Kristof Slagmulder of Vlaams Belang. (Photo:
A member of the Flemish Parliament in Belgium announced this week that he has submitted a motion for a resolution requesting the retention of Article 235 of the South African Constitution. This article explicitly recognizes the right to self-determination of communities with a shared cultural and linguistic heritage, including the Afrikaners.
Kristof Slagmulder, a member of parliament from Vlaams Belang, says he tabled this motion after the uMkhonto we Sizwe party (MKP) proposed a bill here at home to abolish this constitutional protection.
The proposal was made in April this year.
“Anyone who takes the right to self-determination of peoples seriously cannot remain silent when the rights of the Afrikaners come under political pressure, says Slagmulder.
Slagmulder and his party have therefore now pointed out to the Flemish Parliament that Article 235 of the South African Constitution forms an essential constitutional guarantee for cultural autonomy, identity and peaceful coexistence in South Africa.
“Abolishing it would create a dangerous precedent whereby minority rights become dependent on the arbitrariness of temporary political majorities.”
The Flemish Parliament in Brussels. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Slagmulder says he is aware that the Afrikaner community in South Africa is already facing increasing pressure, ranging from violence against farmers to economic exclusion and attacks on property rights.
The proposed resolution also refers to the recent South African Expropriation Act, which allows expropriations without compensation under certain conditions.
Slagmulder believes that this fits in with a broader trend in which constitutional protection for minorities is being undermined.
“The combination of expropriations without compensation and the dismantling of constitutional guarantees creates a climate of legal uncertainty for Afrikaners and other minorities,” he warns.
“It undermines confidence in the rule of law and in the historical compromises on which modern South Africa was built.”
With the resolution, Vlaams Belang therefore requests the Flemish government to convey its concerns diplomatically to the South African authorities and to continue to defend the importance of self-determination and minority rights internationally.
“Because Flanders knows better than anyone else how important language, identity and self-governance are,” says Slagmulder.
This is not the first time that Slagmulder from Flanders steps into the breach for the Afrikaner. He considers South Africa, Afrikaners in particular, as a partner of Flanders because of the two countries’ cultural ties.