Not sure the relevance, but India is a bit of an anomaly, don't you think? Their population is 25 times ours... heck, their top 9 most populous states individually outnumber us. With such numbers would come a degree of diversity we don't even need to contemplate. No need to be unsure though, the
info is easy to find: India has no national, constitutionally declared language but 22 officially recognised languages spread across its 29 states, who are free to declare their chosen one(s) as official. Of interest is that
English plays a big part in interstate communication, which is sort of what I'm getting at in a roundabout fashion.
Their population may be 25 times ours, but it was not always that way. Think about that. Dialects had to exist for it to be incorporated into such a huge population.
My personal view on this is informed neither by wanting to 'force' any one language onto another, nor by wanting to 'discard' Afrikaans specifically; I am Afrikaans, for Pete's sake. It rather only represents some not-terribly-serious ruminations predicated on the fact that none of our official languages, apart from English, mean much outside of SA's borders. It's supported by my view that the world is simply bound to become ever more homogeneous as a matter of course, perhaps only until we secure our own extinction, but that's another discussion. Within that framework, I personally view the artificial protection of cultural diversity as more than a little futile and silly. We should be creeping towards global understanding and cooperation, not trying to invent fresh bloody alphabets.
None of Japanese, German, Dutch, heck to some degree even French or "Chinese" (Mandarin and their derivatives or counters) mean much outside of their borders. It does not mean it is irrelevant and in contrast it shows great intellect and development of a nation which is capable of going its own way. Yes, globalism is something that is bound to happen (It is Biblical if you believe in that). Since I believe it will happen does not mean myself or anyone else need to approve of it. I sincerely despise the idea of globalism, but that too, as you have said yourself, is a point for another discussion.
Mooi, né? However 'mooi' doesn't trump context, and where such remnants of old are trotted out to antagonise and offend people should be called out.
I did not say it should trump context, what I said is if it is necessary to change the anthem and remove those verses then it would only be fair for one demographic to sing their song as much as the next.
Yeah, no... here's where you and I won't agree. Apartheid was the foulest kind of social experiment, built on one creed's unsupported conviction of their own superiority. Now, I'm no advocate of white guilt, but to view apartheid as anything less than utterly reprehensible is to trivialise a great, sadly recent, injustice to humanity. If the NATs were even slightly less of a bunch of self-aggrandising ****s, our current problems might have been exponentially simpler to fix.
I wholeheartedly agree that apartheid was not in the best interest of the country, but I will maintain there have been far more damaging "experiments" throughout history. Also, if we're going to get stuck into the "sadly recent" history where will we end up because there will always be "sad recent history" wherever you may find yourself. Recent is also subjective.
As a young German explained to me in Bad Honnef that he believes white South Africans (in his mind's interpretation) probably feel about apartheid much the same as most of the German population feel about Hitler and the Holocaust - they simply don't need reminding of things their forefathers did for they know it was wrong. Despite this they grew to be a strong nation again.
To linger on apartheid is similar to linger on your past where your parents divorced and you keep using it as an excuse for your own failures in life.
There are too many examples of people from terrible situations achieving phenomenal things to allow ourselves to be immersed in the past atrocities of people who are largely outnumbered or dead.
EDIT: If you believe that globalisation means one language you are sadly mistaken. As it stands I can read and listen to Greek, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and all other officials in my language of choice. If you can't influence language over a certain region in centuries you would be mistaken to think you would be able to do so indefinitely without uprising on a global scale where there are so many languages involved.. For one you would attempt to have the majority of the world's population on your side so you would woo them, not by n,being different or foreign, but to speak to their needs. All you need to do is get those in control of their territories in your own pocket.
Honestly if I can imagine this then certainly there are hundreds of thousands of people more powerful who imagine and have imagined similar things who have the capacity to go ahead with such plans.
