Afrikaner Nationalism, Electioneering and the Politics of a Volkstaat
| Author | Maano Freddy Ramutsindela |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9256.00076 |
| Date | 01 September 1998 |
| Published date | 01 September 1998 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Afrikaner Nationalism,Afrikaner Nationalism,
Electioneering and theElectioneering and the
Politics of aPolitics of a VolkstaatVolkstaat
Maano Freddy Ramutsindela
The liberation of South Africa from the shack-
les of apartheid signi®es the end of the last
out-post of white domination in South Africa,
and opened a new chapter on the search for
a common South Africanism. The process of
nation-building is haunted by relics of
nationalist trends, one of which is Afrikaner
nationalism. This article deals with certain
aspects of Afrikaner nationalism which have
continued into the post- apartheid era. It uses
the division among Afrikaner nationalists to
show the link between conservative Afrikaner
nationalism, electioneering and the pursuit
for a volkstaat (white homeland).
Introduction
The idea enshrined in the (debatable) de®ni-
tion of a nation alludes to a nation as a group
of people with speci®c sentiments of solidar-
ity in the face of other groups. Scholars argue
that these sentiments of solidarity can be
nourished from a religious creed and a
common destiny (Gerth and Wright Mills,
1991), shared historical experience (Gellner,
1983), the `impulse of self preservation' (List,
cited by Szporluk, 1988), and so forth. While
it is acceptable that national solidarity can be
nourished from various sources, it is also true
that an `imagined nation' is not necessarily a
monolith. This is true of Afrikaner national-
ism, which appeared as a uni®ed movement
against British imperialism, yet remained divi-
ded on the Afrikaner national question. As a
corpus of literature on Afrikaner nationalism
suggests, it would be wrong to see Afrikaner
nationalism as an unchanging, timeless tradi-
tion or as a socially undierentiated entity
(Dubow, 1992). Apartheid might have been
declared `dead and buried', but threads of
Afrikaner nationalism, which underpinned the
theory and practice of apartheid, were not
eclipsed by the dawn of the Mandela era.
My intention in this paper is not to give a
detailed history of Afrikaner nationalism.
Rather, I intend to show the link between
conservative Afrikaner nationalism, electio-
neering and the pursuit for a volkstaat in
post-apartheid South Africa. A brief history of
the division among Afrikaner nationalists will
be used to provide a background to under-
standing the aspirations of conservative Afri-
kaner nationalists in the Mandela era. An
intra-ethnic perspective on Afrikaner national-
ism is useful because `the emergence of the
contemporary right-wing movement in South
Africa can be understood only against the
background of the rise of Afrikaner national-
ism' (Van Rooyen, 1994, p. 7). Electioneering
has been included in the analysis because of
its relevance as a political action to achieve
Politics (1998) 18(3) pp. 179±188
#Political Studies Association 1998. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 179
Maano Freddy Ramutsindela, University of the North, South Africa.
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