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In an article, Max Du Preez claimed that the ANC, and by extension Africans can "learn something" from "the way the Afrikaner nationalists approached the upliftment and economic advancement of their own people." Here's what he says and why he's completely wrong
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Du Preez recounts how desolate & impoverished Afrikaners were after their war with the British ended in 1902. He writes how "the scorched-earth policies of the British Empire forced large numbers of Afrikaners to the cities where they were completely out of their depth."
He points out how "they were badly educated and had few skills apart from being good farmers". He then speeds ahead to 1918 where he says The Afrikaner Broederbond was founded "with noble ideas"
He says the Broederbond, "together with the National Party (NP) and other Afrikaner institutions", did a "remarkable job". The other "institutions" he refers to include Nasionale Pers, KWV, Volkskas Bank, Santam and Sanlam
More crucially, Du Preez points out how "agricultural co-operatives were formed all over the country to assist farmers."
He follows up by saying Sanlam and the BB had organised an "Economic People’s Congress in 1938 where volkskapitalisme was born": a concept that determined that free enterprise was more than a way to enrich individuals, it had to help Afrikaners escape "economic servitude"
From what Du Preez says, it's hard not to be impressed by how Afrikaners carried themselves and conducted their affairs. However, there are some glaring omissions from this narrative: what happened in 1910 and 1913 that enabled them to do what they did
Du Preez conveniently skips the part abut how in 1910 the Union of South Africa was formed, where Afrikaners, by virtue of being European, benefited when the "South Africa Act" was passed in Britain "granting dominion" to the white minority over all Black people
What this meant was Africans were overtly & structurally excluded from all aspects of political, economic & social life of the "Union". What Black people were good for was a rich, cheap source of manual labour - millions of bodies. That's where Afrikaners struck gold
For decades, this cheap source of African labour earned as much as 30% of South Africa’s foreign exchange income. Whether in the mines, the railways or factories, cheap Black labour, along with discriminatory job reservation policies helped Afrikaners fulfill their potential
Another thing Du Preez conveniently leaves out is the Natives Land Act of 1913. In short, virtually all productive land was to be held by Europeans. All those Afrikaners who could farm could now have access to 10s of thousands of hectares of arable land to ply their trade
Yes, Afrikaners employed ingenuity to uplift themselves, but take away the cheap labour, the land and white privilege then they'd be as poor as Africans are today. No amount of spinning and shaming us can take away from this simple fact
Africans can today attempt to emulate the Afrikaner model, but without land to build firms, collect rent & grow food, without enough income - we'll be as poor in the next 50 years as we were a hundred years ago. The peanuts we earn will not achieve anything, even if we tried.
