Hannes Wessels

When Quinton De Kock stood fast and refused to obey the order from CSA (Cricket South Africa) to get down on his knees and pay due homage to a racist crusade, my admiration for him soared. Having watched him display cool courage under fire on the cricket field, here he was showing the same steely resolve on a political field it was his misfortune to have found himself upon. Finally someone had found the guts to take a stand in the face of the post-modernist fascists who have taken control of every facet of modern life. But it looks like he’s capitulated to the working-class bullies and I’m gutted. During his brief stand against the madness of the cancel culture much crossed my mind.

When he was pilloried, the first question I asked myself was what has become of that most fundamental of human rights; the right to express an opinion. Clearly it no longer applies if one’s opinion does not confirm to the neo-orthodoxies, and this should send a very frightening signal to anyone who believes in freedom.

The gross hypocrisy of it all: here was CSA, a cricket governing body, with impeccable racist credentials in that it insists teams be picked, not on merit but on skin-colour, ordering a man to get on his knee to display his anti-racism credentials. An organisation that issues a statement calling for inclusivity, diversity and equality, that routinely and officially excludes players because they are white.

All this against a backdrop of a country collapsing, where all organs of state and all SOE’s (State Owned Enterprises) are in varying stages of ruination, largely because skilled white people have been excluded.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the BLM (Black Live Matter) movement there is no debate allowed.  The conclusion drawn by the protagonists, that white people alone are responsible for all the human rights abuses of the past five hundred years, is incontestable; and just as in earlier times when people argued the earth was not flat, the penalties for dissent are severe.

If that were not the case Mr. De Kock, as an Afrikaner, might have been allowed to explain to his critics, that while the history of his people includes many wrongs; the apartheid legacy casts a dark shadow across his past, but it was none of his fault, and let nobody forget South Africa was not alone in segregating races; there was a time when it was acceptable in many countries, not least the United States. Having said that, there were many rights.

The first war of ‘liberation’ against imperial rule in Africa was fought by the Boers between 1899 and 1902. Thousands of Afrikaners were killed in two world wars fighting against fascism and the evils of Nazi genocide.  If Hitler had won the second one, his hold on Africa would have tightened and the plight of black people here and around the world would have been dire. In these tumultuous times that shaped the world we live in, two Afrikaners, Generals Jan Smuts and Louis Botha were towering figures of influence who commanded the respect of friend and foe alike. South Africa then was a pivotal power in the world of international relations alongside the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Following the establishment of the South African Union in 1910, until the accession to power of the ANC in 1994, South Africa has been led, primarily, by Afrikaners. Under their rule, the country’s infrastructure became the most developed on the continent with the construction of roads, railways, bridges, power stations and dams. Modern cities were built, well serviced with cheap electricity and water and managed professionally by skilled people who were rarely corrupt. Education was made available to all races and the best universities in Africa were built. Fort Hare was the academic hub for the future black nationalists that would come to dominate African events in the post-colonial era. A sophisticated legal system was introduced and refined to provide effective law and order and a criminal justice system with an independent judiciary that kept crime at levels barely imaginable today. The 1970’s saw South Africa register the fastest economic growth in the world, leading to better quality of life for all races. So successful were the Afrikaners they had to build a sturdy fence around the borders to control the influx of blacks seeking a better life from the recently ‘liberated’ lands to the north.

And despite this, here is a talented Afrikaner sportsman, a hero to millions, who by all accounts, is an exceptionally kind and decent man; who has reached out to black people but was forced to his knees to grovel and ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness from a political class that has more racial legislation on the statute books than ever existed under apartheid, where the leadership including a former president routinely exhort their followers to do no less than ‘kill the Boer’.

The people who rule today may well have their sorry way and the end of the Afrikaner maybe nigh, but the brave Boers of the past would have insisted on fighting on their feet.