Johannesburg - Afrikaner political party Front Nasionaal set itself on a collision course with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) by burning an EFF T-shirt and a poster showing the face of leader Julius Malema.
The party led a march to the Union Buildings from the Pretoria Art Museum on Friday to hand over a memorandum, addressed to President Jacob Zuma, signalling its intention to have areas for Afrikaners to live out their heritage and exercise their right to self-determination as per the constitution.
The relatively small group, led by Marius Coertze, Front Nasionaal’s legal representative, set the red EFF T-shirt, as well as a poster with Malema’s face on it, alight.
Soon afterwards the crowd began singing Die Stem, South Africa’s old national anthem, before marching to the Union Buildings.
Francois Cloete, the party’s treasurer, said Malema had been targeted because he targeted Afrikaners in his speeches. “He calls us ‘white settlers’ and we are saying he is a black settler in southern Africa. The burning of the EFF T-shirt is us setting fire to those beliefs that we are outsiders in our own country,” Cloete said.
He said Malema should consider the burning of the EFF shirt as a legitimate invitation to enter into dialogue with them. Other organisations included in the march were the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), the Boer Afrikaner Volksraad (BAV), the Herstigte Nasionale Party and Verkenners.
A manifesto was read out at the Union Buildings by Coertze and stated that although every adult citizen could vote it didn’t necessarily imply that South Africa was a democratic state.
“It is common cause that the vast majority of legislators who form the legislative bodies enacting laws for this country are composed of people very different from ourselves,” Coertze said.
He said they spoke different languages, had different sets of cultural ethics, norms and values, different religious belief systems, different legal traditions and systems and different military traditions, among other things.
“Not surprisingly, in view of all these differences, many laws of this country run contrary to our norms, values and beliefs and continuously jeopardise our interests,” the memorandum stated.
“We refuse to accept the aforesaid oppression simply due to our numbers. We refuse to be a ‘minority’ under conditions of tyranny by the majority.
“We demand self-determination in a territory (or territories) governed by ourselves, and we demand initiation – without further undue delay – of a process of legislation… to this end.”
Before the march, Abel Malan, chairman of the BAV, had a speech prepared and read out by Paul Kruger, the BAV legal representative.
Malan said the government could not form a special unit to protect the lives of Boer farmers as it did for the protection of the rhinos.
“FW de Klerk and his spineless mob of humanistic Afrikaners surrendered to your (ANC) terrorist war against civilians by signing away the whole country via a one-man, one-vote election.”
“However… Mr Zuma you must take note – should you continue to trample upon our legal right to self-determination, you will leave us with no other choice than to fight you until the bitter end,” Malan said.
Saturday Star
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.