The Homeland for the Afrikaner People
 
 
    In 1992, 35-40% of the white electorate wanted partition so that they could have their own homeland (Slabbert 1992: 108).  Though the National Party droped its Afrikaner base to be a part of the transition to a new South Africa, the right-wing whites could not unite and agree on a physical place for a homeland.  Some wanted a big part of the nation, others would have settle for a smaller part by the Orange River.  Slabbert believed in 1992 that the right would divide between the ones who thought they could achieve their goals within the transitional framework and the ones who thought they could not (1994).  This is what happened as the Conservative Party refused to participate in the1994 election, while the new Freedom Front did.  Even now some Afrikaners want a homeland for their own just as other nations that are in control of their destiny do, and several Afrikaner groups have made suggestions as to where their homeland should be or not be.  The true Afrikaner political parties are advocates for establishing a homeland for their people.
    The Freedom Front (FF) is the only Afrikaner party in the South African Parliament.  The FF supports Afrikaner self-determination and a Volkstaat (a people state). Their leader is General Constand Viljoen, a former Chief of the South African Army, and a former leader of the Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF). The FF's has short, medium, and long term strategies to achieve their goals for an independent homeland.  The first things they would do in their right of self-determination will be to form cultural councils and find areas for settlement.  The second part will be a six-step process in internal self-determination with Afrikaner councils and regional automony near Pretoria and in the Bushveld. The third and final happening, external self-determination, will be a volkstaat in North Western Cape.
    The Conservative Party (CP) is a political party not in the government because it chose not to enter into the 1994 election. The CP's plan  for self-determination, is in a place chosen by the Afrikaner nation, in accordance to the charter of people's rights, and the plan has three interval time plans-"short, medium, and long range plans" because to them there is no sharing of "power in South Africa" with the ANC (Hartenzenberg 1997).
    With only about 7% of the South African  population and dropping, the Afrikaners need a new state so as not to be Africanized into a culture not its own (Why...).   Most of the groups that support a homeland seem to believe that the place to start the Afrikaner state is in Orania in the North West Cape.  Orania is the town that will start the volkstaat for the Afrikaner people.  The new state would have a viable economy and education system for its people.  It would have farms modeled after the moshavs that exist in Israel.  The Van Der Kloof Dam on the Orange River, the biggest source of water in the region, supplies electricity for the town and could supply electricity for an even bigger city.  Even though the town now is small it still has sufficient development to set up a program for the Afrikaner youth. The vision of the future is a new nation for the Afrikaner people by 2015 A.D. that has peacefully became a separate nation from South Africa.  The state will have 450,000 people of whom 65% will be Afrikaners (Volkstaat). The Volkstaat University and the Afrikaans Technical College will provide training and academics (Orania).
 
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Last Updated December 2, 1998