Afrikaans and the SABC: Was own editorial policy followed?

The Afrikanerbond took note of the unexplained and ill-considered decision by the SABC to move the Afrikaans news bulletin and other popular SABC2 Afrikaans programmes to SABC3, a much smaller channel.

The question arises as to who at the SABC (our public broadcaster) can unilaterally change language policy and enforce decisions such as these which are in all probability influenced by politics. The Broadcasting Act of 1999 (as amended) requires the SABC to develop:

i. News editorial policy

ii. Programming policy

iii. Local Content policy

iv. Educational policy

v. Universal service and access policy

vi. Language policy and

vii. Religious policy

The SABC chose to include all of the above in their current Editorial Policies which can be found on the SABC's website:

According to the above mentioned editorial policy, "when determining allocation of time to each language, the SABC has due regard to:

The number of home language speakers in the coverage area of a channel

The geographical spread of the language

The extent to which members of a language community are able to understand other languages

The extent of marginalisation of the language

The extent to which it is understood by other South Africans

Available resources."

It would be interesting to know whether SABC executives adhered to their own editorial policy which includes a policy language, in this short-sighted decision to downgrade Afrikaans to a much smaller channel. If so, then executives would have realised that Afrikaans is indeed not merely a regional language but is in fact a growing language in its own right.

The 2011 Census estimated the South African population at approximately 51.77 million, of which approximately 6,811,000 speak Afrikaans. Afrikaans speakers are therefore slightly below 14% of the population. The census also indicated that Afrikaans-speaking people are spread over the following ethnic groups: Coloured 51% (3.44 million), White 40% (2 710 000), Black 9% (602 000) and Asians, fewer than 1% (59,000) (Prof. Louis du Plessis in Beeld, 23 April 2014).In addition, the following should be noted:

Afrikaans is the third most spoken language in the country, apart from isiZulu and isiXhosa;

Compared to the previous census there are now 870,000 more people who speak Afrikaans; and lastly

Afrikaans is one of the three most widely used languages in six of the nine provinces, according to the ATKV.

Considering this information, it is clear that the SABC's executives did not come to a decision based on obvious facts, but that they rather based their decision on sheer short-sightedness and possible political influence. It is unfortunate that taxpayers are footing the bill at present, and will be doing so for a foreseeable time in future, to pay for the mechanistic implementation of an obsolete ideology held by the public broadcaster. As long as cadres are deployed at the broadcaster as councillors and executives to adhere to "ideological transformation" the broadcaster will face serious management problems and financial difficulties. Afrikaans and all other indigenous languages will inevitably be the victims.

Statement issued by Jan Bosman, Chief Secretary of the Afrikanerbond, July 15 2014

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