Speech by Dr. Pieter Mulder, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and FF Plus Leader, to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Annual Conference, October 11 2012

WHAT DOES UNITY IN DIVERSITY MEAN?

1. Introduction

"Do you speak South African?" an American journalist recently asked me during an interview. He arrived in South Africa that morning and clearly did not do his homework on the country.

When I explained that Afrikaans is my first language and that my ancestors had arrived here in 1680, long before the majority of Americans had arrived in the USA, his next question was: "The French speak French, the Germans speak German and the Spaniards surely speak Spanish; how many people in South Africa then speak South African?"

During the negotiations in 1995, the Constitutional Assembly placed an advertisement that reads as follows: "South Africa: 20 million women;

18 million men; 8 religions; 25 church groups; 31 cultural groups; 14 languages; 9 racial groups; 1 country."

South Africa is one of the most diverse societies in the world. Where does one start to explain this to a ‘know-it-all' American journalist?

What complicates the South African situation is that in the post-cold war era community conflicts have emerged as the single most serious threat to peace in the world. Of the 27 notable conflicts that afflicted the world in the recent past, 25 were between communities within countries - and not between countries. Most of these conflicts, in turn, had their roots in the inability of ethnic, cultural or religious communities to coexist peacefully. Tensions between communities within the same societies most often arise when such communities believe that their core interests are being threatened or that their basic rights are being ignored. Such tensions are aggravated when the communities in question are also minorities, and are, or feel, powerless to secure what they perceive to be their reasonable interests through democratic means.

2. General Problems

2.1 Minorities and majorities

Minorities and majorities across the globe clash over issues such as language rights, religious freedom, education curricula, land claims, regional autonomy and national symbols. The politics of language - involving decisions on which languages to use in political, judicial and educational institutions - is in many states at the heart of conflict between minority groups and the majority populations. There are many examples of the highly combustible quality of such conflicts.

Consequently, one of the greatest challenges facing democracies today is to resolve conflicts between minorities and majorities in plural societies.

2.2 Democracy

The American political scientist Timothy Sisk argues that simple majoritarian democracy creates special problems in diverse societies.

Members of national minorities expect that the ballot box will exclude them permanently from political power. In such societies electoral competition is after all often ‘a contest for ownership of the state'.

Minorities then tend to equate democracy with the ‘structured dominance of majority groups', rather than with freedom of participation. Consider the cases of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland. Under simple majority rule the Protestants of Northern Ireland would govern permanently, as would the German-speakers in Switzerland. Where minority groups believe that they lack the means to secure their survival as a group, alienation and instability could be the inevitable consequences.

3. Specific South African problems - Nation Building and unity in diversity

Nation Building, the National Agenda and Unity in Diversity are words being used in almost every political speech. What puzzles me is that very little is said, or allowed to be said, on what exactly is understood when using these words. It is politically very incorrect to question the meaning of any of these words or to try and argue about them.

Is there only one recipe for nation building? Do we have the right recipe for nation building in South Africa? Is nation building just stumbling from one international sports event to the next? Why did nation building fail in several African states with comparable language and ethnic set-ups? What happened in these states when nation building failed? Is it possible to avoid conflict when nation building fails?  Is successful nation building possible without the consent of all the parties involved? Is nation building only between individuals or do groups play a dominant role? If some are winners and other losers, is that successful nation building? The best recipe must be a situation where everyone feels a winner with no losers.

I only have time to discuss five problems - five red lights from the Freedom Front Plus' perspective:

3.1 Nation building recipes in Africa

Whereas the ideal of nationhood has often in Europe and the rest of the world been premised on shared cultural values, languages or religions, African nationalism has most often been formulated in terms of its resistance to colonialism. (Chipken in his book: Do South Africans Exist?) The problem is that if a national identity were to be premised on resistance to colonialism then those considered to be former colonial oppressors would not belong to a new national identity. In most colonial countries in Africa, the colonisers went back to Europe after independence but in South Africa we have a different situation. Afrikaners and other "whites" have no other home to return to, and must be incorporated in the nation building or social cohesion recipe. Therefore the same recipe cannot work here.

The Malema- type of rhetoric is mostly based on this African resistance theory and therefore divides and polarise the South African society.

3.2. Assimilation as a failed solution

The simple solution which the majority usually proposes is that minorities must become part of the majority. "We obtain unity through assimilation," they allege. In practice this means that the majority swallow up the minority. The British and French colonial histories are filled with examples where this method had been proposed as a solution and failed.

During the Anglo-Boer War the Education Minister of the British occupation authority, Sargent, wrote to Lord Milner: "We must appeal to England and ask the sisters and daughters of those who have been fighting for the English Empire to come out and complete that part of the work which their male relatives are unable to accomplish. Our military police had gathered the greater part of the (Afrikaner) child population into these camps and... I feel that the opportunity during the next year of getting them all to speak English (and become

Englishmen) is golden".

Alexis de Tocqueville, more than 150 years ago, correctly summarised the dilemma of minorities: "It is expected of minorities that they become part of the majority --- but they can only do this if they let go of those things which are truly important to them (such as language and culture) and which create the difference or conflict between them and the majority."

Genl. Hertzog, one of the Boer generals during the Anglo Boer War writes: "The only Afrikaner with whom the English speakers can cooperate, is the one who connivingly gives up all his rights in order not to wound the British's ‘over-sensitivity' and so-doing become acceptable!"

3.3 Nation building and Language in SA

Does Unity in diversity mean that we must move to only one language for South Africa? Several ANC members and the Democratic Party proposed this during the constitutional negotiations. Instead of eleven languages, they proposed English as the only official language.

Dr. Neville Alexander, former Robben Island-prisoner and PAC activist reacted to this as follows:  "An English-only, or even an English-mainly, policy necessarily condemns most people, and thus the country as a whole, to a permanent state of mediocrity, since people are unable to be spontaneous, creative and self-confident if they cannot use their first language." English is at present the first language of only 8% (3 673 203 people - 2001 census) of the South African population.

In South Africa, Afrikaans speaking people are experiencing pressure on their language and similarly there is pressure on the future existence of all the other African languages in South Africa. Despite section 6(4) of the Constitution which determines that there should be legislation which protects and regulates the position of all languages in South Africa, the government had in the 18 years since 1994 not viewed it as a priority or accepted such legislation. Only after a court case compelled the government, attention was given to this issue this year.

But the whole of Africa is struggling with the language problem. At African conferences which I attend, they talk about the bad colonial period. They talk about liberation from imperial powers. But they do it in a colonial language. This block is the Francophone countries, there the Anglophone countries sit and nobody speaks an African language.

At the establishment of the new African Union in 2002, it was decided that languages such as Swahili, Hausa and others should also come to their right in future.

Two years later (2004) at the meeting in Addis Ababa, the outgoing president of the AU, President Chisano from Mozambique spoke Swahili to make the point. Everybody grabbed their earphones to understand him. Unfortunately Africa, to the detriment of its citizens, is still not ready to function in languages other than the colonial ones.

The European Parliament has 23 official and working languages. If Europe was to follow the African Union pattern, Latin as the original language of the old Roman Empire, would have been the language of the EU.

3.4. Name changing

The title of the film Invictus means "Unconquered" in Latin.  It is based on the poem by William Henley, which inspired Nelson Mandela in jail. According to the poem one can do anything to me, but you cannot change my thoughts with legislation, government decisions or even with violence.

A recent advertisement stated that although Mandela had to look at the walls of a jail cell for 27 years, it never changed his vision.

It appears however that the current ANC did not learn a lesson from this. There is no way in which one can force nation building or unity on people. If it is not a willing process, it will not succeed. One example:

Louis Botha was one of the heroes of the Anglo-Boer War, in his attempts to prevent British Imperialism in South Africa. He had absolutely nothing to do with Apartheid. Every time I drive by the street name changes in Pretoria and see how a red line had been drawn through Louis Botha's name, I am once again angered about what I am experiencing as the vilifying of my heroes and history.

A government can force people to pay taxes. A government can force people to abide by the laws but a government cannot force people to change their thoughts and involuntarily be positive and contribute toward nation building.

Almost a 1000 place names have already been changed in South Africa.

To the majority of these name changes the Freedom Front Plus did not raise any objections. We agree that all groups' names and history should be given recognition in South Africa.

In Parliament we proposed that names that offend, and we can give examples, must be changed.

With the establishment of the Northern Province, the FF Plus suggested that the province's name should be changed to Limpopo. Initially our suggestion was not accepted but after a few years the province's name was indeed changed to that of Limpopo.

In July this year we all attended a conference in Soweto hosted by the Minister of Arts and Culture, on how to better relations between groups in South Africa and on social cohesion. The ad hoc way, without any real guidelines, in which then this town and then that town's name is changed, also Pretoria at the moment, results in clashes and aggression between communities. If we continue like this, we shall be fighting for the next twenty years from town to town on these issues.

This is exactly the opposite of what we tried to achieve at the Social Cohesion Conference in July. It is our opinion that specific guidelines must first be developed to give guidance to local authorities and communities on how to look for solutions which will accommodate everyone.

Some of these guidelines should be:

a. Change names where there is consensus that it gives offence; b. Cut-off dates for changing names and a restriction on changing of names given prior to a certain date; c. Use the international examples of double names where necessary (KwaZulu Natal); d. Extra sensitivity and consultations with communities and groups that will be affected by changing cultural or historical sensitive names, etc.

There is a very big difference between changing the name Pampoenfontein and changing Pretoria; between changing Flower Street and changing Louis Botha Street. Names such as Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Lydenburg and Pietersburg heavily bear the history of the Afrikaner and are emotive. Most Afrikaners see the changing of these names as a calculated slap in the face of the Afrikaner and his history. Specifically because British Colonial names such as Durban, King Williams' Town, Queenstown and Kimberley, and all the British street names in Pretoria have remained unchanged.

The present compromise, that was supported by the Freedom Front Plus, of naming the Metro, Tshwane and the capital of South Africa, Pretoria, is a good solution for this problem. This was also the peaceful compromise that was reached in the other historical important town for Afrikaners namely Potchefstroom. There both Tlokwe and Potchefstroom is used in this way.

Without clear guidelines and sensitivity for all communities' names and emotions in South Africa, this issue has the potential to ruin all attempts of social cohesion and unity in diversity.

3.5 Different identities must be possible

In an article in the Economist (23/9/96) they address this issue as follow: "The trick in a successful society is for minority citizens to be able to feel that they are more than one thing at once: to be able to feel American and black, Scottish and British, an Orthodox Christian and a Bosnian, a Muslim and an Indian"

In a Sunday Times article (16/4/2006 p. 18) Dr. Buthelezi wrote: "Our ethnicity was not invented by apartheid, only used by it. I did not create Zuluness. Zuluness created me and will last long after I am gone...

"Like me, Zuma has never had difficulties in recognising himself as entirely Zulu, entirely South African and a citizen of the world.

These are different levels of expression, not contradictions...

"South Africa is my country and I wish my ethnicity to be recognised in it. For this reason I will continue to promote the recognition of our Zulu kingdom within a united South Africa. South Africa must be a nation of nations not a melting pot."

The same goes for South Africa. South Africa is not an either/or country, either a South African or an Afrikaner or a Christian. It is a and-and country. A South African and an Afrikaner, and a Christian.

For peace and harmony, it must be possible to be both. If we do not succeed to get this balance, there will be perpetual problems.

Prof. Karel Doehring from the Max Plank Institute in Germany summarised their research on this when he said during a visit to South

Africa: "It is clear to us that the nations, peoples and communities of Europe do not mind to become part of the larger European fruit salad as long as everyone is allowed to maintain his own identity by remaining either a banana or an orange within that fruit salad."

4. POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

4.1 Political Models

One of the definitions of politics is that it has to do with the management of differences. The most popular democratic model currently in the world today, is that of the liberal democracy. It is easily wrapped-up by the West and exported to Iraq and to every other African state, as the only democratic model available.

In a simplistic liberal democratic model, like the one offered to Africa by the West, 51% of the population force their will onto the other 49% of the same population. In a homogenous state, where governments replace one another regularly, this may be tolerated. In the typically heterogeneous states found in Africa, with artificial colonial boundaries, this is a recipe for disaster.

The history of Africa proves this. The opposition, which usually has specific ethnic loyalties, does not experience this model as democracy, but rather as permanent oppression and domination. This leads to resistance and subversion.

The simplistic model against which African states are measured, are not used in many Western states. Switzerland, Belgium and Spain have already refined and adapted their political models. This indicates that other more advanced models are replacing the simplistic liberal democracy. The Ethiopian Constitution that came into effect in 1995 established a federation made up of nine ethno-linguistically divided regional states and two chartered federal cities.

Participatory democracy or radical democracy follows on liberal democracy. This allows for the acknowledgement and empowerment, not only of individuals, but also of communities. The true culture of democracy surely lies within the spirit of participation.

Where the basis of individual rights is enclosed in human dignity, the basis for community rights is found in the acknowledgement of this reality. I believe that the future of democracy, in South Africa, and in Africa, lies in the politics of recognition -- recognition of these community rights.

4.2 Afrikaners and South Africa

But -- As an Afrikaner leader I want to send a message to Afrikaners as well.

4.2.1 "A COLLAPSE IS GOOD"

I would like to speak to those Afrikaners who predict and hope that South Africa will collapse as soon as possible. The basis of their thinking is that they shall be better off then.

Things do not work like that. Nowhere in Africa were the old regimes re-instated when everything disintegrated. What really happens then is that the inflation rate leaps to 300%, which leads to the economic destruction of the middle class and a take-over by a populist leader or a military strong man as dictator. In such a country a long drawn out civil war normally follows. This is a negative approach, wishful thinking and brings no solution.

4.2.2 "EVERYTHING IS WRONG"

You also find Afrikaners who enjoy it when everything goes wrong in South Africa. Their personal frustrations with the new South Africa play a role in this. Of course they have reason for frustrations. Come and join me for one week in Parliament if you want to talk about frustrations! The fact however is that if the South African ship sinks, we all sink together.

There is no way in which a forest can burn and you as a thorn tree remain unscathed, while all the oak trees are destroyed. This is also true for South Africa. By all means, stand on your rights and fight for that which you believe in, but remain responsible and balanced. This is the approach that I follow as deputy minister but at the same time remain a leader of an opposition party.

4.2.3 TO INSIST ON YOUR OWN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACISM

The ideals and future of the Afrikaner can never be built upon a racist approach. It can also not be built by acting like bullies towards other people. Afrikaners must not position themselves as the prickly pear in the South African orchard in the way they fight for their own cause - a prickly pear in the sense that everyone having anything to do with the Afrikaner are burnt or hurt.

To be yourself and to insist on your own language, cultural and self-determination rights have nothing to do with racism. It merely acknowledges the realities of ethno-cultural diversity in South Africa.

5. CONCLUSION

I want to be myself in Africa. Is that too much to ask? If there is place in the North of Africa for Arabs, with their religion and "different" culture? Then there should also be a place for me in the South even though black intolerants call me a Euro-African.

Interesting how white and black racists are the same.

Most people in South Africa and Africa are yearning for peace and harmony.  To achieve this goal requires a solution between the minorities and the majority.

Such a solution must create a win-win situation for all. With statesmanship, leadership and the political will on both sides, win-win solutions can be obtained - resulting in hope, harmony and prosperity for all in South Africa. This is in line with international trends and is realistic.

In this way, political opponents can both be winners. With extremism and polarisation, we will repeat the mistakes of Zimbabwe and some other African countries and will be fighting each other for the next twenty years in win-lose political battles. How stupid. With wisdom, win-win solutions in South Africa are possible. Remember: Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.

Issued by the FF Plus, October 11 2012

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