sustainability of the current dispensation. Unfortunately there are no plans left that are easier and more perfect.

Conditions in the country leave us with three choices:

Accept and abide by how we are governed and hope for a political miracle;

Leave the country for greener and more equal pastures;

Organise in strong self-help organisations and create a sustainable future for yourself.

Many people ask me what our future looks like, and my answer is then that our future will look the way we can create it.

In reaction to poor government many people have already started to “govern” themselves, even though they don’t regard it as or call it a self-reliant strategy. They prefer to live in a province or in towns where they can govern themselves through the ruling majority party there. They watch private TV channels. They have private medical aid. They live in private villages. They use the services of private security companies. They work in the private sector. Their children go to private schools and they have generators, so even the decision about electricity is theirs. However, this strategy for independence based on the individual is very costly and not everyone can have it. Our planning, therefore, is based on community self-reliance instead of on personal independence.

Our strategy is to use the existing constitutional spaces for self-reliance and to promote growing self-reliance through strong self-help organisations in every essential area. That is, in a sentence, what our Helpmekaar Movement’s plan is all about.

We know solutions don’t fall from the sky, but must be built from the bottom upwards. This doesn’t mean that we are setting ourselves up against government but that we are countering the centralist étatisation (state control) of society by protecting the spaces for the self-determination of communities.

In short, it is about a plan for self-reliance in exchange for or to mitigate poor government decision-making by means of growing own decision-making. The level of self-reliance in a specific walk of life is determined by the will and ability, together with the achievements of the institutions that are active in that area, as well as by external factors such as demographic, economic and political realities.

The Constitution makes provision for individual rights, collective rights or community rights (sections 6, 28, 30, 31, 185), and even for the pursuit of territorial rights in section 235. As is the case with other communities in Scotland, Quebec, Belgium, Spain, and in many countries in Africa, each of those three groups of rights or combinations of those rights enjoy support among Afrikaners. This is normal, democratic and constitutional and there is nothing wrong with pursuing any of those options in a lawful and democratic manner.

Of course, there are intense differences about the feasibility of each of those three views, and there are indeed major practical obstacles for each one of them to overcome. Such is the case that advocates of individual rights have realised that it is often not enough to protect their interests as, in practice, the individual rights of the majority outweigh theirs.

Similarly, proponents of collective rights, such as Afrikaans schools or having Afrikaans as a language of instruction at university, discovered that political power doesn’t always heed constitutional authority.

Likewise, the proponents of territorial rights such as self-determination have discovered that demographic, political and economic realities often outweigh historical ideals and international rights.

However, the practical problems associated with those three categories of rights don’t entitle anyone to deny the constitutional right of any of these groups to pursue such rights. It would be undemocratic; even unconstitutional.

I recently read Orania’s Frans de Klerk’s book, Orania, van dorp tot stad, and reached the conclusion that even though such a place will still have to overcome many practical problems, it offers a much more feasible and justifiable plan than the volkstaat plans of the past did. Orania may strive to become a city and proponents of territorial rights would make more progress with the development of a city than to still harbour the wish that government would give them a “Scotland” – which doesn’t exist for Afrikaners in South Africa.

For this reason, we must continue to fight for our constitutional rights and space; else we may as well send our Constitution to the archives.

But even if the furious flame

with its raging sparks envelop my trunk;

Even if ill winds come

to blow my ashes off the earth;

Even if the beast comes to feast his appetite

Even if cut or severed

Even if burnt by the sun above, trying

to rob me of my last sap

Even so, I shall survive the worst drought

with my greening crown

and my roots enduring drought and fire

Yes, I shall rise from the ashes.

Let man and beast, drought and fire

with all the evil they can devise

come to cut and burn and trample

I live and shall live; perish I will not!

(Free translation of a poem by the Afrikaans poet Totius, quoted to conclude the speech.)

This is a translation of a speech first delivered in Afrikaans.