What are we fighting for?

Speech delivered at the New York Young Republicans Club on 23 July 2024

(The author speaking at the New York Young Republicans Club; photo: Michael Cravotta)

The good must associate

There is a famous line often attributed to Edmund Burke. So famous that people who have no idea who he was, know only this one thing that he evidently said. We have all heard it. It goes like this:

              “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

The truth is this is just an extrapolation of what he actually said. What he did say is even better:

“When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

The actual statement has much more depth, because it recognises that there will always be bad men, but that these bad men become a real threat when they join forces, that there is a difference between good and evil, that some people seek to protect the good, while others seek to destroy it, that we are more than individuals, that we will fall – one by one – if we try to face evil by ourselves, that community and association are good, and that if we associate, we have the capacity to overcome the fiercest of obstacles.

What are we fighting for?

So much has happened in American politics in the past two weeks, too much to mention! We have all seen former President Donald Trump getting shot, dropping to the ground, surrounded by Secret Service agents, and then getting back up with his fist in the air, calling on his followers to “fight!”

This is what I want to talk about today: What are we fighting for?

It seems that, in our day and age, it has become easier to explain what we are fighting against. Yet, we can never truly understand what we are fighting against if we don’t have clarity about what we are fighting for. When someone asks us who we are, it’s not enough to say that we are not “not left” or “not woke”.

Afrikaners

I am an Afrikaner. I come from a nation that has lived at the southern tip of the African continent for almost four hundred years. We are Westerners, because we sprout from Western civilisation with its foundations in Athens, Rome and Jerusalem. But we are also African, in the sense that our culture and identity have become inextricably linked to the African continent. This is evident in the unique culture and language we have developed, and the fact that we have named our language, Afrikaans, and our nation, the Afrikaners, after the African continent.

The Afrikaners of the 20th century went through considerable effort to build a strong state. That state was not sustainable for a variety of reasons. When the state fell, it didn’t merely collapse, it was taken over, and the institutions that we have built became weapons used against us. The South African government follows a strategy that they call the National Democratic Revolution, which boils down to using democracy to promote socialism – gaining control of the levers of power under the cloak of being democrats, only to use this to wage an ideological war on targeted communities. Those in power in South Africa are bold enough to describe their ideology as a blend of race nationalism and socialism (as if that has never been tried). Yet they have successfully convinced much of the world that they only seek peace and prosperity. Either this, or those who support them have no qualms with race nationalism and state oppression, as long as it's their preferred race and their state.

Faced with more than 140 race laws in South Africa today, and the collapse of every single government function, except tax collection of course, the Afrikaner people have rediscovered an ancient truth. This is that the only sustainable road to freedom is through well-functioning community institutions built on a strong sense of communal identity. We have lost this, but our experience has led us to rediscover these things. America, it seems, has lost it as well, while this has been part of the fabric that has led America to greatness in the past. If there was only one thing that Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton agreed on, it would’ve been this. It is especially evident in the observations made by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America.

The Afrikaner Foundation

This is where the Afrikaner Foundation comes in. The Solidarity Movement in South Africa is a network of more than 50 community institutions aimed at ensuring a future for the Afrikaner people. These include Solidarity, AfriForum, Solidarity Helping Hand, the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Organisations, Akademia, Sol-Tech, Maroela Media, the Orania Development Company and many others. We are very proud to say that everything we have achieved over the last couple of decades was through our own work and funding from within our community. For example, we were able to build a technical college worth $11 million dollars and finish it under budget and ahead of schedule. To build this college, the single biggest donation we had received was the equivalent of about $0.50. How did we do this? We crowdfunded hundreds of thousands of people to donate $0.50 per month for several years.

However, due to the accelerated deterioration of South Africa, we have to accelerate our work. And so, the Afrikaner Foundation was founded to increase international cooperation for the Afrikaner people and to enable our friends abroad to support these initiatives, either through institutional cooperation, donations, or – and this is what I would encourage you to do – becoming an international member of the Afrikaner Foundation by making a small monthly contribution.

As a result of purchasing power parity, the price of two cappuccinos in New York is the equivalent of a high-quality steak in South Africa. So what you regard as a small donation will necessarily be a big donation for us.

This brings me to America and the West …

Civilisation

There are many things that we as Afrikaners and our friends in New York have in common. We each man a particular outpost on the civilisational battlefront.

As Westerners, we draw our conception of what it means to be free back to:

·      Aristotle, who spoke about the movement from potentiality to actuality:

o   that freedom is not something to be demanded as a right, but to be fulfilled within the context of the community;

·      Cicero, who spoke about the reciprocal nature of republicanism:

o   that freedom implies receiving certain things as a result of the sacrifice of our ancestors, and sacrificing certain things for the sake of our children;

·      St. Paul, who called on us to live in the fruits of the spirit as opposed to the fruits of the flesh:

o   that freedom implies living virtuously and courageously in the face of animosity.

The primary struggle of our day and age is not merely a clash between different civilisations, but in many ways a clash between those who wish to preserve civilisation and those who seek to destroy the very concept of civilisation, and Western civilisation in particular. Thus, if we are not prepared to fight for the preservation of civilisation, we have to be prepared to accept barbarism.

As Westerners, we believe in transcendence. We believe that we have been called to fulfil a certain duty at a certain time and in a certain place. There is a reason why the President of the New York Young Republicans Club, Gavin Wax, wasn’t born in 1760 and why he wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers. It’s because we need him to fulfil a certain responsibility at this time and in this place – one that George Washington wasn’t called to fulfil. There is a reason why my fellow speaker, Jack Posobiec, wasn’t born in 1930 and why he didn’t serve as Secretary of State during the Cold War. It’s because we need him to fulfil a certain responsibility at this time and in this place. The same goes for each and every one of us.

Sweet is the fight

This is why we have a slogan in Afrikaans that says: Soet is die stryd (sweet is the fight). The fight is sweet, not because we fight like Achilles for our own glory, but because we fight like Hector, to protect what is rightfully ours, to honour those who came before us and to leave greatness behind for those who will come after us. And the beautiful part is that we have each been blessed with a unique skill set, which means that we each have a unique place in this fight.

Therefore, we cannot afford to be spectators. Nothing is easier than to stand on the stadium, criticising those who are on the field, who are out there doing things in the real world, achieving certain things and making mistakes in the process. Our legacy will not be determined by the extent to which we can point out the mistakes of others, or even how few mistakes we have made, because the one who wins is not the one who makes the least mistakes. We need to be out in the field and we need to be wise and prudent, but yet, not allow the fear of making a mistake to hold us back when we are called on.

And when we make mistakes, we correct them, but we must not apologise. Because, as my colleague Ernst van Zyl has remarked, there is no point in apologising to someone who does not believe in mercy or forgiveness and who will only use the apology as an admission of guilt and a justification for punishment.

This is why we have another saying: Die een wat sy deelname weier, is die een wat sy nasie vermoor. It might be translated as:

“The one who refuses his participation, is the one who partakes in defusing his nation.”

More than an idea

We need to recognise that we are not simply fighting for an idea. We are often told that the American dream is an idea, when in fact it’s much more than that. People are not willing to die for ideas – people die for the actual manifestation of ideas.

We will not die for the idea of love, but we would die for the people we love.

Leonidas and his 300 Spartans didn’t die for the idea of Spartan freedom, but for the actual thing. They knowingly and willingly fought to the death not for an idea, but for their wives and children, their nation and community – for the actual manifestation of Spartan freedom. They achieved greatness, because they knew exactly what they were fighting for. They fought and died for freedom and for love, because they knew the sweet taste of freedom, and the captivating feeling of love.

Why we fight

South Africa is an outpost on the civilisational battlefront, and so is New York. We need to recognise that bad men and women have already joined forces all over the world, and they are not interested in debate or discussion. They are acting as a united, international front.

When they started tearing down statues in South Africa, it wasn’t long until they started tearing down statues in America. When they started Critical Race Theory in America, it wasn’t long until it came to South Africa.

And so, if we, the good, don’t associate, we will fall, one by one.

So let us raise the glass tonight to sacrifices already made, victories already claimed, honour already acquired, beauty already preserved – and to love already discovered.

And to a solemn oath to those great people who were here before us, and to our children’s children whose achievements will – if God permits – outshadow our own, that we will not stop fighting.

There are dark times ahead for South Africa, America and the West. Perhaps we, too, shall face a time when we feel overwhelmed and close to despair. But in those moments, we will remember why we fight – to protect what we love and to honour the legacy of those who came before us, who were indeed great. We will stand our ground even against insurmountable odds. We will remain steadfast and unyielding, because our resolve is fortified by the pursuit of goodness, the preservation of beauty and the knowledge that we live honourably, true to our tradition and inspired by our calling to ensure that the brilliant light of Western civilisation will not flicker or dim, as long as we live.