“If reconciliation in South Africa means that the various races and cultural groups must sacrifice and have what is theirs be destroyed, it is not true reconciliation, but rather forced assimilation and cultural extinction. South Africa is a multicultural country that has eleven official languages and that should be acknowledged, respected and honoured,” says Dr Pieter Groenewald, leader of the FF Plus.
Dr Groenewald delivered a speech at the Day of the Covenant festival at the Dewetsdrift festival grounds in the Vredefort Dome near Parys in the Free State.
“The Day of Reconciliation and the annual commemoration of the 1838 covenant are not in conflict. It’s a mistake to try and force Afrikaners to choose between the two. The majority of the people in South Africa just want a safe future for their children. Afrikaners have a constitutional right to commemorate and express their culture and heritage.
“Most Afrikaners view 16 December as the Day of the Covenant and they commemorate the covenant that was made in 1838. They have the right to be themselves, to be proud of being Afrikaners. In a country with so many languages and cultures, it is necessary for everyone to be proud of who and what they are. If that right is recognized, then reconciliation in South Africa will come about automatically,” said Dr Groenewald.
Dr Groenewald thanked the youth for taking the initiative to arrange the event to commemorate the Day of the Covenant.
“If the Afrikaner youth can withstand the present attack whereby the Afrikaner history is represented in a biased and negative manner for the sake of populism, then there is hope for the Afrikaners’ future.”
He specifically referred to campaigns aimed at representing Afrikaners as criminals in their own country by blaming them for everything that goes wrong and saying that they stole the land.
“For centuries Afrikaners played a significant role in building up South Africa to the benefit of all South Africans. Afrikaners may and should be proud of the contribution they made, they don’t have to apologise for it,” he said.
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