Dear Mr. Secreve

Your reply to my letter reveals the arrogant filter through which you view the world. You assume that because my surname is Schutte that I am a turncoat Afrikaner and I support the racist anti Afrikaner rantings of Antjie Krog, Gordimer, Time magazine and the hurtful words uttered by Helen Suzman.  

No Mr. Secreve I am an English Speaking South African, no more Afrikaans than an Aucamp or a De Villiers born in South Africa is a Frenchman, and I do not support hate speech in any form.  

You deduce from my writing that I support the downward spiral that is South Africa today. Once again an incorrect assumption, I support a democratic South Africa where equity and the rule of law abound. (Democracy ensures that the Afrikaner will no longer rule South Africa )

What I don’t support is your brand of Afrikaner, a group of people who for years have vilified English speaking white South Africans whilst sowing the seeds of your own destruction through destroying the hopes and dreams of a number of generations of black people. Now that you are under threat on a number of fronts your leaders/spokesmen talk about calling on English speaking white South Africans to form a coalition with the Afrikaner. I think not Mr. Secreve.

Your assumptions about me reveal your logic which seems to be of the kind, ‘either you are with me or you are against me’. I wish you well in preserving your Afrikaner culture, where I don’t wish you well, is preserving that arrogance which caused the Afrikaner to create the fertile soil which feeds the current malaise of crime, violence and African hegemony .

The cause of the Afrikaner’s survival is not a sad and pathetic one as you have assumed is my belief. Rather it is the contribution by those English speaking white South Africans who allow themselves to be duped by you and your fellow Afrikaner zealots, into thinking that the way to oppose the injustices perpetrated by the ANC government is to join the cause of Afrikaner nationalism.

What do I want next you ask.  I want a South Africa where people respect each other’s differences, something you and your fellow zealots seem to know little about.

Karl Schutte