South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Joe Phaahla recently undertook a working visit of Belgium from 18 to 20 November 2010 to attend a Public Diplomacy Outreach Dialogue and Summit on the Dutch Language respectively.
The Public Diplomacy dialogue was held in Brussels, hosted by Dr Anil Sooklal, South Africa Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and Mission to the European Union. The dialogue was held under the theme “South Africa, It’s possible”. It’s founding objective is to create dialogue between Belgians and South Africans in the Diaspora on positioning South Africa as a tourist, cultural and investment destination for Western Europe, particularly Belgium and the Flanders regions.
South Africa has always enjoyed ties and links with Belgium during the struggle for liberation. Noted among the participants at the dialogue was Helena Pastoors who at the height of apartheid rule chose to align herself with the South African people through her involvement in Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK), the liberation army of the African National Congress in exile.
At the dialogue Deputy Minister Phaahla outlined South Africa’s vision and readiness of the country to cooperate with Belgium and the European Union on trade, culture and investment. Being the first of many to come the dialogue was well received by participants across the spectrum.
The next stop for the deputy minister was Brugge to attend a summit organised by the Nederlandse Taalunie (NTU) to mark 30 years since the union was formed. The summit brought together all countries where Dutch is spoken as a language. The objectives of the summit were to explore closer working relations with South Africa where linguistic relationship between Afrikaans and Dutch can benefit other official languages as well.
How does South Africa fit in the broader scheme of things, people may ask? South Africa shares some similarities with Dutch in terms of language, culture and heritage, in as far as Afrikaans is concerned and this relationship dates back to when Dutch speakers first arrived in South Africa.
Deputy Minister Phaahla presented South Africa’s perspective of its cooperation with the Netherlands in fostering closer ties between Dutch and Afrikaans as languages spoken in these two regions.
A Letter of Intent was co-signed between Deputy Minister Phaahla and Mrs Marja Van Bijsterveldt-Vliegenthart, Netherlands’ Minister of Education, Culture and Science to cement the cooperation between South Africa and The Netherlands. The letter of intent is the precursor to a Memorandum of Understanding, which is currently the subject of consultation between the two countries.
The areas of cooperation outlined in the letter of intent include:
- Human Language Technology
- Literacy promotion
- Pedagogy for language and reading education
- Examination and certification of language skills
- Literary/cultural exchange
- Translation and editing skills
- Lexicology/lexicography
- Terminology development
- Etymology
- Language policy development
- Promotion of literacy
Deputy Minister Phaahla believes that the areas of cooperation will go far beyond the historical links between Dutch and Afrikaans. These will also benefit other official languages in South Africa, making his impressions on the future of cooperation between Dutch and Afrikaans
Deputy Minister Phaahla expressed gratitude to The Nederlandse Taal Unie for the invitation to attend the conference and share common values and heritage. He said, “We welcome the opportunity to explore areas of cooperation between Afrikaans and Dutch in the areas of technology, pedagogy and literacy, among others. He further outlined the importance of language as a tool of nation building. “This is what The Netherlands should emphasise on, as South Africa is doing, where the equality of languages is deeply entrenched in our Constitution”, said the deputy minister.
