Spoiler Alert: Nazis Don't Like To Be Called Out For Their Nazism

So this fella - who has to be a fake profile - figures I'm an "English scumbag typical from UK descendant" screeching like a fishwife in all caps (with multiple !!!!!!!! of course) - and he's going to make me famous for "calling Afrikaners Nazis" (referring to the 70k+ Afrikaners who applied to take Trump's offer recently).

There are clearly a few things this person (if it is indeed a person, not a bot) doesn't know.

Let's start right at the top. First, the basics:

1) There isn't a drop of English blood in my entire body - I am of German, Dutch and French descent. When people use "colored" to delineate between people of color or mixed descent, and white people, I tell them "white is also a color". I am by definition, a South African.

2) Afrikaner politics and culture were heavily influenced by literal, actual first-generation Nazis and Nazi sympathizers from at least the 1930s onward. Here are just a few of the most prominent examples:

Johannes Van Rensburg, leader of the Ossewabrandwag (OB), a pro-Nazi Afrikaner nationalist organization founded in 1939 1,2; Louis Weichardt, founder of the Greyshirts, a militant Nazi-sympathizing organization in South Africa that promoted anti-Semitic propaganda 3,4; John Vorster (future PM of SA) a member of the Stormjaers, a militant wing of the Ossewabrandwag that engaged in acts of sabotage against state infrastructure during World War II 5; and Bruno Stiller, leader of the Nazi Party in South Africa, tasked with cultivating Afrikaner organizations like the OB and Greyshirts to promote Nazi ideals among both German nationals and Afrikaners. 6 The "architect of Apartheid" himself, Hendrik Verwoerd (future PM of SA), was a Nazi anti-semitic propagandist operating through "Die Transvaler" in the 1940s. 7,8,9,10,11

Many Afrikaners at that time embraced Nazism because it belonged to a nation that promised them support if they overthrew the British government in SA - and it suited the traditional hatred of "die Engelse" (as this guy just demonstrated) among Afrikaners throughout their history, lingering even up to the present day. Afrikaner nationalism frequently went beyond issues of race or religion, but further despised people across cultural, original and even language boundaries. While growing up, I recall the loathing many Afrikaners displayed towards English-speaking South Africans - and that mixed medium education schools (like several I attended during the 1970s and early 80s) were viewed as rare and somehow special at that time.

I remember quite well being drilled about in the SADF during basics in 1992, while a white Afrikaans Lieutenant stood at the side, presenting us with classical, snappy Nazi salutes as our squads marched past him. I imagine he felt quite the little fuhrer at that moment.

I also remember the utter chaos that emerged at the changeover between Apartheid South Africa and the new dispensation at 1994-6 where Afrikaners suddenly had to write and speak English instead of Afrikaans in the workplace and in official communications - and then their wheels completely fell off. I was frequently disparagingly remindied that "Engels is die taal van die anti-Chris" ("English is the language of the Antichrist") because, well, God and religion naturally side with Afrikaners (and Nazis too) apparently. I'm sure that while that sort of thing is all very interesting for younger generations who weren't around before the emergence of our first real democracy, but I digress yet again. To get back to the point - when I referred to Afrikaners wishing to abandon South Africa to preserve their racial identity and nationalistic separatist culture, as Nazis, was I being unfair? No, given the history, I don't think so at all. I think that if the shoe fits, they should wear it. Denying it isn't going to change anything.

To assert that Afrikanerdom (or Apartheid) or present-day Afrikaner nationalism and identity politics are somehow not connected to historic Nazism, are free of Nazi influence or inherent white supremacist Nazi ideology, is patently ridiculous. They wrap this ideology in flags that suit their "patriotism": the old SA flag, and the flags of the old Boer republics, the AWB flag (that doesn't look like a swastika at all), and others, but Afrikaner political parties (and youth) groups have used white supremacist (and Nazi) symbols (such as the Odal Rune) in the past.12 Add to that the evolved and modified far right ideologies derived directly from original Nazism that most Afrikaner hate groups and quasi-militia entities operate under today - but seemingly they don't want to actually be called "Nazis"? 🤔 ❓

It is precisely because of people like this that my parents - who were both Afrikaans people living during these periods - stopped identifying as "Afrikaners", but rather as "Afrikaans-speaking South Africans". Bigotry, racism and fascism reviled them, as it should any decent human being in touch with their own humanity.

Meanwhile, the actual irony here is that the country offering them "sanctuary" as an "oppressed racial minority" is itself currently experiencing an authoritarian coup with exactly the sort of fascist overtones that bear the unmistakeable hallmarks of Nazi influence.

But sure, dude - go ahead and "make me famous" for calling a spade a spade. 🤣

You're just admitting you don't know your own people's history - or that you don't like being called out on it.