Carlo Viljoen, Cape Party
In an opinion piece headlined “Apartheid revisited?”(Bolander, July 4), Norman McFarlane seeks to imply that the idea of Cape secession is somehow revisiting apartheid.
Apartheid that was declared a crime against humanity, was a racial government policy enforced by the National Party which brought devastating consequences on people based on their colour. Secession of the Cape of Good Hope from the rest of South Africa is all about peace, prosperity and good old common sense.
For the record, the Cape Party is the only political party in South Africa that has no race policy, we only see humans, however since Bolander opened the race issue, we are forced to respond in a language that they understand. Our deputy president is Adrian Kay, a highly intelligent young “brown man” with a master’s degree in political science. The majority of our supporters are Kaaplander people, which includes people of any imaginable race and colour.
Secession has been part of human existence since the beginning of time. Many nations have successfully seceded from their host nations and thrived and many will follow in the future. There is nothing sinister or racist about seceding, it is in fact a very sensible permanent solution to a failed South Africa, it’s provided for in International law and our constitution.
According to the opinion piece the talk of Western Cape secession “can safely be dismissed as the ramblings of a minority narrow minded white group.”
I already indicated that this is not a white issue but a Kaaplander issue and that in our finding when introduced to the idea that 96% of people of all colours immediately decide to support it and with our supporters that has grown by more than
100 000 this year alone, I doubt that this idea will be a minority white idea come elections next year.
About being narrow minded I suppose if one is trying to label a party with some of the most liberal and advanced policies in the world as a small apartheid white group then one should seriously reconsider your definition of narrow mindedness.
Our constitution makes no mention of, nor provision for, secession, either implicitly or explicitly, as Mr Viljoen suggests in his letter – Norman McFarlane
