BAREND UYS

The meeting between AfriForum and March and March, and the announcement that a working group has been formed to facilitate co-operation, have been met in some quarters with surprise and even shock. People have asked how organisations so different from one another could find common ground and decide to collaborate.

Of course, this question rests on the underlying assumption that the two organisations have little in common. The truth is that the two organisations agree on important matters, chief among them upholding law and order and the safety of communities. Another significant point of agreement is that both organisations are focused on improving the everyday lives, and future prospects, of communities through practical action at grassroots level.

Some commentators have placed race front and centre, expressing surprise at co-operation between organisations that respectively advance the interests of “white people” and “black people”. It is unfortunately a tragic reality that many people — the political elite in particular — still approach our exceedingly complex South African society through a simplistic black-and-white racial lens.

AfriForum’s vision has remained unchanged for many years: that Afrikaners, who know no other home, can continue living meaningfully as Afrikaners and in peaceful co-existence with other communities, while remaining free, safe and prosperous at the southern tip of Africa.

Our society consists of diverse cultural, linguistic, religious, interest-based and place-based communities, and the everyday realities people face cannot simply be determined and managed along racial lines. While it is one thing to speak of nonracialism, it is quite another for individuals and organisations to rid themselves of that mindset and allow their actions to be guided by other, sound principles.

That is precisely what AfriForum is doing. The organisation recognises the realities of our complex society, along with the multiplicity of identities that come with it. We learn with humility from our past and strive to do what is right, with our eyes fixed on our Lord in heaven and on a good future for our community in this country — in harmony with all the other communities who call the southern tip of Africa home.

AfriForum’s vision has remained unchanged for many years: that Afrikaners, who know no other home, can continue living meaningfully as Afrikaners and in peaceful co-existence with other communities, while remaining free, safe and prosperous at the southern tip of Africa. Grounded in this vision of the future, AfriForum has been building good relations and co-operation for years based on mutual recognition and respect, with organisations and cultural communities that likewise work to promote prosperous and peaceful co-existence in this country.

Much of what AfriForum does benefits all citizens of the country, or all residents of a town or suburb. Court cases regarding electricity tariffs and water supply, the repair of potholes and the monitoring of water quality are a few examples.

Alongside this work AfriForum’s intercultural relations & co-operation division focuses full-time on building positive relations and co-operation with organisations and cultural communities and strengthening communities, alongside Afrikaners. The work being done is too extensive to capture in a single opinion piece, but it is nonetheless worth mentioning a few examples.

A significant first step in AfriForum’s journey toward establishing good relations and fostering co-operation with organisations and cultural communities was the meetings held with the late King Goodwill Zwelithini in 2018.

In 2020 AfriForum, in collaboration with the Southern African Agri Initiative (Saai) and Agri All Africa, began working with the Barolong Boo Seleka of Thaba ’Nchu in the eastern Free State on a vegetable project. The civil rights organisation also assisted the royal family in a court battle after Ace Magashule, then premier of the Free State, attempted to terminate the leadership of the reigning royal family. Since then a joint indigenous veld goat incubation project, and a layer hen project, have been started in the community, and the royal family’s graves and a local monument have been restored.

In 2022 a mutual recognition and co-operation agreement was concluded with the AmaBhele KaJamangile community, based near Maclear in the Eastern Cape, and a joint indigenous veld goat project was launched in partnership with Nkosi Zwelothando Mabandla.

AfriForum and Saai also collaborate with Lebo Mosime and Princess Gaongalelwe Moiloa on their vegetable farms in the Phokeng and Mahikeng areas, respectively. In both instances AfriForum contributed a solar-powered drip-irrigation system to the initiatives.

In 2024 welcome signs in Setswana were erected in co-operation with the Batlharo Boo Tokwana Ba Ga Masibi to strengthen the cultural identity and a healthy sense of cultural self-image of this cultural community in Disaneng, west of Mahikeng.

In October of that year, AfriForum and King Misuzulu KaZwelithini jointly commemorated the life of King Dinuzulu, who died in exile in 1913. This event was hosted in collaboration with the KwaZulu-Natal Amafa and Research Institute on the farm Rietfontein near Middelburg, Mpumalanga. AfriForum also restored the wall surrounding the royal graves on the farm.

AfriForum has the privilege of working with the National House of Traditional & Khoi-San Leaders. As part of their annual Lenaka Memorial Lecture initiative, AfriForum facilitated the supply of water to the traditional council offices of the Batlokoa Ba Mota cultural community in Tsheseng, eastern Free State, in 2025 and assisted in establishing the Mofumahadi MaMontoeli Mota vegetable garden. A layer hen project was launched this year in partnership with the Batlharo Ga Ga Motlhware of Batlharos in the Northern Cape.

In addition, AfriForum concluded a formal agreement with the Ndebele organisation, Vulamehlo Kusile Organisation, in 2023 and jointly launched a campaign to promote the use of isiNdebele by the SABC.

These projects are implemented at grassroots level and provide an opportunity to forge genuine friendships. AfriForum also champions the protection of cultural communities’ rights in other ways, having recently submitted comments on the Traditional & Khoi-San Leadership Bill.

Just as individuals need friends, so too do communities. When trouble looms, the support of a strong friend makes all the difference. That is why AfriForum is building good relations with other communities and organisations at grassroots level and collaborating on projects that make communities more self-sufficient, and therefore stronger. A network of communities able to support one another on the basis of shared interests and values, that will help fill the vacuum left by a failing state, is slowly but surely taking shape.

It was a great privilege for AfriForum to take part in the establishment of the Cultural Communities Network in October 2025. It marked the humble beginning of a platform communities can jointly build into a vehicle that can help make a bright future possible.

If you do nothing, you cannot make mistakes, but nor will you accomplish anything. AfriForum takes action, and that inevitably means we sometimes make mistakes. That is why we remain humble about what we have achieved and, above all, grateful to our loyal supporters, without whom none of our work would be possible. We learn from our mistakes and continue working towards a good future here. We have no other choice, and we expect no one else to take responsibility on our behalf.

AfriForum chooses to do what is right — to live in justice, as NP van Wyk Louw once wrote. It is a wonderful privilege to join hands with other communities and organisations who likewise take responsibility for the future. In this way, we, fortunately not alone, build together towards our dreams for our children.