The battle lines are drawn in South Africa. Land-expropriation and Julius Malema’s infamous hate-songs have the whole world talking. Yet, what struck me as I listened from a distance to quite a few Afrikaner activists fighting back, is that they mostly use the far-left’s playbook in doing so. That seems to me to be the wrong option. What I mean is this: if they merely respond to Juju’s hate-songs and ANC’s race laws by telling everyone that they also have a right to the land, since their ancestors arrived there already since 1652, and they purchased the land they live and farm on fair and square, then it’s not going to end well. We can’t bargain on Donald Trump to be there forever, nor do we want to.
In need of a stronger narrative
We need far stronger narrative. One that would awaken sensitivities in the hearts of millions, especially (but not only) in Africa. These apologists for the Afrikaner-cause do in many ways a truly amazing and courageous job. For that I admire them. Yet, they also tell us, every so often, that they are Christian— even on the Tucker Carlson Show. And yet rarely if ever would they dare to use proven Christian arguments in service of their noble cause! The reason for this reluctance, I suggest, lies deep in the Afrikaner psyche. At best it may be a pious refusal to mix religion with politics; at worst it may be the result of fear— the fear to risk embarrassment or to lose potential allies.
Yet, if we consider how many public figures, Christian or not, have come out in recent times, acknowledging boldly that it is Christianity—and not the Greeks or Romans, and least of all some so-called “Enlightenment”—that gave us the very best of Western civilization (and certainly not its worst), then why not use Christian talking points much more? What is there to lose? Why not use “the playbook” of your best advocate, but rather that of your worst enemy? Is it perhaps because Afrikaner Christianity has for so long been so sadly compromised between the Word of God and the approval of the world? I have always said, only one kind of Christian in the world could keep their Bible and Die Huisgenoot on the same coffee table for so long. Is that longstanding compromise perhaps now taking its toll? Maybe we struggle too much to distinguish between our Christian faith and our Afrikaner culture, for the two are absolutely not identical! Its as simple as this: If the Judeo-Christian worldview prevails, minorities will prevail. But if it goes under, minorities will most certainly suffer.
I say this for another reason. I am privileged to travel widely through Africa every year, meeting with Christians from many different nations and denominations. Their sympathies are for sure not with the Communists, nor with the far-left down south. The same holds true for the other South African minorities, and for millions of our own country’s African people. There is a way to win their hearts that would be far more effective than merely fighting for Afrikaner survival, however worthy that cause may be.
Naboth’s vineyard
Let me illustrate what I mean with a well-known story from the Hebrew Scriptures, found in I Kings 21. Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, right next to King Ahab’s palace. One a given day the king began to covet his neighbour’s vineyard for his vegetable garden and so he offered Naboth even a better piece land or money, whatever he wished. King Ahab, “who did more evil than all those before him” (II Kings 16:30), was willing to fully compensate an ordinary “citizen” for his land. What a lesson to Mr. Ramaphosa and his ilk! But we all know the story, how Naboth stubbornly refused. “God forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers,” he replied. His roots went deep into the soil. That land was theirs for ages, maybe even since the conquest of Canaan.
And so, Ahab went into a state of utter depression, playing the victim card, until his wife Jezebel (the most wicked woman in Scripture) saw his sullen face where he laid on his bed. “Why are you so sullen?” she asked. And so she came up with a perfect plan to cheer him up. She will recruit tsotsis to falsely accuse Naboth of blasphemy (something Islamic radicals are very good at doing by the way) and have him stoned to death. And so, lo an behold, soon after all the chiefs of that sorry city came together for an indaba and summoned poor Naboth to answer to these false charges— just like Jesus had to do centuries later. The next day the news ran a short and somber headline all through the land: “Naboth the blasphemer is dead!” Jezebel could tell her husband: “Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead.” And so, king Ahab got his farm, but almost every command in God’s law was broken in the process.
Does it not sound strikingly familiar? “We want the land, so let’s take it, but we won’t offer them anything, for they (and here is false accusation) are such evil people.” In fact they are “sub-human” says Andile Mngxitama, MP for the new uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party. This man recently yelled at a rally “We will kill the white man’s children! We will kill the white man’s women! We will kill anything that we find in our way!” And why? Because the narrative has now been so well established in the psyche of the envious and ignorant far-left populace… “they were the worst of oppressors, and stole our land.” And so Malema shouts “Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer, brrr…pa-pa-pa-pa…!” with thousands of red-shirts calling for blood.
So, it’s all there. Its the sanctification of hatred, envy, theft, lying and murder. There is naked greed, while the Lord said: “Thou shalt not covet.” There is false accusation, while the Lord said: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” There is pure hatred, while the Lord said “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, as thyself.” And there is the blatant perversion of justice by the Constitutional Court (declaring the hate-song innocent), which the living God hates.
Why not use the Bible more?
Why do we not use the Bible then? Did Jesus not say in John 10, “Satan only came to kill and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and that in abundance”? What good will come of it all? I recently walked on a farm near Harare that was violently taken by Robert Mugabe’s war veterans twenty years ago. How sad was it to see the ruins of what was once a flourishing dairy farm that provided work and food for hundreds (picture below). I spoke with the locals. I heard their story. Yes, for sure, life was not always so good under Ian Smith; whites and blacks were not really treated the same. But then came Comrade Mugabe and his farm invasions, and all that was left was death and destruction. Zimbabweans are suffering to this day. No life, but death came from those politics. Was it from God? Really? What kind of god would not only empty your once famous breadbasket, but even steal the basket altogether? The one who is called the “Bread of Life,” and who gave his life up for the world?
But why is the Word of the Lord never mentioned? And why do we keep silent about the obvious false far-left narrative that South Africa under apartheid was only evil, i.e., that whites were all racist, have killed millions and stole the entire land. Even the very same Julius Malema have once in a while mentioned some good things that happened under white rule. Is our silence and lack of exposing their falsehoods not part of the problem? How can we expect a new generation and the rest of the world not to believe that it was maybe all true? I am not saying its never been done, but hardly well enough and bold enough to make a big difference. And yet, there are millions of Africans, Indians and Brown people my age, walking around in South Africa today, who know the far-left’s picture of the past is a grossly distorted one; distorted for pure political purposes. These folks just don’t have the platform to say it out loud.
I well recall teaching a group of students in the Eastern Cape in 2020 before Covid, hearing a younger Xhosa woman mention that ten million Africans were killed under apartheid. “Are you sure?” I asked her. “Why did Bishop Desmond Tutu then testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee that [only] 22 000 died, of whom 20 000 were killed in the final years before the 1994 elections during the ANC’s brutal campaign against Inkatha?” “Oh” she said “I did not know, but it sure feels like ten million were killed.” And yet, she was born long after the heyday of apartheid.
One only has to look at the campaign posters of the ANC and Inkatha Freedom Party during the 2000 election cycle, to realize why the radical left needs this narrative, so as to make apartheid and a small minority of whites the scapegoats for all their woeful failures. Look what the ANC promised for so long! And look how a Christian gentleman, Dr. Mangosuthu Buthelezi, warned us 25 years ago what would happen under ANC rule.
A double-edged sword
But then, if we say we as Afrikaners are predominantly Christian, then we need to take a good look in the mirror. Somewhere in the Klein Karoo stands a sign next to the highway for many years already, saying: “Suid-Afria draai terug na God!” (South Africa return to God). This is what must happen. We must be willing to humbly admit before God and man that which was truly evil and wrong. First of all, we must be willing to listen to ordinary upright South Africans of colour from that era, asking them: “What was it that hurt so much..?”
“Tell me, what have we done?” I have done it quite a few times, and will never forget the answers. It sometimes made me weep, and sad with grief. Some have very few negative memories, aside from the time when everything got so violent in the townships since the mid 1980s. But others will recount moments of deep humiliation at the hands of blatantly racist whites, and white-only institutions, or the effect that petty race-laws had on their sense of dignity. Some will mention the mere pittance they received for their back-breaking labour under the bloody African sun, or for slogging it out in a deep gold mine, or how they were forcibly removed from their ancient land (District Six) to make room for a highway or some new white suburbs.
Many will also tell you about the love and respect they received from their white “masters,” or the wonderful relationship they have had for years with the homeowners they worked for, not to forget the gospel that reached their hearts and homes. They will tell you of job opportunities, basic services, medical care and relative safe streets in the townships during those years. But of course, none of this will ever be heard on the SABC, Al Jazeera or on CNN.
Not only must we be willing to admit and confess to what was sinful and wrong, but we must be willing to return that which was really stolen. If it can truly be proven that some land was forcibly or illegally taken, then a way must be found to give it back, or to offer fair compensation. Considering how small the country’s population was by, for instance, the time of the Great Trek, then such claims (even if proven valid) can’t amount to much. But if some want to allege that the continent of Africa basically belonged to the Black man, then it can be dismissed with nonchalance, for such a notion is not only racist, but foreign to international law, to simple common sense and to the Bible itself. Would the leftist rag-tags dare to say the same thing to the Arab nations up north, whose ancestors really took large parts of African soil by the sword?
But we will also have to take a long deep look at the moral collapse of our own nation. To name but a few things; what has happened to marriage among us? Why are there so many stories of husbands abusing and even killing their wives over the last three decades? Why have we destroyed the foundations of our mainline churches, flirting with every possible heresy under the sun? Why do we seem to love the glory of rugby more than the glory of the Risen Lord Christ? Why have we become so infatuated with style and convenience, that we can hardly fathom raising more than one or two kids for the Lord? Why do so many parade their great wealth, while gently stepping over poor Lazarus lying at their gate?
True Afrikaner Christians stand out anywhere in the world as examples to all, but the rest who claim to be Christian, must now return to the Lord and to his church, if we wish the God of heaven to intervene in our country and if we hope to win the hearts of others. According to a new report by the UK Bible Society, The Quiet Revival, there is something happening in Britain that is truly astonishing. In their deepest existential crisis as a nation, huge numbers are returning to Jesus Christ and to the church, a movement amazingly led by young men age 18-34. Something similar has to happen among Afrikaners and all South Africans if our country is going to turn the corner. We can begin by just taking our solemn vows before God seriously again. That will have an amazing impact on how we live and speak, how we love and cherish our spouses, fulfill our callings, serve our churches, and our beloved country. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy…
To whom does Africa belong?
The earth belongs to the Creator, who shows no partiality, and who will accept anyone from any nation who fears him and does what is right (Acts 10:34-35). Those who do evil, however, must expect to face his vengeance, and to be wiped from the earth eventually, if they stubbornly remain impenitent (Psalm 37). It is the meek that will inherit the earth, said Jesus in one of his beatitudes. That was the simple teaching of David, the prophets and of Jesus Christ and his apostles.
The hate-songs of the EFF and the racist laws of the ANC, however, do not come from the Bible, but from a very dark origin. To sow hatred and division, or to stoke fear through intimidation— simply because you have greater numbers—is not a sign of greatness, but of deep insecurity and immaturity.
To respond to it all with vengeance and bitterness would not be Christian either, for evil shall only be conquered with good. The only hope for South Africa is reconciliation through the message of the cross. It was on that cross that Messiah Yeshua bore the wrath of God on all our iniquities and sins, i.e, both our individual and collective sins. It is only as we repent, realizing what we have done and have been forgiven for, that we will be moved with compassion to forgive and accept one another. The only other option is one of an ongoing spiral of hatred and violence, and of oppression and subjugation.
If there is a God, and if he accepts those who fear him and repent of their sins, then Afrikaner Christians should now begin to use the language of the gospel to engage their adversaries in truth. That is their only hope. For only the living God can give us a future in that beautiful land of so much sorrow, filled with so many beautiful people of all races. Such a humble but bold approach might have many surprising results, among others, that those who really claim to be Christian on the other side, will think twice, and even become ashamed of their ideology. This struggle is NOT between white and black, God forbid!, but between light and darkness. It is NOT against flesh and blood, or even against radical politicians, but against the evil spirits of this present darkness. Its a war of ideas, in which superior ideas will only prevail, if backed and supported with much prayer, and with mercy and justice (Micah 6:8).
If this battle is going to be fought on Biblical grounds, then we might see millions of Christians across the continent and beyond, taking up the cause for truth and righteousness in South Africa, not to forget the millions of our fellow South Africans who yearn for hope and a future. I have spoken to so many of them. Their hearts are gold. They don’t hate the West or the white man, but only want to see peace and justice prevail in our land, as well as harmony among us all. Shalom!
