Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

AfriForum vows to oppose EFF’s plan to destroy Afrikaner statues

Soundbite: Ernst van Zyl (English)

Soundbite: Ernst van Zyl (Afrikaans)

The civil rights organisation AfriForum promises to do everything in its power to oppose the EFF’s campaign to destroy Afrikaner statues and memorials. The organisation views the motion that the EFF chief whip, Nontando Nolutshungu, presented in parliament this morning on behalf of the party’s leader, Julius Malema, as a direct attack on Afrikaners’ right to exist in the country.

Nolutshungu presented the issue of “colonial memory and its poisonous symbols” to parliament this morning as part of a motion for the establishment of a parliamentary ad hoc committee to investigate the continued existence of “apartheid-era statues and memorials in public spaces.”

In the submission, she argues, among other things, that the statue of Gen. Louis Botha in front of parliament should be removed and that Botha “is glorified as a statesman”, when in reality he was a “general of violence”. Regarding the Paul Kruger statue in Pretoria, she incorrectly argues that he “sits arrogantly at the Union Buildings” and that the statue of Jan van Riebeeck in Cape Town is “celebrating the very beginning of colonial conquest in 1652”. The Voortrekker Monument has also come under fire from Nolutshungu. According to her, the monument towers over the nation’s capital as a “tribute to white supremacy, built to glorify the so-called civilising mission of the Voortrekkers, when, in fact, they were armed invaders who seized land from African kingdoms”.

Nolutshungu concluded her presentation with a call on parliament to complete the “unfinished business of liberation” and pleaded for the tearing down of these “monuments of humiliation” and the replacement thereof with monuments “of our own heroes”.

According to Ernst van Zyl, Head of Public Relations at AfriForum, Nolutshungu’s call for the removal and demolition of monuments is characteristic of the EFF’s demolition culture. “Politicians who have proven that they cannot build anything, like the EFF, are simply encouraging destruction and violence. Because the EFF has failed to build even one promised school, they are now focusing instead on promises to tear down statues.”

However, Van Zyl cautions against disregarding the EFF’s demands. “The removal of part of the community’s symbols, statues and heritage is a shameless attempt to strip away this group’s identity and right to exist. History offers numerous examples of cases where the physical suppression of or violence aimed at specific communities was preceded by similar actions. If, according to the EFF, there is no place for statues of Botha or Kruger or the Voortrekker Monument, the place of the Afrikaner is also in serious jeopardy.”

However, AfriForum will do everything in its power to oppose this anti-white hate campaign, Van Zyl concludes.