LANGUAGE POLICY AND IDENTITY CONFLICT IN RELATION TO AFRIKAANS IN THE POST-APARTHEID ERAJon Orman

Introduction

South Africa bears witness to a long and varied colonial andpost-colonial history of contact between various languagegroups and, by almost inevitable consequence, also one ofsocial conflict around matters of language and linguisticpolicy. This is particularly the case in relation to Afrikaans(still known officially as Dutch until 1925), itself anexample par excellence of a language which can trace its currentand historical population of speakers as well as some of itsmost distinctive structural and lexical features to theconsequences of linguistic contact between groups of highlydivergent origins (Roberge 2002). The predominant focus inthis paper, however, will remain limited to just a small partof this aforementioned history, namely the two decades or soyears to the time of writing of the post-apartheid period.

In terms of official language policy, the post-apartheid erasignalled a radical departure from the strict bilingualism ofthe previous dispensation with the introduction of an 11-language policy which has seen nine African languages acquireofficial and nominal equal status alongside English andAfrikaans (Orman 2008: 91). While this policy was heralded insome quarters as an innovative and progressive development inthe domain of state language policy, it is generallyacknowledged, at least by those familiar with the language-political situation in South Africa, that the policy in factconstituted a quite shrewd measure of conflict avoidance onthe part of the ANC. As Heugh (2002: 460) notes, the policywas the result of an “eleventh-hour compromise” designed toappease the concerns of Afrikaners that Afrikaans would be

marginalised or even removed from public life in the new eraas the language issue had become the major sticking point inthe negotiations between the National Party and ANC whichpreceded the transition to democratic rule. A pragmaticretrospective interpretation of the policy necessarily leadsone to the conclusion that rather than signalling any genuineand novel ideological commitment to the multilingualimplications of the new constitution, the elevation toofficial status of nine African languages instead merelyenabled the ANC to neutralise the previously privilegedposition of Afrikaans without Afrikaners being able to claimthat their language had been downgraded, at least not in a dejure sense.

Despite there now being a policy in place under which allofficial languages possess a theoretical equality (as if theabstractions which we call languages could ever be equal whentheir speakers manifestly are not), Afrikaans is the onlylanguage which has experienced a significant decline in use inpublic/official functions in the post-apartheid period, adevelopment which can be regarded as the flip side of theartificially elevated position the language enjoyed duringapartheid. It has been said that post-apartheid languagepolicy has seen Afrikaans “reduced to an equality” althoughthis claim is somewhat misleading when viewed from a de factoperspective. In practice, Afrikaans occupies a position equalneither to that of English nor the nine African languages. Itinstead occupies something of an intermediate position. WhileEnglish clearly inhabits a seemingly unassailable position atthe top of the country’s linguistic hierarchy, Afrikaans stillcertainly has a greater nationwide presence as a publiclanguage and is far more widespread in higher, prestigedomains (particularly education) than any of the Africanlanguages. That said, the position of Afrikaans as a publiclanguage has manifestly weakened since the ANC’s assumption ofpower in 1994, hence Mesthrie’s (2008: 327) claim that itmight be more apposite to talk of Afrikaans having been

‘reduced to an inequality’. Although the compromise solutionof the 11-language policy initially sufficed to placatemainstream Afrikaner concerns regarding language at least, theexistence of a language policy “gap”, that is, a discrepancyor contradiction between stated official policy and de factopractices, which has resulted in South African public lifebecoming ever more monolingual-English in character, combinedwith lingering historical tensions and suspicions, has ensuredthe continuation of a historical identity conflict betweencertain Afrikaner elements and advocates of the ANC’s approachto the ‘national question’. In the words of Alexander (2000:29):

Many right-wing and not so right-wing Afrikaners havefrequently expressed their frustration at what they see asgovernment tactics to bring about the anglicisation ofSouth Africa via the gradual but ineluctable scaling downof Afrikaans and of other South African languages.

We therefore see that a conflict which was traditionallyplayed out around issues of racial identity has to some extentshifted focus, in public discourse at least, to the seeminglymore “politically correct” question of language. However, itwould be mistaken to underestimate the continuing andfrequently central relevance of racialised thinking in thepersistence of post-apartheid identity conflict. One area ofnational interest in which racial tensions have often beennotably present is the sporting domain. The imposition of so-called “quotas” requiring provincial and national teams(particularly in cricket and rugby union) to select astipulated number of “players of colour” has been the subjectof considerable controversy and discontent amongst sections ofthe white community as a whole (i.e. both English andAfrikaans speakers) and has even led to a sizeable number ofhigh-profile athletes leaving South Africa to pursueprofessional careers overseas. In addition, one can also notea recent shift towards a more explicitly racialised rhetoricemanating from within ANC circles, with particular attention

focused on the figure of Julius Malema, leader of the ANCYouth League (see conclusion for further discussion). Whilenot wholly congruent with and in some way more contained thanthe domain of racial conflict, the language issue in relationto Afrikaans is still nevertheless one which dovetails andintersects with it to an appreciable extent.

A further point to be made and one which will emerge moresaliently during the course of this paper is the fact that theimplicit linguistic ideology and language practices of the ANChave a negative material and symbolic impact upon not onlywhite Afrikaans speakers but more particularly upon the manyhighly marginalised non-white speakers of the language and allAfrican-language communities. Previous studies have amplydemonstrated the pernicious effects of de facto ANC languagepolicy insofar as it acts as a barrier to the equitableintegration of socio-economically and culturally marginalisedcitizens into the national system (Alexander 2002, 2004; Heugh2002b; Orman 2008; Webb 2002a). It is also my argument thatdue to its overwhelmingly ethnocentric and middle-classcharacter, contemporary Afrikaans language activism is in itspresent form both disinclined and unable to effectivelyaddress questions pertaining to the potential of the languageto serve a transformational agenda through the empowerment ofits most marginalised speakers who, for the most part, happennot to be Afrikaners.

Characterising the conflict

A first point to emphasise is that for historical reasonswhich are well known but cannot be discussed in any depthhere, attitudes towards Afrikaans have generally borne astrong emotional content amongst certain significant sectionsof the South African population. One can note the existence oftwo views of the language with a diametrically opposedemotional character which provide a pertinent indication ofwhy there still exists such conflict potential around thelanguage. Admittedly, the views as presented below are done so

in a somewhat caricatured fashion and are best conceived asrepresenting positive and negative ends of an affectivecontinuum along which any number of intermediate individualpositions may be identifiable.

On the one hand, there are the strongly ethnonationalistAfrikaner elements with their fierce and renowned taalliefde(‘love of the language’) who have frequently depicted theirrelationship with the language as constituting one of what Ihave elsewhere described as ‘critical symbiosis’ (Orman, 2008:110), that is to say based on the conviction that withoutAfrikaans there would be no Afrikaner volk and vice-versa(Zietsman, 1992: 1), an ideologically-laden view whicheffectively equates Afrikaans solely with Algemeen BeskaafdeAfrikaans, the white standardised version of the language andoverlooks the fact that Afrikaans is also the name given,although admittedly sometimes preceded by a qualifyingadjective, to the variety spoken as a primary language by themajority of so-called “coloured” South Africans. Thisracialised standardisation of Afrikaans clearly makes amockery of the well-known nationalist slogan, borrowed andadapted from Flemish nationalists, Die taal is gans die volk – “Thelanguage is the entire people”.

On the other side, there is the negative view held amongstsections of the black population of Afrikaans as the languageof the oppressor, as Afrikaans is widely associated withapartheid oppression and the deeply unpopular educationpolicies of the era (Giliomee, 2003: 578–580). In addition,the apartheid-era denigration of non-standard – that is, non-white – forms of Afrikaans as crude, coarse or uncivilised(Nienaber 1942: xxx; Esterhuyse 1986; Orman 2008) has led tosomewhat ambivalent attitudes towards the language amongstmuch of the so-called coloured population and arguablycontributed towards the entrenchment of a sense of linguisticinferiority and alienation from the standard language. Onenotable consequence of the coloured community’s somewhatequivocal relationship with Afrikaans, when combined with the

social and economic allure held by the English language, hasbeen a long-term language shift away from Afrikaans which isespecially salient in the larger urban areas of the WesternCape (Alexander 1989: 57).

The path of modern South African history has led to acontemporary state of affairs whereby contrastive andfrequently antagonistic attitudes towards Afrikaans havebecome potentially politically significant elements in theidentities of various competing social and ethnic groups. Ittherefore follows that any initiatives to promote, marginaliseor restrict the language through the implementation or non-implementation of language policy or planning measures areexperienced as threats to the material and/or symbolicvitality of one identity group or another and hence becomecauses or sites of conflict. For instance, attempts on thepart of Afrikaner interests to promote or defend Afrikaans arefrequently interpreted as being parochial, particularistic,divisive and in full contradiction with the model of nationalintegration being pursued by the ANC which purports to claim akind of de-ethnicised universality, shorn of all ethnic bias,for the content of the national identity which it endorses. Ofcourse, claims as to the existence of wholly non-ethnicnations must be seen as aspirational discourses stemming froman ideology of civic or political nationalism rather thanassertions based on empirical sociological analysis (Oakes andWarren 2007: 13; Orman 2008: 13–19). The ANC elite and thosewedded to its nationalist project can be equally regarded asconstituting a separate ethnic group since their groupidentity, which happens also to pose as the sole legitimateSouth African national identity, also displays elements ofethnic-type attributes, such as a belief in common myths oforigin (although not necessarily biological) and struggle, ashared historical experience and a de facto common-languageideology.

Conversely, efforts by the ANC government to restrict ordowngrade Afrikaans via policy implementation or inaction,

whether finding their origin in active enmity or mereindifference towards the language and/or its speakers, areexperienced by some as a severe assault on the central,defining element of Afrikaner identity and contribute towardsthe sense of psychological insecurity and unwelcomeness whichmany Afrikaners claim to be experiencing in the new SouthAfrica. The current perceived threat to Afrikaans serves verymuch as a reinforcement of the traditional, insularnationalist reading of Afrikaner history which centres uponthe recurrent theme of a battle for ethnocultural survival inresponse to out-group persecution. The taalstryd or “languagestruggle” has invariably been a central feature of suchefforts. A key point to take into account then is that thecontinuation of this identity conflict in a certain sense seesactors on both sides in familiar antipathetic territory,therefore acting as a psychological reinforcement of thehistorical group identities, thereby strengthening theirantagonistic nature and opening up the conflict to potentialpolitical exploitation by enabling political opportunists onboth sides to recruit large-scale grassroots support withoutrecourse to rational argument. And indeed, this leads us on toperhaps the most pernicious consequence of the vigorousemotionality which frequently characterises the conflict (aswell as popular debates on language matters more generally),namely that it endows it with a strong measure ofintractability, causing actors in the conflict to be lessinclined to seek or accept compromise solutions.

A prominent dimension of the conflict and debate aroundAfrikaans is the language activism which both accompanies andto a considerable extent sustains it. Much of the significanceof language activism on behalf of Afrikaans insofar as itcontributes towards the perpetuation of the identity conflictunder discussion here can only be grasped when one considersthe state of language activism in South Africa as a whole. Themost notable feature of language activism in South Africa isits highly uneven, predominantly Afrikaner-centric nature (Du

Plessis 2004, 2008; Orman 2008:149–157; Kriel 2010a). By thisis meant that it has been and continues to be predominantlywhite Afrikaans speakers, through their traditional culturalorganisations (for example the Afrikanerbond, FAK, AKTV1) andmedia channels (newspapers such as Beeld, Die Burger and DieVolksblad), who have contested ANC linguistic policy mostvigorously. The extent and organisational sophistication oflanguage activism on behalf of Afrikaans finds no comparablecounterpart in any African-language community in South Africa.And indeed, this is indicative of two important and relatedfacts, namely that the Afrikaner community has a far largermiddle-class than most African-language communities and thatethnocentric language activism in general tends to bepredominantly middle-class in character (Orman 2008: 155).This insight is certainly reflected in Afrikaans languageactivism, which appears to be conducted chiefly by academics,lawyers, journalists and nationalist politicians with a strongfocus on securing language rights for Afrikaners at the grouplevel. The comparative underdevelopment of language activismin other communities has the effect of creating a moreprominent profile for Afrikaner/Afrikaans activism and to someextent feeds the perception that discontent with ANC languagepolicy resides to a significant degree only within theAfrikaner community, which in turn lends force to ANC claimsthat Afrikaans language activism merely serves a narrow,ethnonationalist interest.

The blanket designation of contemporary Afrikaans-basedactivism as nationalist or ethnocentric in focus has become amatter of some contestation in certain activist circles.Indeed, there have been some ostensible rhetorical attemptsfrom more “moderate” Afrikaner voices to uncouple languageactivism on behalf of Afrikaans from an Afrikaner nationalistagenda and promote the notion of a single, non-racial“Afrikaanse” culture. Kriel (2010a: 278) draws attention tothe fact that in the September 2005 edition of Die Vrye Afrikaan2,some prominent Afrikaans language activists even went so far

as to proclaim Afrikaner nationalism as dead, proceeding toidentify themselves as “post-nationalist” Afrikaners andstyling themselves as a mere cultural group. However, asKriel’s article goes on to demonstrate, closer inspection ofthe rhetoric and actions of certain of these supposedly“reformed” nationalists points to their serving of quite clearethnocentric agendas or at least elements thereof. Andcertainly, understandable suspicions remain that efforts todownplay or deny the ethnic character of Afrikaans languageactivism are merely intended to provide a veneer of socio-political legitimacy for what, from the ANC’s perspective,constitute continuing and unacceptable tendencies towardsethnocentric particularity. Of course, in the more radicalpastures of Afrikaans activism there are no such suspicions asthe protagonists are quite open about their nationalist, evensecessionist, aims and explicit rejection of both thedesirability and possibility of a common South Africanidentity. Falling into this category would be figures such asDan Roodt, head of the Pro-Afrikaans Action Group (PRAAG), a“non-party political movement which fights for the continuedexistence of Afrikaans and the Afrikaner in South Africa3” (mytranslation), and the so-called “volkstaaters4”.

In order to mitigate the risk of overemphasising the extentand salience of the conflict in South African society atlarge, it is important to highlight a further feature ofAfrikaans language activism and the so-called taaldebat ingeneral, namely the fact that, as Brink (2006: 1) observes:

[T]he majority of South Africans are unaware of it. This isbecause the debate about Afrikaans has been conducted almostexclusively within Afrikaans. Thus, whatever the merits ordemerits of the various arguments may be, and whateverlessons may be learnt for our other indigenous languages,or higher education, or nation-building, it cannot be heard byall.

Therefore, despite its wider significance in relation toissues of national integration and public multilingualism, the

expressive manifestation(s) of the conflict in relation toAfrikaans remains a largely niched phenomenon which may onlysporadically come to the attention of a wider nationalaudience. Even the few works published in English on thesubject have tended to be specialist academic texts with quitelimited readerships. This in turn leads us to what one mightcautiously propose as a universal characteristic of debates orconflicts of this type, namely that they are inherentlyvariable in terms of their intensity and salience and may evenpass through periods of apparent latency.

Having outlined some of the defining features of the conflictas a whole, the discussion now moves on to consider the twomost prominent domains of conflict in relation to Afrikaans,those of university medium-of-instruction policy and ANCrenaming policy.

ANC language policy and the Historically AfrikaansUniversities (HAUs)

The most controversial and complex question pertaining toAfrikaans in the post-apartheid period has undoubtedly beenthat regarding its continuing use as a medium of instructionat tertiary education institutions. It is certainly the issuewhich has aroused most anxiety amongst Afrikaans languageactivists and to some extent is the part which has becomeemblematic of the language conflict as a whole. The root ofthe conflict lies in the fact that the five single-mediumAfrikaans universities of the apartheid era – the Universityof Stellenbosch, the University of Pretoria, the University ofthe Free State, North-West University (formerly thePotchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education andthe University of Johannesburg (formerly the Rand AfrikaansUniversity) – have come under increasing political pressurefrom above to use English as a medium of instructionalongside, in addition to (dual or parallel-medium) or eveninstead of Afrikaans at the undergraduate and postgraduate

level in order to cater to the supposed language preferencesof non-white students, as it has been an unyielding andexplicit demand of the ANC that previously white-onlyuniversities open their doors to students from all previouslydisadvantaged groups and that language not serve as means ofexclusion.

The ANC justifies the increased use of English as medium ofinstruction on the basis of ‘accessibility’ arguments and theneed to alter the racial profile of the universities inquestion in order to make them more representative of theSouth African demographic as a whole. Such arguments, whichposit English as the language of educational inclusion, ofcourse have a strong politico-ideological motivation and areessentially only valid at the middle-class level. Whatever theANC rhetoric to the contrary, given the current linguisticdemography of the country the displacement of Afrikaans byEnglish at university level necessarily serves the cause ofincreasing the ideological and material accessibility ofeducational resources and services for the thin, but growingstratum of the black middle-class elite. We can note thereforethat, in its present form, the conflict around the universitymedium-of-instruction issue is still dominated by middle-classinterests on both sides. In addition to overlooking entirelythe possible role of African languages as media of instructionat the tertiary level, this also has the effect of sideliningarguments concerning the potential of Afrikaans to function asa medium of educational inclusion for the Afrikaans-speakingcoloured community which is the largest population group inthe Western Cape and by some accounts the most educationallydisadvantaged community in the whole country (Schlemmer andGiliomee 2001: 121).

In most cases, the universities appear to have towed the ANCline to the point where only Stellenbosch University and thePotchefstroom campus of the North-West University can now beconsidered predominantly Afrikaans universities. Recentfigures indicate that still the majority of students at these

institutions report having Afrikaans as their first languagealthough a downward trend can nevertheless be noted (Van derWalt, 2008: 217; Pienaar, 2006: 30). The University ofPretoria has even gone so far as to affirm an officiallanguage policy recognising ‘the right of every individual toreceive tuition via the language of his or her choice’although of course in reality this choice remains limited toAfrikaans or English. Elsewhere, Beukes (2010: 205) notes thatthe University of Johannesburg has been largely unsuccessfulin implementing its envisaged policy of “functionalmultilingualism” and that it has consequently been criticisedfor “neglecting its historic constituency by failing toprovide an academic home for Afrikaans-speaking students”.This overall situation has created widespread displeasure andanxiety amongst numerous Afrikaans-speaking academics andstudent bodies fearful that the trend towards theAnglicisation of the HAUs spells the beginning of the end forAfrikaans as a language of higher education. Fears have alsobeen expressed that the quality of English-language educationat certain of these institutions may often be inferior due tosome Afrikaans-speaking staff members not being sufficientlyproficient in English to lecture in it (Webb 2002b: 50). Theuniversity language issue is one which is rarely absent fromthe letters pages and opinion columns of the Afrikaansnewspapers (both print and online versions) which of coursehave a strong commercial interest in keeping the issue aliveand, as a corollary, ensuring the continued vitality of thelanguage itself. Entire books devoted to the issue have beenpublished, most notably by Chris Brink (2006), former vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University which, as that mosticonic of Afrikaner universities, has very much become thecentral locus and focus of the taaldebat (see also Giliomee2006). In another, earlier volume on the subject (availableonly in Afrikaans), Schlemmer and Giliomee (2001: 118)articulate a pervasive fear held by Afrikaans activists inrelation to the medium-of-instruction issue, namely that of

Afrikaans’ relegation to the status of a medium of meregrassroots cultural interaction and identity:

The single greatest danger for Afrikaans, however, is thatif it should weaken or disappear as a university language,this would signal the decline of Afrikaans as a language ofscience, as a professional language, as a language ofintellectual discourse and eventually also a literarylanguage. [...] There is also little doubt that Afrikaansis going to survive in sports stadiums, pubs, cafes, livingrooms and bedrooms. But who is going to take it seriouslyif it is not present at an intellectual and professionallevel? Just like other native African languages, Afrikaanswould be decapitated [onthoofd] in such a case.

The universities have found themselves in the midst of adilemma, caught between the desire to maintain their Afrikaanscharacter and thereby not alienate their core constituency ofstudents and benefactors and yet fall in line with new, non-negotiable commitments to facilitate accessibility toeducation, promote non-racialism and achieve a moredemographically representative student body. Indeed, it is apredicament shared by certain more moderate Afrikaansactivists and organisations in general, one which amounts toperforming a fine balancing act between advocating on behalfof the interests of Afrikaans speakers without being seen topromote an ethnocentric agenda and in doing so furtherperpetuate conflict and ANC intransigence with regard togranting concessions on language matters. The question whichremains to be answered definitively is whether, given theactors involved, such a balancing act is feasible on either atheoretical or practical level, although there seem fewgrounds for deviating too far from a generally scepticaloutlook in this regard.

The medium-of-instruction question (and indeed the languagedebate more generally) has not only been a source of conflictbetween Afrikaner interests and the ANC government, it hasalso spawned additional conflicts and discords within the

Afrikaner community as individuals and organisations haveadopted varying positions on the issue. While a fairly broadspectrum of standpoints can be identified, a somewhat crudebinary distinction has sometimes been drawn between the so-called taalglyers and the taalstryders or taalblyers5 (Rapport 17 June2007; Die Burger 29 October 2009). At one end, there are thosewho have been willing to compromise and concede ground togovernment demands, a position taken by most of theuniversities as a matter of pragmatic necessity and which hason occasion resulted in sizeable demonstrations against themby their own students. Chris Brink, who explicitly rejectedthe notion of Stellenbosch as “the kind of ‘Afrikaansuniversity’ envisaged by the taalstryders” (Brink 2006: 164),became a highly polarising figure during his term as vice-chancellor in which he oversaw the implementation of a far-reaching “transformation agenda” at the university. Brink hasbeen accused variously of “wanting to turn Stellenboschblack”6, “displaying a shocking lack of critical analysis ofthe current South African dispensation”7 and of being “an enemyof Afrikaans” (Die Burger 10 March 2005). Occupying the middleground, if indeed it is appropriate to use such a formulationgiven the Manichean terms in which the interests at stake inthe language conflict tend to be presented, are what might betermed the moderate Afrikaner nationalists, those whoserhetoric is not explicitly racialised or as overtlyconfrontational as that of the more ‘extremist’ activists, butfor whom the Afrikaner nation as a group entity is stillplainly the primary unit of concern. There has therefore by nomeans been a monolithic response to the issue from within theAfrikaner community, nor is one able to talk of a firmconsensus of opinion. At most, one can note the formation offuzzily definable and sometimes shifting factions and it isthe various ideological gaps which may appear in between suchfactions which give rise to the potential for inter-communityconflict. Furthermore, far from exercising the entirecommunity, it should be noted that there are some, indeedpossibly many, white Afrikaans speakers for whom the taaldebat

and related issues are of little or no active concern and whomay not even self-identify as Afrikaners. For example,Mesthrie (2008: 330) cites a newspaper article from August2004 by Max du Preez, a prominent Afrikaans-speaking politicaljournalist, who writes that:

There is probably no other public issue in South Africannational life that elicits so much heated drivel,falsehoods, pretentiousness and wasted emotion than theissue of the Afrikaans language. I am bored to the depthsof my soul with the Afrikaans debate.

It is apparent then that not all those who identify as whiteAfrikaans speakers/Afrikaners perceive themselves to be in aconflict situation as regards the language. The singularcommunal psycho-emotional “realities” sometimes projected,however sincerely, by activists in the promotion and self-justification of their cause can instead be seen asrhetorically intended strategies designed to lend weight totheir arguments. As such, the manifestation andintensification of conflict can in some measure be regarded asthe product of the activism itself. After all, the rhetoric oflanguage activism thrives on the experience or perception ofsome form of conflict. It would therefore seem naive to regardlanguage activism merely as a reflection of pre-existingconflict. We can instead seek to determine how conflictmanifests itself through the actions and pronouncements ofactivists, adopting a critical posture as regards the extentto which such activism resonates with the attitudes andexperiences of the community members it claims to represent.

ANC renaming policy

The second major domain of language-related conflict betweenAfrikaner interests and the ANC in recent years has been thatrelating to the ANC’s renaming policy and in particular withregard to its renaming of numerous settlements with Afrikaansor Afrikaner names. The issue is of interest from a conflict-

analysis perspective in that it constitutes a wholly symbolic– but no less emotive – domain of conflict which mightinstinctively appear more amenable to a conflict-managementapproach, but which is instead neatly illustrative of howconflict may be knowingly pursued or at least tolerated aspart of a policy aimed at asserting a measure of symbolic-ideological hegemony.

The changing of place names (pleknaamverandering in Afrikaans) isnot a recent phenomenon in South Africa. As Lubbe’s (2007)historical survey shows, various waves of settlement renaminghave occurred with varying degrees of systematicity throughoutits colonial history reflecting the changing socio-politicalfortunes of the various indigenous and settler populationgroups present in the country. The apartheid government alsopursued such a policy, most notoriously in the case of theJohannesburg suburb of Sophiatown which in 1963 was renamedTriomf following the forced removal of the black population toSoweto. The name Sophiatown was officially restored in 2006 inyet another reflection of politico-ideological change. TheANC’s current renaming policy only began to take on asystematic character following Mbeki’s succession of Mandelaas president in 1999, which signalled a move away from an eraof symbolic reconciliation between the ANC and Afrikaners(most famously embodied by Mandela’s wearing of the Springbokrugby jersey at the 1995 World Cup final) towards an explicitpolicy of transformation and Africanisation, one with farclearer conflict potential.

The settlement renaming policy has been focused primarily inthe north of the country and especially in the province ofLimpopo (formerly the Northern Province) where all but twotowns (Burgersfort and Groblersdal) with Afrikaans/Afrikanernames have been officially renamed. Examples include theprovincial capital, formerly known as Pietersburg but nowrenamed as Polokwane and the towns of Potgietersrus andNylstroom which have become Mokopane and Modimollerespectively (Orman 2008: 125). Elsewhere, Nelspruit, the

capital of the Mpumulanga province (formerly EasternTransvaal), has been renamed as Mbombela and the town ofLydenburg had its official name changed to Mashishing in 2006.The most high-profile cases have been that of Pretoria, thecountry’s administrative capital, and to a lesser extentPotchefstroom, a university city of around 125 000 inhabitantslocated in the North-West Province. In 2005, a proposal tochange the name of Pretoria to Tshwane met with hugeopposition from Afrikaner organisations and civil-rightsgroups and a compromise was eventually reached whereby thename Pretoria was retained for the city itself while themetropolitan area became known as the City of Tswhane (Truter2005; Labuschagne 2006). A similar compromise alsomaterialised in the case of Potchefstroom followingsubstantial protests with the city’s name remaining unchangedbut the municipality being renamed as Tlokwe (Mail and Guardian18 June 2007).

ANC renaming policy has not only been concerned with therenaming of towns and cities but has also targeted streetnames and public buildings such as airports, hospitals,libraries and sports stadiums, with the most notable examplebeing the renaming of Johannesburg International Airport,known as Jan Smuts Airport until 1994, as O.R. Tambo Airportin honour of the former ANC president. In another casepredestined to arouse Afrikaner sensitivities, Bloemfontein’sVoortrekkerstraat was renamed as Nelson Mandela Drive (Lubbe 2007: 71–74).

ANC figures have explained the rationale behind the renamingpolicy as being part of initiatives aimed at ridding thecountry of supposedly offensive, colonial-era namesreminiscent of past injustices and oppression (Orman 2008:126). The policy has often been styled as signalling theadvent of a cathartic decolonisation process. The followingquotation is taken from the first annual report of the SouthAfrican Geographical Names Council, the body charged withoverseeing the implementation of the renaming policy:

Liberation has been achieved, it is now time for the peopleof South Africa to play their role in changing our countryto be what we fought for [...] We should soon change theface of our country and not to be seen as part of Europe inAfrica [...] It is then incumbent upon all South Africansto see to it that this (changing of names) is done andachieved, as this will be a major mark that will showchange in our country.

However, when the policy does not just target those nameswhich are quite clearly offensive, such as Kaffirspruit, Kaffirskraaland the numerous streets named after Verwoerd or Vorster8, butalso places such as Naboomspruit, named after the localprofusion of euphorbia trees, or Warmbad (Warmbaths), it isdifficult to escape the conclusion frequently articulated byAfrikaner activists and politicians, as well as numerous“ordinary” Afrikaans speakers in the letters pages ofnewspapers etc., that many of these names have been deemedoffensive and thus illegitimate solely on account of theirbeing Afrikaans. Afrikaner sensitivities in relation to theissue have been further heightened by the fact that placenames which bear quite explicit reference to British colonialheritage, examples of which include Grahamstown, Cradock, KingWilliam’s Town, Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape), Caledon andWellington (Western Cape), have escaped relatively unscathed.

The ANC’s general unwillingness to compromise on the renamingissue, acting on the whole as if a place or building couldonly ever have one name in blatant contradiction of themultilingual implications of the constitution9, can be quiteunproblematically interpreted as an attempt to extend andconsolidate its measure of semio-ideological hegemony. It isfurthermore apparent that it is also willing to tolerate adegree of identity-based conflict in order to do so. Afterall, it is not too difficult to envisage what form acompromise solution might take in such a case, namely anadditive naming policy whereby the settlements or buildings inquestion possess official names in two (or more where

necessary) languages. In most cases, this would not seem torequire much more than the production of bi- or multilingualsigns, letterheads etc. In 2005, a correspondent to anAfrikaans newspaper asked, presumably rhetorically: “Can wetrust that the present government, in the spirit ofconstitutional loyalty, will make a contribution towardspositive nation-building through inclusive place nameadditions instead of replacements?” (Die Volksblad, 26 November2005). Any such faith continues to be misplaced. The effect ofthe ANC’s overwhelmingly subtractive approach to this matter(and others) has been to symbolically alienate Afrikanerelements from its nation-building discourse through itsstyling of meaningful elements of Afrikaner history andcultural identity as fundamentally incompatible with the “new”South African national identity over which it claims executiveownership (Orman 2008: 128–129). It is primarily in thissense, then, that one can talk of an identity conflict inrelation to Afrikaans.

Wider consequences of the identity conflict in terms of thenational question

The South African case points to the innate conflict potentialof an ideologically hegemonic, non-conciliatory model ofnational integration. In terms of linguistic policy, ANChegemony makes itself felt at both the instrumental, materiallevel and the symbolic, emotional level, although to varyingdegrees amongst different sections of the South Africanpopulation. The ANC’s privileging of English and apparent lackof concern for Afrikaans10 is preventing a sizeable number ofAfrikaans speakers from enjoying a sense of sentimentalattachment to the current government and state apparatus, inaddition to the fact that more extreme Afrikaner elements arequite unable to reconcile themselves to the fact that the newrulers of the country are mostly black (and English-speakingfor good measure).

There is something of an irony to be detected in the ANC’spolicy in relation to Afrikaans insofar as its pursuit of whatamounts to a conflict strategy has the effect of stimulatingan ethnonationalist response on the part various Afrikanerelements (Kriel 2010a). The irony resides in the ANC’straditional repugnance for and rejection of what it conceivesas ethnic politics. Indeed, as mentioned previously, such isthe ANC’s ideological aversion to expressions of ethnicity, itis even unable to acknowledge the manifestly ethnic nature ofcertain of the elements constitutive of the South Africanidentity it promotes. The difficulty here when viewed from aperspective favouring a non-hegemonic, inclusive approach tonational integration, which given the nature of South Africansociety must necessarily involve some measure of conflictmanagement, is that when two identities are styled andperceived as incompatible or even dialectically opposed themore primordial ties are invariably likely to be stronger andmore mobilising. In other words, it would seem quiteunrealistic to expect white Afrikaans speakers to take upmembership en masse in the ANC-endorsed national community atthe price of renouncing their Afrikaner identity. In a moreconcise formulation, we can say that the persistence ofsalient inter-ethnic conflict inhibits the development of acommon, state-bounded national identity.

A second, arguably more pernicious effect of the conflictrelates to the potential of Afrikaans to serve as a languageof empowerment and social advancement for its genuinelymaterially marginalised speakers. As long as the main socialissue pertaining to the language continues to be perceived interms of an identity conflict between Afrikaners and the ANCgovernment, attention and resources are likely to remaindiverted from engagement with questions with genuinelytransformational implications. Perhaps the most telling ironyof all in the whole debate concerning Afrikaans is that,besides so-called “native” speakers of English, it is thewhite middle-class Afrikaners who most vigorously defend their

language that are generally best able to function in Englishwhen required to do so. The following remarks by Schlemmer andGiliomee (2001: 132) in relation to the university languageissue could be equally applied to various social domains:

If Afrikaans is forced out at the university level, theyoung white middle-class Afrikaners will be able to moveinto English language institutions, here or abroad,comparatively easily. The case for the maintenance ofAfrikaans is much more about the needs of the academicallyunderdeveloped coloured (and white, as well as some black)Afrikaans-speaking communities.

When considered from this angle, one could say that what iscurrently taking place is really the wrong type of conflict inrelation to Afrikaans, that is to say one centred upon mattersof ethnic identity rather than a class-based conflict focusedon issues of socio-economic inequality and restricted accessto cultural goods. If the fully-inclusive, democraticincorporation of all South African citizens into the nationalsystem is to be the motivating aim, which in no way can betaken for granted, it is quite evident that ANC linguisticpolicy needs to be challenged and hence some form of conflictinitiated. In this view, conflict per se need not be regarded asa necessarily negative phenomenon. Indeed, one might arguethat the initiation of conflict is a positive and necessarystep in challenging the social order. However, in SouthAfrica’s case, if the predominant social conflicts aroundmatters of language continue to be conducted almostexclusively by middle-class elites intent on staking out asymbolic identity-bound territory through the acquisition ofgroup rights at the level of the ethnolinguistic community,the prospect of the meaningful linguistic empowerment of thecountry’s most marginalised citizens cannot but remain dim.

One organisation which has explicitly sought to advance thecause of an inclusive, non-racial Afrikaans community,consisting of so-called Afrikaanses, is the Stigting vir Bemagtigingdeur Afrikaans11 (SBA). Described by Kriel (2010b: 59) as the “only

mainstream Afrikaans organisation with a ‘brown’ leader”, themain thrust of the SBA’s work is to promote literacy inAfrikaans amongst both primary and secondary school pupils andcontribute towards community development and socio-economicempowerment (Rapport 1 January 2006). This has manifested itselfin, amongst other activities, a number of reading projects forschoolchildren in various age-groups, literacy and languagepolicy workshops for teachers and school-management bodies andlanguage skills training for school leavers and unemployedadults. However, given the deep schisms which still persistbetween white and non-white speakers of Afrikaans insofar astheir attitudes and relationship to the language is concerned,it still remains to be seen whether any firm materialrealisation can be given to the notion of a single languagecommunity, although a default scepticism in this regard isperhaps advisable.

Some concluding remarks: towards a general theory of language-based conflict?

Given the varying extent and nature in which language may beimplicated in particular social conflicts, combined with othercase-specific historical and circumstantial factors which mayplay a central role in determining key features of theconflict situation, it is doubtful whether anything other thana very general descriptive or predictive theory of language-based conflict could be feasibly developed. In any case, auseful and perhaps rather obvious starting point would be theso-called “Nelde’s law”, which states that there can be nolanguage contact without language conflict (Nelde 1998). Whilethe formulation of the law may contain a degree of rhetoricaloverstatement, it does point us in the direction of animportant and foundational insight, namely that conflict ortension in some form or another concerning language is to beregarded as unexceptional, ongoing and essentially as thedefault situation in multilingual, multi-ethnic societies andeven more so in those characterised by salient inequalitiesbetween competing groups. Very rarely is language an entirely

uncontested domain. As a result, in policy terms it wouldcertainly seem more realistic to approach such conflicts,whatever their fluctuating degree of latency or salience, interms of management, rather than definitive resolution orprevention.

A further important consideration in relation to inter-ethnicconflicts and one which has a potentially limiting effect onambitions in language policy and planning, is that languageissues may form only one aspect of the conflict in questionand that the conflict, which at root is fundamentally moreabout identity than language per se, may furthermore shift infocus or emphasis and relocate beyond the domain of languagepolicy. This obviously makes a language policy response aimedat addressing or resolving the conflict as a whole animprobable prospect, amounting in effect to a pars pro totoapproach. Indeed, of late one can note just such a shift offocus away from language matters in the Afrikaner-ANC conflictand a return towards a more explicit focus on questions ofrace. The most prominent instantiation of such a shift can beobserved in the response to the actions and rhetoric of JuliusMalema, leader of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), who had acourt case brought against him by Afriforum, an Afrikanercivil rights organisation, for his public singing of an anti-apartheid struggle song with the lyric “Dubula ibhunu” (“Shootthe Boer”). In May 2011, the South Gauteng High Court declaredMalema’s actions as incitement to murder. Malema, who has alsoadvocated forced removal of land from whites and made variousother inflammatory remarks with strongly racialised overtones,rapidly became something of an obsession in the Afrikaanspress, with opinion pieces and letters concerning or makingreference to him published on an almost daily basis. Ratherironically, a fair number of such letters complained about thesupposedly excessive coverage afforded him. The key point tograsp for the purposes of this discussion, however, is merelythat such developments clearly relocate the identity conflictbeyond the domain of language policy.

The case study discussed in this article also shows how theexistence and propagation of language conflict, up to acertain level of salience and intensity, may serve variouspolitical and activist agendas on all sides. One cannottherefore assume that language policy will be formulated andimplemented with a conflict-management approach in mind, noris conflict necessarily to be regarded as an accidental by-product of policy. Indeed, conflict may be knowingly andactively pursued via policy or at least have some in-builtallowance for it in order to further political and individualagendas. If language policy is to serve as a means of conflictmanagement then it appears axiomatic that any such initiativesmust chime with the self-perceived interests of the partiesinvolved, something which cannot be assumed a priori. Moreover,depending on one’s preferences and convictions, it may notnecessarily be desirable as conflict avoidance at any socialprice is clearly not a universally satisfactory approach. Thiscan then lead us towards a more affirmative view of language-based conflict, albeit conflict of a certain type and with aparticular social emphasis, as representing a necessarystrategy in countering hegemonic political and culturalforces.

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