The South African Government of National Unity (GNU) should not implement the Basic Education Laws Amendment (Bela) Bill and in particular the sections that relate to language, because it risks provoking conflict.
It should rather implement the 2002 findings of the Gerwel Commission that was constituted when Kader Asmal was minister of education, under former president Thabo Mbeki’s government. The recommendations could easily be updated for today’s practical reality.
If the national coalition government successfully manages the language issue, we could potentially create a situation similar to Switzerland, where our children are fluent in at least three or more languages.
However, if the current conflict escalates to the point where the DA withdraws from the coalition government, due to pressure from Afrikaner organisations such as AfriForum, then South Africa risks losing the opportunity to build a multilingual society for another generation. It would be a tragic setback for nation-building and shaping our national identity.
I am in a position to offer an informed opinion on the proposed amendments, because during my time on the University of Pretoria’s Student Representative Council, I held the portfolio for multilingualism and culture.
The position was rather symbolic at the time, because Afrikaans students always felt emotional about the university making commitments to Afrikaans. In that role, I spent hours studying the history of this complex issue, seeking to understand why language is such an emotional topic. As a polyglot fluent in several languages and conversant in a few others, I have a first-hand appreciation for the importance of linguistic diversity.
Today the University of Pretoria is a de facto English-only university, simply because of demographic pressure and a lack of university leadership to promote multilingualism. The failure to compromise on Afrikaans did not come from the ANC, but rather from the Afrikaans vice-councillor’s refusal to accept Mbeki’s offer, as will be explained below.
But first, any discourse about language policy in education has to take into account the following empirical observations.
– Once a student population becomes 20% or more English speaking, then the university hits critical mass, whether Afrikaans was taught in parallel medium (as at Stellenbosch) or in dual medium (as at UP and UJ). The relationship has also been observed at Afrikaans schools.
– University professors and teachers often prefer teaching in English, whereas the students and their parents often have different expectations, resulting in institutional inertia when the government intervenes with the language policy.
These phenomena were widely observed at multilingual universities elsewhere in places such as Quebec where both English and French is taught or in Alsace, where classes are taught in both German and French.
– Language plays as crucial a role in shaping South African national identity as racial discourse does. If a government seeks to impose a de facto ban on Afrikaans schools, it is likely to provoke internal divisions. We are not unique in this; for example, Ukraine’s ban on Russian and Hungarian was one of the pretexts for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and it is also a contributing reason why Viktor Orbán is not co-operating with the EU.
South Africa is a post-colonial society that consists of hybrid identities and a plurality of languages and any government that doesn’t consider this is going to invoke internal conflict.
The issue of language has always been contentious in South Africa and it shifted depending on who was in power. For example, during the Soweto Riots, Afrikaans was imposed onto black students, resulting in the 1976 student protests that notably saw the apartheid regime kill school students when they mandated the imposition of an Afrikaans-based curriculum.
When Punt Jansen, the minister who imposed it, was asked in parliament if he consulted the black students, his response was “no I didn’t and I am not going to”. This is the root cause of the anger and resentment felt by black South Africans whenever the topic of Afrikaans is raised.
But, there is also another aspect of this history, which is even less spoken of in the English-speaking press. Almost more than 100 years ago with the introduction of the Milner Schools, there was an active attempt by Great Britain to impose English-only medium schools in South Africa.
At Milner Schools, Afrikaner children were not allowed to speak their language – Dutch. Any child heard speaking Dutch on school grounds would be made to stand in front of the class to chant: “I am a monkey, I spoke Dutch.”
The assault on Dutch (that later evolved into Kitchen Dutch and Afrikaans) was the key issue that Afrikaner nationalists mobilised around before they took over power in South Africa in 1948. This experience – of forced anglicisation and humiliation – galvanised Afrikaners, and deepened their nationalistic fervour. They vowed to build their own schools, and to make their children “appreciate and love their language”.
But, we also forget the signs of co-operation. In the early years of South Africa’s democracy, there was an active effort by several Afrikaans schools to introduce African languages into the curriculum, because there was an expectation that it was going to be mandatory.
My primary school, for instance, recruited a white teacher fluent in Afrikaans and Sepedi and we had a few hours of mandatory lessons per week. However, with the introduction of the curriculum 2000 changes, multilingualism was forgotten in favour of English-only instruction and Afrikaans was taught only where “the numbers” made sense.
South Africa, therefore, missed a golden opportunity to enact legislation during that period. Unfortunately, our teacher, Mnr. Jordaan, specialising in history and Sepedi, was retrenched when the government closed the door on multilingualism.
Then in 2001, Afrikaans was identified by Mbeki's government as a source of conflict in South Africa. He constituted the Gerwel Commission that was headed by Jakes Gerwel, a South African and anti-apartheid activist who wrote mostly in Afrikaans. As the historian Prof. Hermann Giliomee wrote, Gerwel made several propositions to the South African government.
“In 2001 the Mbeki government appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Dr Jakes Gerwel to investigate the matter. It recommended that Afrikaans as a medium of instruction had to be guaranteed at least two institutions. There had to be a statutory obligation on them to promote Afrikaans ‘systematically’ and ‘conscientiously’ as a medium of scientific research and public communication. They had to report annually to Parliament. Unfortunately the Afrikaans vice-chancellors wasted this opportunity.”
For historical accuracy, it is worth noting that then president Thabo Mbeki was prepared to implement several of the recommended reforms, but the Afrikaans vice-chancellors could not agree on which two universities, one in the north and one in the south, should remain Afrikaans-medium institutions.
Furthermore, Mbeki’s sentiments were shared by his predecessor Nelson Mandela who was also supportive of an Afrikaans university. Mandela held that out of 20 universities it should be possible to find at least one university which could see to the development of Afrikaans.
Despite these propositions, today, there are few Afrikaans universities left in practice, with North-West University being one of the few plausible exceptions that still offers courses in Afrikaans. When Afrikaner organisations such as AfriForum write about Afrikaans, they constantly invoke the promises of the Gerwel Commission and speak to a sense of betrayal due to the lack of its implementation – after all, both Mandela and Mbeki made this promise.
The Bela Bill currently being introduced in Parliament makes no reference to the historical context of language issues in South Africa, which could lead to renewed conflict.
Another option is to set it aside and instead focus on the Gerwel Commission’s recommendations. According to the commission, the South African government should enact legislation that promotes multilingualism. Universities and schools should be required to report to the Parliamentary portfolio committee to justify their language policies. Statutory requirements are necessary to enforce them.
I would go further to suggest that local and provincial governments should also be asked to contribute to the effort and at least promote three languages based on their internal demographics. With the advent of artificial intelligence and modern computer-linguistic techniques, there is no longer an excuse that it is “too expensive” to translate.
South Africa should also consider consolidating the nine African languages into three language families – Nguni, Sotho, and Venda – while promoting a standardised written form. Co-operating with our neighbouring countries that also speak these languages would help promote regional stability. Linguistic definition should remain broad enough to ensure that local dialects and variants are not marginalised or discriminated against.
If Afrikaans schools can no longer justify their enrolment numbers, they should be encouraged to teach an African language alongside Afrikaans, rather than switching to English. This approach would dispel the misconception that emotional attachment to Afrikaans is rooted in racism and a longing for Afrikaans to return, while also ensuring that black students, who may see Afrikaans as a barrier to entry, are not excluded, but rather encouraged to be part of the solution.
By implementing such legislation and working toward a sensible compromise within the GNU, we could, within a decade, nurture a multilingual generation capable of communicating directly with one another in the languages they feel most comfortable using.
South Africa’s GNU has a unique opportunity to engage in the language debate, but if it continues with the Bela Bill, it will unfortunately fail to manage the conflict, repeat the mistakes of the past, and create further internal conflict.
The GNU risks collapsing.
Hügo Krüger is a South African-born Civil and Nuclear Engineer. In 2011 he was on the Student Representative Council at the University of Pretoria and had the portfolio: multilingualism and culture. He speaks Afrikaans, German, French and English, while having a basic understanding of Sepedi and Farsi.
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