Flip Buys (Photo: Christine Oelofse/Maroela Media)
In 1997, at the age of 34, Flip Buys was elected general secretary of the then Miners’ Union, which would later become Solidarity. Since then, Buys has been sitting on two chairs: on the one hand as CEO of the trade union and on the other hand as chairman of the umbrella organization the Solidarity Movement.
Now, after 29 years, Buys is finishing up at the trade union Solidarity, the organization from which everything was born.
“On the one hand, I am resigning from the trade union, so that I can join the Solidarity Movement,” Buys said in an interview with Maroela Media.
Henceforth Buys will therefore only focus on chairing the Solidarity Movement, which includes organizations such as Solidarity, AfriForum, the Solidarity Helping Hand, Sol-Tech, Akademia and Maroela Media.
With his formal and executive duties at the union coming to an end, he will lay down one of the two hats he has worn so far. The Solidarity Movement hat remains, the role for which he is otherwise more generally known.
“Dirk Hermann was appointed by the Solidarity main board as my successor as chief executive. (He) also acted as chief executive for a long time, which means the transition was smooth and well planned in advance.”
“After about 30 years, I have at least done my part on the trade union side,” says Buys with a smile.
“It is a great privilege to be able to say that the union is in good condition and we have a good leader who focuses on it, that I can focus on the Movement and what goes along with it.”
This major new phase that the Solidarity Movement is in, with the scope of activities that have been adopted over the years, is part of an organizational acceleration which, according to Buys, needs more dedicated attention.
“With the building of the various Movement Institutions, which was always the goal, it subsequently became impossible to continue sitting on both chairs, and that is why it was decided to separate the roles so that both can be fulfilled in their own right.”
This is a giant organization and does not happen by itself, explains Buys.
Already at the congress where Buys was elected in 1997, he mentioned that the trade union must eventually be expanded into a movement of language and cultural institutions with the broad aim of protecting and promoting Afrikaner interests and their place in the new dispensation.
Since then, the Movement has indeed grown to nearly 50 institutions with more than 570,000 members.
Because the trade union Solidarity as the mother institution was still to a large extent the engine of the broader umbrella organization in recent decades, with numerous shared services for the sake of optimization, there was still a lot of interweaving between Movement institutions. This is also the reason why Buys remained with the union in the years even after the Solidarity Movement began to take shape as a broader movement.
“However, as the other organizations grew, they developed independence and autonomous executive capacity which takes the Movement into this new phase.”
Dr. Dirk Hermann and Flip Buys. (Photo: Reint Dykema)
Buys expects a smooth transition of leadership in Solidarity, because he and Hermann have been working together for years and have been busy with a systematic handover in recent years with well-thought-out succession planning.
“Work-wise, not much will change, but responsibility-wise (it leaves me) with one less major management responsibility. I am very grateful that there is someone like Dirk to whom the baton can be passed.”
According to Buys, good succession planning has played a major role in the Movement’s development so far.
“The final test for leadership is often the successor. The art is not in managing a team, but in building a team; in gathering leaders who gather leaders around them. This is how one gets organizational depth.”
The Solidarity Movement that exists today was therefore not built overnight or without effort.
“At the time, we didn’t have the money, executive ability, leaders or people, and had to systematically build and develop it based on a vision.”
Apart from the mammoth organizational task, the post-1994 zeitgeist was even more challenging. It was a time when many of the ideas that Solidarity adhered to, of the less utopian scenarios for the country that they provided for and planned for, were very unpopular and for which I often received severe criticism.
“That’s why I’m also very grateful that the main council always supported us and was understanding of what was unfolding, because they moved much closer to people at the ground level than the critics in ivory towers.”
We were not negative about the country, just realistic. We read the ANC’s documents and believed them. We therefore did not work with our wishes, but with the realities, explains Buys.
The conclusion they finally came to?
“For the sake of democracy, for the sake of freedom, for the sake of survival, we must start an organization within every sphere of society to promote and protect Afrikaner interests.”
As numerous warnings unfortunately became reality, the government steadily decayed and the Solidarity Movement steadily succeeded, overwhelming criticism turned into overwhelming support.
“Before, people thought it was unnecessary and impossible (to build alternatives themselves). Most people have now started to realize that it is indeed necessary and possible, which is why we get more support today than in the past.”
Looking back now, after 29 years, on the various growth phases during his time at the union is bittersweet for Buys.
“It was often a hard time, but also a very nice time. You grew to love the people of the union. So the retirement is sad on the one hand, but on the other hand I am also happy that they are still in good hands with a strong and stable leadership corps.
“I look back with gratitude and hope forward.”
Because Buys believes that your vision for the future must always be stronger than your memory of the past, he is very positive about the future of the Solidarity Movement which he now dedicatedly leads.
“People often focus on the large-scale decay that is taking place in the country. Although it makes us all depressed, this is not all that is happening. There is also a huge building process in the private and community sectors. Although there is decay from above, there is also building from below.”
That is why the Solidarity Movement also continues in this new accelerated phase to build spaces “that are free from the heavy hand of the state”.
With the new phase dawning, Buys’ sleeves remain hopefully rolled up for the foreseeable future.
“We are still so busy with so many projects, because there is still a lot of work to be done. I am now 63, and God willing, I want to be involved full-time for a few more years.”