The modern language politics of the South African party Freedom Front+/FF+: the pain points and the ways towards overcoming

Abstract

The party line of the right-wing South African party Vryheidsfront Plus/VF Plus/Freedom Front+/FF+ is in large part focused on the necessity of the development of the rich local language diversity (including the South African sign language) as well as on the language rights’ upholding of the South African ethnic groups. The particular attention is paid to the issues of the Afrikaans language retention (the crackdown on which is painfully tolerated by the FF+) and the extension of the possibilities for its using, considering that the primary objective is to widen the spheres of the educational activities concerning Afrikaans. The party takes into consideration the uneasy situation primarily related to the formation and evolvement of Afrikaans as a separate language and then to its existence as a medium of instruction, which since the apartheid regime demolishing has been fraught with a whole variety of difficulties. Hence, the FF+ regards the history of the Afrikaans triumphs and setbacks as a decent example of the dignified struggle for the right to the full existence also for other South African local languages the native speakers of which are interested in the preservation of the cultural heritage. The party refuses to acknowledge the ostensibly subordinate position of the official state’s languages towards uniquely English assuming the actual eradication from the public sphere all of the vernacular languages besides the English one to be an unacceptable manifestation of the anglophiles’ imperialism, which is characterised by the linguistic expansion into the South African area. From the FF+ perspective, the threat of the erosion of the native languages’ role against the omnipotent dominance of English appears to be a justification for the existence of the Afrikaner nationalism, which once played a prominent role in strengthening the Afrikaans positions at all levels of the socio-political life. The FF+ insists on the necessity of the provision of educational services in the mother tongue for both pupils and students what, based on the party members’ position, will aid in the better comprehensibility of the material as well as creation of the comfortable and familiar environment for the learners. The implementation of such an intention is to attain the following goals, i.e., the promotion and the maintaining of the South African language diversity (as an integral part of the cultural mosaic) and the defending the right to the language choice of tuition. To add to it, in the party’s eyes, the right to use their own languages for the South Africans ought to be spread, inter alia, into the interaction with public agencies.

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