The Afrikaner Dream is Alive. It is Tangible. And it is Within Reach.

Speech at the Orania Chamber of Commerce

In the Orania Community Hall

25 April 2025

I recently had the privilege of speaking with some prominent figures in the international conservative movement, including people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson. We spoke, not only in front of the camera but also in informal conversations behind the scenes. These exchanges made me reflect on the idea of the Afrikaner Dream in the context of global challenges.

Shapiro, Tocqueville, Vance, and Carlson

I’d like to start with reference to the conversation I recently had with Ben Shapiro. After our interview about the crisis in South Africa and the Afrikaners’ pursuit of freedom, we had time to chat informally in the studio. We spoke about the parallels between Afrikaners and Americans, the threat of leftist ideologies, and the legitimacy of promoting your people's interests on the basis of culture.

We discussed the lessons that can be learned from the South African story. For example, that concessions to leftist activists do not work — especially not when made from a position of majority status. Because when you become a minority, the attacks do not ease; they intensify. That is something the West could learn from our experience. They must understand that we are not behind them, but in some key respects we are already walking the path that still lies ahead for many of our Western friends.

We spoke about democracy — what it is supposed to mean, and what it has become. A democracy that does not acknowledge cultural dynamics, that sees cultural identity as something that stands in the way of nation-building and reconciliation, and that must therefore be eradicated, can hardly be described as a democracy.

This led to a conversation about the observations of the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who traveled through America in the 1830s before publishing his great work Democracy in America. In it, Tocqueville describes democracy as a system in which people are free because they are actively involved in their community, and because the institutions they establish within that context serve as vehicles on the road to freedom.

I jokingly asked Shapiro about Tocqueville’s remark that when you speak to an American about the politics of other countries, their eyes glaze over and they tend to lose interest. Yet, says Tocqueville, when you speak to an American about the American Dream, their eyes light up. Then they cannot stop talking. Even without having read much philosophy, they can speak in philosophical terms about what the American Dream means to them. But they can also relate it to their everyday life.

The American Dream is alive, Tocqueville observed, because it lives in the hearts of Americans — but more importantly, because it finds expression in the work they do every day, not as free-floating individuals, but as a community in which each person uses their unique skills to contribute to the greater whole. They did not concern themselves with abstract theories and ideologies. They rolled up their sleeves and occupied themselves daily with reality. They did real things in the real world that made a real difference. Their wisdom was grounded in lessons learned through experience, before turning to theory and philosophy.

“That’s true,” Shapiro responded. “Tocqueville was right.” But, he added, if you fast-forward to the year 2025, there is now a debate among conservative Americans about what the American Dream really means. Today, the Vice President, J.D. Vance, may be the strongest advocate for the American Dream. He speaks passionately about it — precisely because he is concerned that America has forgotten it.

Vance describes the American Dream as the ability to live a stable, meaningful life, rooted in family, faith, work, and community — regardless of how you were raised. He once summarized the idea as the belief that one day you will be buried next to your father and grandfather, and that your children will remember you as someone who contributed to your community, just as your father and grandfather did before you.

Shapiro differs somewhat from this description and believes the American Dream is more materialistic. For many Americans, he said, the dream is not to be buried next to your father, but to move to the city, become successful, and eventually drive a more expensive car than your father and live in a bigger house than the one you grew up in.

If the America we know today were a place in the fantasy series Game of Thrones, he added, it would not be Winterfell — the city with a deep religious and ancestral consciousness. Nor would it be the corrupt capital, King’s Landing. It would be Braavos — the city with the great statue where the “faceless people” live; a melting pot of immigrants not defined by a particular culture or identity, but as the place people from across the continents travel to in search of material gain. The place with the big bank and the great fleet, but a cultural patchwork.

This ties in with a comment Tucker Carlson once made. When I visited him in Maine in 2021, he spoke passionately about what had made America a great nation — but also about the existential crisis it now faces. “It sounds to me,” I said, “as if something is wrong with American politics.” I played dumb. He burst out laughing. “You think?” Then I asked him: what is the root of the problem? If he had to choose one word to describe the source, what would it be?

He paused for a moment, looked at the ceiling, and then said one word: “Affluence.”

By that, he did not mean that wealth is bad in itself — but that it can become a bad thing if it causes people to lose their cultural roots.

The Afrikaner Dream

The American story is one of a powerful nation that achieved unprecedented political and economic success, but in important ways forgot who they are, lost their culture, and now needs to find it again — and is as a result facing a massive crisis today.

The Afrikaner story is that of a once-powerful nation that remains economically strong, has lost political power, but is, in the turmoil of this upheaval, regaining its footing. We too face cultural challenges, but it is much easier today to describe what Afrikaner culture is than to describe American culture.

“There was once a dream that was Rome,” the emperor Marcus Aurelius declares in the movie Gladiator. “You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.”

This brings me to the question: is there such a thing as a dream for the Afrikaner? Is it something that binds us — and is it so fragile that one can do no more than whisper it?

Let me answer that question right away, before I explain it:

The Afrikaner Dream is alive. It is tangible. And it is within our reach.

What is the Afrikaner Dream?

If we were asked to summarize the Afrikaner Dream in one word, we could do so. That word is: freedom.

But what is freedom?

The writers of modern ideologies have worked hard to corrupt the idea of freedom and present a distorted, un-Christian, anchorless, and aimless version of it to the world.

Freedom is not — as Steven Pinker argues — the freedom to destroy your life with destructive behavior.

Freedom does not require — as Friedrich Nietzsche passionately insisted — that we liberate ourselves from our community and tradition to become some abstract, free-floating, enlightened Übermensch.

Freedom is not — as Sam Harris says — defined by the idea of progress that inevitably leads the current generation to feel ashamed of their ancestors.

No.

Our idea of freedom is anchored in our Christian, Western tradition.

It is not a dream of freedom for Afrikaners at the expense of others, but a freedom founded on the belief that every community has the right to freedom, and that striving for it is an honorable pursuit — not just for Afrikaners, but for all communities.

Opposite Pinker’s idea of freedom as the right to destroy your life, stands the idea of Paul of the New Testament, who says that someone who surrenders to sinful desires is not a free person, but a slave — and that we are only truly free when our eyes are fixed on God, and our thoughts and actions are nourished by the fruits of the Spirit.

Opposite Nietzsche’s idea of freedom as liberation from the community and tradition, stands the idea of Plato and Aristotle, who say that one can only become free within the context of one’s community, and in relation to it; that a free people is one in which each citizen finds his place and, based on his unique skills and talents, contributes to the greater collective.

Opposite Harris’s idea of freedom — the notion that we must be ashamed of our ancestors because we have progressed farther than them — stands Cicero’s, who said that there is nothing so disgraceful as turning your back on your forefathers, and that freedom is precisely found in the idea that we must preserve what we inherited from our ancestors, so that we may pass it on to our descendants.

But as Afrikaners, we do not need to rely only on the great thinkers of antiquity.Our own, unique Afrikaner tradition has much to say about the meaning of freedom.

Think of the Boer War hero, Christiaan de Wet, who said that a man standing on a dung heap among his own people is freer than one living in golden palaces among strangers.

Think of the President of the Free State Johannes Brand, who said that freedom requires each of us to do our part, wherever we find ourselves.

Think of the President of the Transvaal Republic, Paul Kruger, who said that freedom demands we find the good and the beautiful in our past, and establish our ideals for the future upon them.

Think of the Rebellion leader, Jopie Fourie, who found freedom in the greatest sacrifice imaginable, and who, before his execution, triumphantly declared that the ideal of freedom — watered with his blood — would one day bear great fruit.

Think of the religious leader, Father Kestell, who said that freedom is first and foremost the freedom of the people, and that a people can only become free when it liberates itself.

Think of the philosopher, N.P. van Wyk Louw, who said that freedom does not mean cutting ourselves off from our tradition, but that we live from our tradition, draw from it, and contribute to it on the road to freedom.

But here’s the irony…

In 1994, Afrikaners were promised freedom.

We were told that our forefathers were wicked and deceitful, and that the path to freedom lay in rejecting everything that was old and embracing ideas so new they could best be described as experimental.

The promise of freedom was tied to the notion of a “rainbow nation,” in which the diversity of all South Africa would be fused into one — as if there were no significant cultural or worldview differences between the country’s many communities.

This promise of freedom was a failure.The new ideas failed.The paradise never took root.And we are not free.

We don’t say this because we read it in a book.We say it because we live it — every day.

How on earth can anyone — Afrikaner or not — declare that they are free in a country where:

• Crime is out of control, with 75 murders a day and two children raped every hour?
• Corruption and mismanagement are rampant, with hundreds of billions of rands stolen by corrupt politicians and only 13% of municipalities receiving clean audits?
• The education system is collapsing, with 80% of schools dysfunctional, 81% of Grade 4 learners unable to read, and 35% of learners dropping out before completing high school?
• Infrastructure is crumbling, with power cuts on over 200 days per year, more than 40% of water lost through leaks, and ports ranked among the worst in the world?
• The economy is suffocating, with unemployment above 30%, 45% of the population dependent on social grants, and 85% of income tax paid by only one in thirty people?
• Discrimination and injustice against minorities are rife, with politicians romanticizing the elimination of minority groups from public platforms, the president declaring that minorities should have fewer rights, and more than 140 racially discriminatory laws on the books?
• Culture is actively denied, with courts ruling that certain minorities have fewer rights, and traditional leaders and authority structures not only being ignored by the government but actively undermined?
• The state is heading toward a fiscal cliff, where debt service, social grants, and public servant salaries already consume about 80% of the national budget?

In earlier times, people built walls around cities to protect their communities. Today, we no longer build walls around cities — we build them around our homes.

A community whose children grow up behind high walls, whose elderly die in dilapidated hospitals, and whose workers are actively excluded — is not a free community.

So let us say it again — precisely because it is controversial, but because it must be repeated until the message is heard, and because recognizing reality is the first condition that must be met before a solution can be found:

Afrikaners are not free

The peoples of South Africa are not free

If the most basic function of the state is to protect life, liberty, and property — but the state fails spectacularly at all three — then how on earth can we regard it as a legitimate state?

But here’s the important point: The failure of the state and the denial of our freedom is not due to the wrong person being president, nor to the wrong party winning the election.

No — it is the inevitable consequence of a political system that is flawed at its root. It is the political version of saying: a square peg in a round hole.

A system that looks good in theory, but simply does not work — because it does not speak to reality.

A system that tries to take root in the illusion that artificial unity will sprout when natural communal identity is suppressed.

South Africa was given a “one size fits all” political order: An ideological, globalist dream that wages war on reality but is presented as democracy. A system that aims to erase cultural differences in the name of peace, as if the act of erasing these differences itself does not already undermine peace. A political order based on an ideology that promises harmony and reconciliation, but in practice delivers disillusionment.

Just as the Americans are beginning to remember what they once were, the Afrikaners are rediscovering who we still are.

Our roadmap to freedom is not built on new, ideological or utopian prescriptions. It is grounded in lessons from reality, in the good and the beautiful we inherit from our past.

That is why we understand that freedom is not something that is demanded from above. It is something that must be built from below.

We understand that the future does not belong to the politicians, commentators or academics who sit in air-conditioned offices drafting documents to prescribe what reality should be — trying to force reality to fit their ideology, rather than adapting their ideology to fit reality.

The future belongs:

• to the man who rolls up his sleeves, gets his hands dirty and digs a trench,
• to the woman who sells pastries to raise money for the school,
• to the boys and girls who live outdoors and learn from the world around them,
• to the student who engages actively in campus life, gains experience and learns how to make a positive impact,
• to the grandparents who tell their grandchildren about their culture and history.

We believe this because we also believe that building freedom from below is not only in our own interest, but that in doing so, we also pave a path that can be followed by any community who, like us, believes that a people must build freedom from below before it can be demanded from above.

The Afrikaner Dream is not a utopia. We don’t believe in silver bullets or final solutions. We understand that people are fallen, broken beings capable of great evil. But we also understand that people are created in God’s image, and that we are capable of great beauty and astonishing achievement — if we set our dreams toward Him and a higher purpose.

We don’t believe in a future free of pain or sorrow — but we know that a people can move forward or backward, and that by our actions we can make things better or worse.

Our ideal of freedom is not based on the belief that perfection can be reached, but that we can move forward — and make things better; that we can carry the treasure we inherited from our forefathers safely through the crowd — and even more, that we can add to this treasure before handing it over to our children. That we won’t only sing My Sarie Marais and Ken jy die Land with our children, but that we will write new songs they can sing around the campfire. That we won’t only read Geknelde Land and Kringe in ’n Bos to them, but that we will write new books that they will one day read to their children. That we won’t only recite Winternag and Skoppensboer, but that we will write new poems that our children will read and cherish.

And if we work for a better political order, we admit that it could take different forms — but we also know that it will only take root if it is planted in good soil. This “good soil” requires a few key ingredients:

• It requires a decentralized political system, so that power is closer to the people, and people can govern themselves;
• It requires a return to the natural order of things — in other words, an understanding that culture and cultural identity are normal and natural, and that any attempt to erase it — or any political system that sets itself up as the enemy of culture — is doomed to fail;
• It requires recognition of who and what we are, where we come from — but also recognition of who and what others are, and that even though different peoples think differently about things like history, philosophy and culture, there is not always a single “right” or “wrong” way.Often, the “right” way is as simple as respecting communities for how they see the world and how they want to live — even if we do not see it the same way, or live the same way.

These things are essential — because a system in which communities recognize each other, govern themselves, and respect differences, is not only possible, but good and necessary.

I have just a few months left before I officially become a middle-aged man. But I can already see that younger generations do things differently from me, think differently, make jokes I don’t always understand, listen to music that sounds strange to my ears, and have preferences that don’t always make sense to me. My instinct — like every generation before me — is to complain about “the youth of today.” And indeed, there is much to complain about.

But we must also understand that the frustration of older people with the behaviour of the young is not unique to our time or our circumstances. It is as old as humanity itself. Plato complains about the Athenian youth in his great works. Cicero complains about the Roman youth when he bellows his famous slogan in the Senate, “o tempora, o mores!” (oh the times, oh the morals!). My grandparents’ generation worried about my parents’ generation — just as their parents worried about them.

Yet I believe that our Afrikaner youth are strong. Perhaps stronger than we think:

• They may think differently about church, but they are not without faith. In fact, they are more inclined to speak about faith than their parents — or, to put it differently, they are less hesitant to mention faith when speaking about current affairs.
• They do not think of themselves as perpetrators, even though they are often treated like perpetrators. This makes them rebellious — but rebellious for the right reasons.
• They do not deny their Afrikaner identity or cultural heritage. They listen to Afrikaans music, and they are much more inclined to wear broad-brimmed hats and khakis than I am — precisely because clothing that explicitly displays Afrikaner identity, once out of fashion, is now in fashion.

Their great strength is that they do not carry the baggage that their immediate forebears do. Insofar as people try to load this baggage onto their backs, they simply shake it off. They are not naïve — they are bold. Bolder than their parents. And we live in a time where we need more, not less, boldness.

They are not trapped in old arguments. They are developing their own arguments — new arguments, but not new because they are uprooted. New because they speak to the challenges of our time.

It is they who will inherit the dream — not as a relic from the past, but as a compass pointing the way to a better future.

That is why I speak to you today with a spring in my step. That is why I do not lean forward because I am weighed down — but because I am eager to seize the future, to get my hands dirty, precisely because I know that I am not alone.

We are not here, as Marcus Aurelius said, to whisper our dreams — whispering, because we fear that anything louder than a whisper will make it vanish. Our dream is deeply rooted, it is honourable, and it is just. We stand on the right side of history.

The Afrikaner Dream lives. It is tangible. And it is within our reach.

The dream that our children will speak the same language as us — without shame, that they will sing songs in this language — not just songs of protest, but songs of heritage, meaning and love, that our children will know where they come from, and where they are going.

It is the dream of a child playing outside — without fear, the dream of a student finding his calling — that place where he can contribute something no one else can, because he or she has been uniquely equipped by God for it, the dream of a working person — to work freely and to find fulfillment in that work, the dream of a parent — that her children will find love, happiness and peace, the dream of an old person — that the value he or she added will not be forgotten, the dream of a community — that its culture and traditions will be preserved for future generations.

That is why we do not need to whisper. We can proclaim it boldly. We can climb a mountain and shout it:

We are Afrikaners, we will remain Afrikaners, and we will be free again!

Today, we are not just sharing dreams, but a message to the world: that true freedom is not found in abstract progress, but in prayer, community and faith — in the rediscovery of ancient wisdoms, not in the invention of new experiments.

Nietzsche once declared: “God is dead! God remains dead. And we have killed Him.” Nietzsche was wrong. God is not dead. God lives on. And we are only capable of doing the things that fall within His will.

God lives. We experience the power of His work every day — when the sun rises, when a baby is born, when we say goodbye to a loved one. We see it in nature, we smell it in the fields, we hear it in our language, we feel it in our love… and we taste it — not only in the food and drink He provides each day — but also in our calling, in our dreams, and in the extent to which we succeed in making these dreams a reality — when we roll up our sleeves and do the work.

That is why we will build. Not because it is easy. Not because we have all the answers. And not because we can predict the future in uncertain times. But because it is right and honourable. Not because we must do it alone — but because we are called to it, and because we find fulfilment in living out our calling, as a community and as citizens of that community.

The Afrikaner Dream is not dead. It lives in our language, in our culture, and in our tradition. It lives on in our laughter and in our tears, in the works of our hands, and in the soil beneath our feet.