“Afrikaners: The paradox of African heritage and 1652 Land Heist [opinion piece]
2025-02-14 BY CORRESPONDENT [Jemima Beukes; ed.]
Culture is not in the blood. It is not something fixed that gets passed down generations. Culture is shaped by history, geography, and shared experiences.
This is why […] an Oshiwambo-speaking Namibian, though linked by ancestry to the Great Lakes region, cannot simply return and claim belonging there. And it is why Afrikaners, whose identity has been shaped by the harsh beauty of South Africa and Namibia, will lose their culture if they leave.
[…]
Regardless of how their ancestors arrived, the reality is that we now have white Africans. People […] who read the land like a book passed down for generations. Their culture is no longer Dutch or European — it is now Southern African.
And while we recognize their culture and their right to live in Africa, they must also extend the same respect to native Africans. They loudly support Israel’s claim to ancestral land, yet they refuse to acknowledge the historical theft of land in Southern Africa. They turn a blind eye to the vast tracts of land their families have occupied since 1652 — land for which their ancestors could not produce a modern-day title deed.
Afrikaners are quick to criticise corruption in African governments, yet they rarely reflect on their own corrupt ways of acquiring and keeping land. The townlands and farms they lease for 99 years at a pittance, the lobbying and backroom deals that ensure their industries remain protected at the cost of young, emerging native Africans — these are acts of systemic corruption.
Their privilege is not just something from the past; it is reinforced daily through economic and political maneuvering.
[…]
As Max du Preez wrote in The Daily Maverick […], “White unemployment is lower than in any other group; not a single farm has been confiscated since 1994; white South Africans remain overwhelmingly wealthier per capita than black and Coloured citizens; people are not being attacked on farms because they are white and Afrikaans; Afrikaans is thriving more than any other indigenous language; and the Constitution protects fundamental human rights and the rule of law.”
The same is true for Namibia, a country that shares an umbilical cord with South Africa in history, politics, and economics. […] Afrikaners who have made Afrikaans their own are not victims.
Along with other white South Africans, they remain privileged and vastly overrepresented in professional and economic spheres.
[…]
Afrikaners must now decide whether they will nurture and protect the land they call home — not as owners, but as equals among those who have always belonged here.
*Jemima Beukes is a journalist and justice and heritage activist.”
- Full opinion piece “Afrikaners: The paradox of African heritage and 1652 Land Heist” by Jemima Beukes on the website of New Era (last checked in February 2025)
- See also opinion piece “We Afrikaners are once again skunks” by Max Du Preez in the Daily Maverick
- See also article “‘White supremacists in suits and ties’…” by The Guardian