Category talk:Afrikaners

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Afrikaners as an ethnical group is way too distinctive to label all white South Africans with Afrikaans surnames as "Afrikaners". A white Afrikaans-speaking South African should show/admire some compassion or part into the unique Afrikaner culture, at least, to be possibly considered (NOT "labeled") an Afrikaner. Without this personal insight into each and every one of these persons, I think this is ridiculous and this sort of blind classification of all these people into the Category:Afrikaners should stop. Continue discussion here. --WickedHorse 20:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

We all agree that the Afrikaner ethnic group does in fact exist. It is however also a fact that people don't get asked in interviews what their ethnic classification is. Therefore requesting such evidence would render it impossible to provide it in this context. As a matter of interest, to which ethnic group could a white South African, who has an Afrikaans surname and who's mother tongue is Afrikaans, belong other than Afrikaner? What other possibilities are there? --Gemsbok1 18:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Even assuming that every human being on earth MUST belong to some ethnic group, purely by definition alone (which is still being debated) you CANNOT assume these people to belong to the Afrikaner ethnical group because of the requirement (stated by many articles about the Afrikaner) that they have to associate with the Afrikaner culture, to name only one requirement. One can almost go further and say that you assign the group "Afrikaner" to these people while they might not even be "worthy" of being an Afrikaner because they have no interest in the unique and special culture. Refer to my example about my Flemish neighbour, on Deon Steyn's talk page. In any event, you still have to prove that these people's mother tongues are all Afrikaans, at least. --WickedHorse 18:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

This is certainly a difficult discussion. I think the problem is because in SA, the question of what an Afrikaner is hasn't been resolved. The term Afrikaanses is sometimes used to refer to someone from the Afrikaans community that doesn't necessarily associate him/herself with the Afrikaner due to the political connotation (whether it a passed or present connotation). I propose that we create a category Afrikaanses and that Afrikaner becomes a sub-category of Afrikaanses. People that can obviously be considered Afrikaners (like John Vorster?) can be put into the Afrikaner category. I know I'm making a controversial statement, so please comment if you disagree. The first problem with my proposal is that the term Afrikaanses isn't that commonly used, yet. Another possibility is to speak of Political Afrikaners vs Cultural Afrikaners, but this might also have some problems. Bothar 08:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC). Or even more simple: Afrikaanse South Africans Bothar 08:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that "all white South Africans with an Afrikaans surname" is the criterion that people are applying for inclusion in this list. Nor are Afrikaners restricted to being South Africans. Take for example, the inclusion of Joan Hambridge - a writer with impeccable Afrikaner credentials - in the list (at the time of writing this comment.) I would object to the inclusion of, say, Nadine Gordimer, whose name probably does not belong here. Not because of her surname, but she doesn't write in Afrikaans, not do I believe that she considers herself to be an Afrikaner.

If the principle of "self-classification" is used, it is really a question of whether the person considers themselves to be an Afrikaner, and have made this fact publically known through various means. This means that even those whose mother tongue isn't Afrikaans could be included, simply on the basis of the fact that they consider themselves to be Afrikaners. There is no reason for this article to be more controversial than a list of, say, famous Swedes, Basques or Zulus. HeervanMalpertuis 07:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)