People state
The People's State ( Afrikaans for "People's State" ) is a discussed mainly in the 1990's proposal, a territory in the area of South Africa to create, on which the Boers who afrikaanssprechende ethnic group within the white minority in the country, manage itself can . A people's state could thereby achieve a state character, up to and including complete independence . This idea was initially only supported by small, mostly right-wing groups. According to a survey by the Afrikaans-speaking daily Beeld in 2012, the concept of a people's state as an autonomous or independent area is being followed with interest by many members of the Afrikaans-speaking minority.
history
The Boers (also known as Afrikaaner or Afrikaners ) have a long tradition of establishing states. In the course of the Great Trek in particular , they founded several, mostly short-lived Boer republics , including the Orange Free State and Transvaal , which, however, lost their independence at the latest in the Second Boer War .
During apartheid , Boer and English-speaking South African cultures were protected by the government, and Afrikaans and English were the only two official languages. The majority of the politicians were Afrikaans. Apartheid served to make the non-white population worse off than the white population (including the Boers).
At the end of the 1980s, Carel Boshoff founded the Afrikaner-Vryheidstigting (Afrikaaner Freedom Foundation), or Avstig for short. She pursued the goal of founding a people's state in the rural and sparsely populated north of the Cape Province . In 1991 Avstig bought an empty former workers' settlement in the North Cape province and founded Orania . A miniature people-state emerged here.
Supporters and opponents
In the 1994 elections , the Vryheidsfront Plus stood out, with the aim of establishing a people's state. It received 424,555 votes, but did not even come close to a majority in any constituency. Prior to the 1999 parliamentary elections , it was found that 26.9 percent of Afrikaans who would like to emigrate but are unable to, support a people's state.
In two surveys in 1993 and 1996, whites were asked, “What do you think of designating an area for Afrikaans and other white South Africans to administer themselves? Do you support the idea of a people's state? ”In 1993, the survey showed that 29 percent thought the idea was good and 18 percent would move to such a people state. 34 percent were against this idea. In 1996, the result was that only 22 percent found the idea good, while only 9 percent would move to a people's state. In the meantime, 66 percent of those questioned were already negative about the idea.
The 1996 survey found that “those who said in 1996 that they could imagine moving to a people's state are mostly Afrikaans-speaking men, supporters of the Conservatives or the Freedom Front, who hold racist views, including themselves as Afrikaans and are not satisfied with the new democratic South Africa. ”However, it should be noted that no definition of a“ racist view ”was made.
The latest surveys (2013) show a different picture, however: According to them, 56% of the Boers surveyed were in favor of a people's state or could imagine moving to a people's state due to the latent, often racially motivated violence in South Africa.
Opponents of the idea of a people's state note that there are no closed settlement areas for the Boers and that these Boers have long mixed with other population groups. There are areas ( Gauteng , Cape Town) in which they live in large numbers, but nowhere do they make up the majority of the population.
At a conference on self-determination held in Orania in October 2005, African intellectuals showed little enthusiasm for the question of secession, but made other suggestions such as “cyber government”.
People's State Movements
The Vryheidsfront Plus ("Freedom Front Plus ") is the driving political force behind the idea. The clientele party is represented in the national parliament and in various provincial parliaments. In the parliamentary elections in 2009 she was able to win 146,000 votes (0.83 percent). This corresponds to about 6 percent of the votes of all Boers (assuming that the party received no voters outside this ethnic group). The Vryheid Front is based on models such as Spain , where autonomies were created for linguistic minorities. This is the only way to protect Boer rights. To this end, a homeland is to be created for them on the territory of the North Cape and Western Cape provinces.
The Afrikaner Resistance Movement , a right-wing extremist group, also advocates a people's state.
The Boeremag was a right-wing organization and wanted to implement similar plans forcibly before. Several of its members were on trial for high treason.
Orania and Kleinfontein
The settlements of Orania and Kleinfontein represent more serious attempts to establish areas only for Afrikaans . In the case of Orania, a village has been built on private land and residents are recruited. There are now more than 1,000 people living in Orania (as of 2013). Even if the expectations of the founding fathers were not met, this corresponds to a constant increase. With time a certain economic prosperity arose. Kleinfontein is in the Pretoria area .
Legal basis
Section 235 of the Constitution of South Africa allows a community with a common language and culture to self-govern in an area in South Africa.
This passage in the constitution was negotiated during the negotiations that preceded the transfer of power in 1994. The vryheit front played an important role here. So far, however, no law has been passed for any ethnic group on the basis of Section 235.
The claim to a people's state could be derived from international law, which grants rights to all minorities who want independence in the form of independence. A minority that is spatially concentrated and has its own cultural identity then has the right to independence if it is treated with a lower priority. However, you would have to be denied political, linguistic, cultural and religious rights. However, the establishment of a state on South African territory would affect the territorial integrity of the Republic of South Africa, which can be seen as an illegal, aggressive act.
Government response
The ANC government made it clear that it would not tolerate a people's state. Instead, she said she was doing everything in her power to protect the language and culture of the Afrikaans, as well as those of other minorities in the country.
In 2003 the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Groups was established. She was given the task of protecting all groups (including the Boers) that see themselves as ethnic unity. J. Landman is also a Boer on the committee.
See also
Web links
- Vryheit Front (Afrikaans)
- Orania (Afrikaans) website
- Kleinfontein (Afrikaans) website
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.beeld.com/Rubrieke/Gasrubriekskrywers/Volkstaat-hou-gn-heil-in-20100112// ( Memento from March 7, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Survey by Die Beeld from January 2012, accessed on 26 . June 2013.
- ↑ Genocide Watch returns South Africa to stage 5 “polarization” on its Countries at Risk Chart
- ↑ Thomas Scheen: In the wagon castle. faz.net, June 1, 2013, accessed June 26, 2013
- ^ Orania Community - Population grow , accessed June 26, 2013