No place in South Africa for a single Afrikaans university. This is one of the worrisome replies that Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education, has given in a reply to a question in parliament posed by the FF Plus from which it is now clear that Afrikaans’ days are numbered as a tertiary language of instruction at public institutions, Adv. Anton Alberts, the FF Plus parliamentary spokesperson on higher education says.

In a reply to a question of Adv. Alberts as to how Nzimande will be preventing that the Northwest University at Potchefstroom will not be totally anglicised as was the case with RAU (now the University of Johannesburg), the response was merely that Afrikaans could be used together with another language such as English to give non-Afrikaans speakers access to the university.

Nzimande mentions as example Stellenbosch which now accommodates both English and Afrikaans.

Adv. Alberts says Nzimande’s argument in this regard is interspersed with mistakes and avoids the question as it is known that where a university gives instruction in both English and Afrikaans, English eventually becomes the default language due to the demographic change which occurs at these institutions, as was the case at the RAU.

“The minister is now clearly dropping the charade about the future of Afrikaans. He openly propagates the ANC mantra that the majority governs and that minorities have no rights. He conveniently forgets that Stellenbosch had only chosen the double-medium option last week. I will wager my parliamentary salary that this university will no longer be predominantly Afrikaans within five years.

“The minister in addition shows his absolute ignorance with regards to South Africa’s obligations toward minorities as outlined in Section 27 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights according to which minorities’ rights to be taught in their own language at their own institution have to be supported by the state.

“The ANC’s obsession with transformation which merely means that black domination through English – actually a colonial language – is busy undermining minority’s rights and that the time has come for minorities to stand up and make a place for themselves in this transformation forest in which we were left in 1994.

“The FF Plus therefore fully supports Solidarity’s changing of Academia into a community university.

“The FF Plus will in the interim continue to exhaust all internal remedies regarding the acquisition of minority rights and if we cannot succeed in the South African system, we will increasingly be approaching international bodies regarding the ANC’s constant breaching of their obligations in this regard,” Adv. Alberts says.

Issued by FF Plus