The language of the people

 

Apartheid had a place because there was a need to oppose a system of discrimination and oppression. If we look back further to when our ancestors came here as slaves and political prisoners, there was the mentality of opposition. Having been brought here by the Dutch, Afrikaans became a language as our forefathers defied the colonialist oppressive Dutch.

As time passed and we reached the mid twentieth century, there was this inclination to adopt the English language, the language of the other coloniser. This happened for a few reasons, one of which is that the ruling class adopted Afrikaans as their language. Secondly, English was seen as the universal language and the queen's language. Forgotten was the fact that Afrikaans was the language of defiance. In fact, those who now are known as Afrikaners understood that having your own language was an important cultural element. Few speak Afrikaans today, especially the younger generation. With that we gave up part of our identity of which part was that of resistance to oppression and injustice. While you can cite many other reasons for our decline and virtual disintegration as a cultural group, language certainly had its role to play. Today, we have integrated into a society to the extent that many of our principles have fallen by the wayside as we adopted concepts foreign even to our beliefs.

Shall I call upon my people to return to their roots and rather be slaves physically chained, than chained to ideologies and cultures that mean us only harm.

 

Ons sal mos lankal opgestaan it tien die goewerment met alles wat aangaan soes crime en die hoë cost of living. Ja, ons mieks somma oek die tale want os is vannie kaap.

 

 

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