LETTER: Afrikaans college meets critical need

Trade union Solidarity’s announcement that it has begun construction of a R300m occupational training college in Pretoria for Afrikaans speakers has taken flak from some quarters. Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said “the language policy is taking the country backwards”; Prof Luka Mosoma, chair of the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, said he was “against the exclusion of other communities through language”; the Sunday Times’s Chris Barron asks: “Do you [Solidarity] see yourselves as part of the [broader] SA project?”

I would not have said this in the great Nelson Mandela’s day, but now I am 100% behind Solidarity. Why? Having recognised a critical need, and at their own initiative, they are constructing a valuable asset with their own funds. The Afrikaners have a proud history of developing their own political and economic institutions to advance their interests. After the Boer War and World War 1 they didn't dwell on their “poor white” status but initiated the development of iconic institutions such as Eskom, Iscor, the Industrial Development Corporation and later Sanlam, Sasol and Rembrandt, among others.

By contrast our non-Afrikaans speaking brethren — in government for 25 years, have overseen the theft of R100bn from our state-owned enterprises, the trashing of university campuses during the fees must fall campaign at a cost of R600m, the demise of Eskom, Denel, SA Airways, Transnet, the SABC, the economy, education and health, the wanton destruction of infrastructure by unruly mobs, strike action at the drop of a hat, and so on, ad nauseum.

Go Solidarity: build your training centre and look after your own kind. No-one else is going to do it for you, least of all the government.

John Perry

Hartbeespoort