South Africa’s possible next president Jacob Zuma today said among white people, Afrikaners are the only true South Africans. He was addressing a meeting of about 50 mostly white representatives of organisations for Afrikaans-speaking people at the Hilton Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg.
He is quoted as saying that, “In South Africa it is only the Afrikaners that are South African in the true sense of the word. They don’t carry two passports,”
Zuma, said he was not addressing the group just because it was election time, but also because the ANC wanted the buy-in of Afrikaners to improve conditions in the country. He said the Afrikaners played an important role in South African history.
South Africans go the polls in April 22.
He also said the Afrikaners were there with the discovery of the country’s riches like gold and diamonds, and they were involved in wars with the British.
“A war that I think still reminds us of how those who were determined South Africans, of how ruthless they were. We went through almost a similar experience, all of us,” he said.
“If you meet Afrikaners, you know you are meeting with people who are genuinely looking for the solutions. If they raise concerns, they genuinely raise concerns, not like people who say ‘you are my friend’ and then you are not my friend, or who say ‘you are my enemy’ and then you are not my enemy.”
He said Afrikaners, “from a poor, oppressed group” eventually took over political power through legitimate means, and empowered themselves economically and politically.
