Yonatan Fessha’s opinion piece reminds me a bit of the story about the emperor’s new clothes, According to this view — held by political scientists from the University of Potchefstroom to the University of Cape Town, as well as all parties in Parliament except perhaps the Freedom Front Plus — the difference in being an Afrikaner and a Xhosa is of the same order as choosing tagliatelle or penne for pasta bolognaise.
The language issue has since been comfortably solved by the equally universal adoption of English and, as one informed academic recently put it to me, “the virtual collapse of the Pan South African Languages Board”. But we are also familiar with the argument that Afrikaans was an invention of the National Party and the other nine languages the pernicious creations of missionary grammarians out to divide “the nation”.
Fessha’s notion that ethnicity is of such little consequence that provinces may be parcelled out along linguistic lines without affecting our common, green-blooded, flag-waving patriotism, will no doubt be welcomed by Afrikaners who have long called for a 10th province.
Of course, as a chorus of professors and politicians would assure us, the torture and extreme violence that have become characteristic of our national conduct toward fellow patriots are not indicative of any ethnic friction, but merely an indication of the ingenuity of our common-law criminals who tend not just to steal a cellphone, but spend a further eight hours to ensure the former owner will never again have any use for it.