Stop being entitled and bake koeksisters, says Ernst Roets

AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets recently took to Twitter to slam what he saw as “entitlement” among South Africans, which he believed “increases poverty”.

He used the example of the Afrikaner people after the Anglo Boer War, saying that they “didn’t blame the past for all their troubles” two decades later but rather “baked and sold koeksisters”, “started companies”, and “organised fundraisers to build schools and universities”.

Two decades after the destruction of the Anglo Boer War, the Afrikaners didn’t blame the past for all their troubles. They baked and sold koeksisters, they started companies, they organised fundraisers to build schools and universities…

Entitlement ideology increases poverty.

— Ernst Roets (@ErnstRoets) February 9, 2019

The tweet earned Roets mockery from satirical puppet Chester Missing on Twitter, and a blend of outrage and ridicule from others on the platform.

AfriForum’s Ernst thinks it was baking koeksusters that protected white people from poverty.

Koeksusters? Seriously Ernst, just call it apartheid like everyone else. pic.twitter.com/XYrpHeXelM

— Chester Missing (@chestermissing) February 11, 2019

https://twitter.com/Dispassionate_I/status/1095082524148154370

https://twitter.com/Lucpet51/status/1095079742213144576

Aaah koeksisters! That’s what we need.

— Bonga Mthembu (@Bonga_kaMthembu) February 10, 2019

@ErnstRoets lies! Read your history you were given 16 million pounds in 1902 as war reparations by Lord Kitchener including livestock, seeds, farming implements and vet services. That’s how Afrikaners started not with koeksisters. Stop lying!

— Thesna Aston (@ThesnaAston) February 10, 2019

Says that man who bought almost 90% of the land with money from koeksisters. Must have been very expensive koeksisters.

— Mrwa Slepe (@Mmina_Noko1) February 9, 2019

An example of cognitive dissonance: The idea that the rise of the Afrikaner was at the expense of the black majority, aided by forcible removals, bulldozers, the 1913 Land Act etc is too disconcerting to accept. "We sold koeksisters" sounds so much better than the truth.

— Gaynor Lass (@GaynorAppels) February 9, 2019

How many decades of colonialism and then your apartheid? Most of which still continue in Corporate SA. And you want to claim to have built universities and corporates by selling koeksisters. Your propaganda trip overseas failed bcos your racism sticks out and stinks.

— True2self🇿🇦🇱🇸🇵🇸 (@True2self6) February 10, 2019

AfriForum has been criticised for their views on apartheid, particularly after CEO Kallie Kriel said it was not, in his view, a crime against humanity.

This view appears to be echoed in an article Roets wrote on AfriForum’s website, where he said “we must admit that people’s dignity has been violated during apartheid”, but also questioned the United Nations General Assembly’s defining apartheid as a crime against humanity in 1973, calling it a “controversial decision”.

Roets argued that the US and other “leading” Western countries refused to ratify the resolution, because those who supported the resolution were mainly from the Soviet Union and had, in Roets’ view, “human rights records that are significantly worse than that of the South African white minority government”.

Roets wrote a column on Politicsweb last year clarifying the organisation’s position on apartheid and accusing their “opponents” of perpetuating “distortions and untruths” about AfriForum “in our absence or on platforms where we have scant opportunity to reply and defend ourselves”.

The Citizen sent questions to Roets asking him to clarify his tweet but had not received a response at the time of publication. We will update the story with his response if we receive it.

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