The Afrikaner Foundation was launched on 4 July 2024. It was, for now, only a soft launch in the sense that the focus was primarily on the website, emblem and some preliminary activities. A more comprehensive launch will be arranged in the months to follow. Even though the formal launch is still to be arranged, we are now in a position where we can start engaging in the activities of the Foundation, leading up to the more formal launch.
The Afrikaner Foundation is part of the Solidarity Movement, which is a network of institutions in South Africa aimed at ensuring a future for the Afrikaner community to live free, safely and prosperously at the southern tip of the African continent. The Solidarity Movement consists of more than 50 institutions and more than 600 000 members who make monthly contributions to the work of these institutions. These institutions include Solidarity, AfriForum, Solidarity Helping Hand, Akademia, Sol-Tech, the Support Centre for Schools, the FAK, Maroela Media and many others. Each of these have a distinct focus.
Our Movement is inspired by the slogan of our generation: Ons sal self, which translates as “We will do it ourselves”. With this, we mean that we do not expect anyone other than ourselves to fix our problems and secure a better future for our community. We are not waiting for the government, nor are we expecting partners abroad to save us. We are taking responsibility for our own future.
This approach, however, should not be interpreted as that we are not interested in friendship and cooperation. On the contrary, cooperation with a wide network of friends and partners inside and outside South Africa is of the utmost importance to us. In this regard, we use an approach of bonding and bridging. With bonding, we mean that we take pride in our identity and that we actively and unashamedly work for a future for our community. With bridging, we mean that on this basis, we eagerly reach out to other communities for friendship and cooperation. We are convinced that having disagreements on certain issues should not imply that there cannot be cooperation on issues on which there is agreement. This is our guiding principle as far as cooperation is concerned. This goes for cooperation with the South African government, institutions in South Africa, traditional communities in South Africa, and friends and partners abroad.
This is where the Afrikaner Foundation comes in. The aim of the foundation is to facilitate cooperation and support outside of South Africa with regard to the work that the various institutions of the Solidarity Movement is involved with. We are not a government, and we do not levy taxes. Yet, we are involved with a long list of the types of projects that many governments are involved with. These projects primarily revolve around the building of institutions and the execution of projects that aim to serve the community and to build the future we seek to achieve. We believe that such institutions – including the ones mentioned above – should not be run or controlled by the government, but by the community. In this sense, we are inspired by the observations made by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, where he noted that the Americans of the 19th century were driven by a strong sense of community where the building, maintenance and involvement with community institutions act as a cornerstone for healthy community life.
Since we do not levy taxes, we resort to alternative fundraising initiatives. In this sense, we have achieved great success through our members-based institutions and some other ventures aimed at opening revenue streams. The scope of our projects is, however, much larger than what we can afford though our “traditional” fundraising measures. We are currently involved with the building of a new campus for Akademia, the development of private Afrikaans schools, and the development of Orania into a fully-fledged city, to name only a few examples.
In this sense, foreign support is a crucial next step for the Solidarity Movement. The Afrikaner Foundation will serve as a platform that facilitates international cooperation with, among others, the institutions and initiatives mentioned above, and especially to facilitate fundraising abroad.
We believe that the time is ripe for the Afrikaner community to take up their rightful place in the international community again. In this sense, we will not only seek to garner support for our various activities, but also to contribute actively to the international conversation about the protection of community life and the preservation of heritage and tradition.
The road is long, and there is much work ahead of us. But it is work that we eagerly look forward to!
Ernst Roets
Dr Roets is Executive Director of the Afrikaner Foundation
