Leave Afrikaans alone - DA

2005-02-13 17:58

Cape Town - The ANC's heavy-handed attempts to meddle in Afrikaans schools are a thinly-veiled attempt to launch a vendetta against the language, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday.

The DA's deputy arts and culture spokesperson, Desiree van der Walt, said in a statement that the ANC seemed to be trying to equate Afrikaans and Afrikaans speakers with the architects of apartheid, using this as a malicious means to assert its agenda of "transformation" and hegemony at any cost.

"The ANC's assumption that Afrikaans is the language of apartheid has been most recently revealed in the court battle over the language policy of a Western Cape School, Mikro Primary, which the ANC has described as discriminatory and reminiscent of the Old South Africa purely because it wishes to retain its Afrikaans heritage."

Judgement was reserved on Friday at the end of four days of argument in the Cape High Court on the Afrikaans-only admission policy of the school.

Judge Wilfred Thring said he intended to give judgment on February 18.

Should be nurtured

Said Van der Walt: "As one of South Africa's official languages, Afrikaans is protected in the constitution, which stipulates that the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate these languages."

All of South Africa's languages needed to be nurtured and respected, and decisive steps should be taken to ensure that this was done.

"To equate the language of Afrikaans with apartheid is ludicrous, especially considering that many figures in South Africa's liberation struggle were members of the Afrikaans community, and many non-Afrikaans speakers were proponents of apartheid."

The DA supported the introduction of an English-medium alternative in Afrikaans schools in cases where English-medium alternatives were not available and where schools had excess capacity.

"But the harassment campaign against Afrikaans medium schools in the name of what passes for 'transformation', and especially in the case of those that that represent the interests of the majority of the population in their area, is a violation of Afrikaans speakers' language rights."

Ruling this week

Judgement was reserved on Friday at the end of four days of argument in the Cape High Court on the Afrikaans-only admission policy of Mikro.

Mikro's governing body has asked the court to overrule a Western Cape education department directive that the school provide an English medium class for a group of grade ones.

The department says there is no room at other schools in the Kuils River area, and also that Mikro should abandon its Afrikaner Christian National roots and accept transformation.

Judge Wilfred Thring said he intended to give judgment on February 18.

- SAPA