The death of Eugene Terreblanche has revived Afrikaner demands for their own homeland – and risks civil war.
11 April 2010 (1)
As I drink tea in the sitting-room of Daniel and Margrieta Dreyers, it is easy to forget that apartheid ever ended. The couple, wearing the combat fatigues of the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) movement and surrounded by nick-nacks from a lifetime’s devotion to preserving the rituals and traditions of the Boers, South Africa’s original white settlers, are mourning the loss of their leader.
Mr and Mrs Dreyers have just returned from the funeral of Eugene Terreblanche and are filled with quiet anger over the loss of “Oom Gene” (Uncle Gene), under whose command of the AWB they had served for almost three decades. Looking through their “reminders of the golden years for the Afrikaners” offers them some comfort.
[snip]
Like an increasing number of Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans, Mrs and Mrs Dreyers believe the lawlessness in rural areas, which claims the lives of two or three white farmers or family members every week, can only end with another separation of whites and blacks. “A homeland for Afrikaners is what we want, and it is what God wants for us,” Mr Dreyers, 70, says, before expanding into the sort of rhetoric that made his leader reviled by both the black population and liberal whites.
“We have learned our lesson: black people cannot run a country. They inherited a priceless jewel and made it worthless. They have not got the wisdom – they will never have the wisdom – to run a country. We have tried to teach them, but they have not learned and they are not grateful for what we gave them. They wanted the whole cake, and now there are only crumbs left.”
(1) We’re not sure how we missed this piece, but miss it we did. More than anyone else the British media and their charges in parliament blasted and condemned the racially conscious white Afrikaners without mercy; which makes this article in a British newspaper so amazing to read. — Ed.