Notes on the Future of Nations Conference

It was almost inevitable that last week’s Future of Nations Conference organised by Lex Libertas would be branded as “far-right” by the left-wing establishment media. The Guardian claimed that the presence of the President of the New York Young Republican Club (NYYRC), Stefano Forte, “cements growing institutional bonds between the NYYRC, Afrikaner groups and the European far right.” Yet, having attended the event myself, I observed no Guardian journalist in attendance – suggesting that this characterisation appears to rely on second-hand conjecture rather than first-hand engagement. It is little surprise that public trust in legacy media continues to erode.

Over the course of two days, the conference brought together thinkers from across South Africa and abroad, representing a wide spectrum of political perspectives. Yes, nationalists and conservatives were present, but so too were classical liberals such as Martin van Staden of the Free Market Foundation; economists like Dawie Roodt; representatives of traditional communities, including Princess Belakahzi of the Mabandla Royal Family; and political analysts such as Prince Mashele. Far from a gathering of extremists, the conference convened hundreds of policymakers, political leaders, entrepreneurs and civil society actors to grapple with some of the most pressing existential challenges facing their respective nations.

The fact that this conference took place in South Africa is itself significant. Ever since the hype of the 1990s wore off, South Africa has sat on the periphery of the wider civilisational debates unfolding across much of the West. Yet as pressures mount in many of these states – with deteriorating public finances, “anti-colonial” actors undermining public institutions from within, and mass migration driving unparalleled demographic changes – South Africa is moving closer to the centre of these conversations. It has begun to function as both a warning and a model for how communities can resist state failure.

One of the conference speakers, Joost Strydom, CEO of the Orania Movement, has remarked that “South Africa is simultaneously 30 years behind, and 30 years ahead of Europe.” While our challenges may differ due to unique national circumstances, they unmistakably rhyme.

One of the central questions explored at the conference was the relationship between nation and state – two contested concepts often treated as interchangeable, yet rarely perfectly aligned. A state is a legal and administrative structure; a nation is defined by something more elusive. South Africa’s political elites declare loyalty to the paradoxical notion of a “Rainbow Nation” and often appropriate the language of nationhood: the “national government”, “national symbols”, or the annual “State of the Nation” address. Yet, a nation is more than a constitution or arbitrary set of borders drawn up 116 years ago. While South Africa has achieved a notable degree of day-to-day cultural coexistence, coexistence does not equate uniformity. At its core, South Africa comprises multiple nations – each shaped by distinct histories, values, languages and civilisational inheritances.

South Africa is not the only “multinational” country in the world, with Belgium serving as another notable example. Despite being less than one quarter the size of the Western Cape, Belgium operates with five separate subnational parliaments, granting deep autonomy to its Flemish, Walloon and German-speaking communities, as well as to the diverse city of Brussels. As Tom Van Grieken, leader of the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, noted during his conference speech, this decentralised structure was not always the norm. For decades, the Flemish majority experienced cultural and linguistic marginalisation before federal reform gradually realigned the state more closely with the nations within it.

That history of marginalisation draws parallels with the conference’s opening address delivered by Ernst Roets, executive director of Lex Libertas, in the Cenotaph Hall of the Voortrekker Monument. Drawing attention to the inscription at the centre of the hall “ons vir jou Suid-Afrika,” he reflected on the Afrikaner people’s unwavering commitment and substantial contributions to the country. Yet he paired that affirmation with an uncomfortable question: “We love our country – but does it love us?” This question speaks to mounting pressures on their language and cultural institutions, and to race-based policies that are a thinly-veiled attempt to force a large part of the Afrikaner community out of the country. In this context lies another theme of the conference: what happens when loyalty to a country is not reciprocated by the system of government?

The third American President, Thomas Jefferson, once declared that “when tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty”. In order to (peacefully and democratically) rebel against this dysfunctional system, nations within South Africa seeking greater authority to govern themselves must turn to the principle of self-determination – recognised in international law and reflected in Section 235 of the Constitution. This right is a peremptory norm of international law, meaning no state can lawfully deny it, and with that comes erga omnes obligations, meaning that external state actors can and must intervene where they observe its denial.

At the conference, Forte called on US President Donald Trump to appoint a special envoy to engage with Afrikaners and other minority communities in South Africa. Whether or not such a step materialises, it is becoming clear that questions of minority rights and self-governance are no longer purely domestic conversations. They are entering international discourse.

The Afrikaners have become a beacon of hope for many nations seeking to seriously engage in institution-building. Their repeated successes with organisations such as Solidarity, AfriForum and Orania in building parallel structures in education, civil society and local governance are a testament to the strength of the Afrikaner nation. Self-determination presents itself as the natural next step – the transition from institution-building to state-building.

Yet this step is not without its risks. Institutions must remain loyal to the nation they were created to serve, not drift into self-preservation or become vulnerable to co-option by hostile or external actors. Moreover, some degree of territorial self-determination – where a people forms a stable demographic majority – is essential if those institutions are to endure in the long-term. Van Grieken’s description of the experiences of the Flemish movement illustrates the potential dangers. Once they achieved a form of autonomy, they began to become complacent. The pressure for further autonomy gains became weaker and combined with large-scale demographic changes, will now see them eventually become a minority within their own homeland. Hard-won gains are vulnerable to being reversed and once more nations may find themselves being forced to rebuild a semblance of independence from scratch.

On the first day of the conference, I was fortunate enough to stand on the roof of the Voortrekker Monument. From that vantage point, the magnificent view revealed a stark contrast. Beneath me stood a monument meticulously maintained by the independent institutions of a nation. In the distance lay the visible signs of the decay of a state: the struggling main campus of the UNISA, the deteriorating Pretoria CBD, and the Union Buildings – the symbolic centre of a collapsing centralised order.

The state falters. The nation endures. And if more nations are to survive this tumultuous twenty-first century, then they must embrace the pioneering spirit of those peoples that forged institutions when none existed. They must heed the rallying cry of Forte’s conference speech and “Be the Boer!”