Afrikaners need to help build new communities

11 Aug 2008
Johann Rossouw

Thabo Mbeki in an infamous speech in 1999 wiped Nelson Mandela's "rainbow nation" off the table when he bitterly and somewhat simplistically claimed SA to be "two nations", one rich and white, the other poor and black. These days, claims that "the whites must go" are heard more and more.

In a radio debate on the BBC World Service in October last year, when I criticised the government, a black civil society activist told me in front of a global audience to "go back to Europe if you don't like it here"...

... the Zimbabwe crisis and the hatred unleashed there against black as well as white opponents of Mugabe does not install confidence in South Africans uncertain about their country's future.

The current piece of proposed legislation that would give the SA government to disown any property if it is in "the public interest" certainly feeds into fears brought about by Zimbabwe.

And so, at last, it seems that even for those Afrikaners that were prepared to sacrifice for a new South Africa, the betrayal of this dream by the current political elite has become a bridge too far. And a new Great Trek has started.

Looks like 'sorry' doesn't work over there.