In several essays and talks, the Afrikaans poet N. P. van Wyk Louw spoke about small nations and languages, language movements, language struggles and nationalism, and the survival of Afrikaans. The factors contributing to the success of a language movement are discussed in the current article, as based on Louw's view of language movements and his views on nationalism. According to Louw, nationalism does not involve the glorification of the nation and language; self-glorification is a feature of chauvinism, the black angel of nationalism and actually its archenemy. In fact, a man "does not love his nation because it is worthy and the best nation on earth; he loves it for its misery. " Louw denied that nationalism is a form of limitation, narrowness, and selfishness. He argued his denial by referring to national rights. An example of a national right is the right to receive your intellectual development, in short your education, in a language that you understand. "When you see the value of national rights not only as rights your own group deserve, but as universal human rights, then you're already out of the limitations of your own group, and you will not only claim these rights for your own group". He distinguishes between the imperialist and aggressive nationalism of the great nations on the one hand, and the nationalism of the people who rebel against this type of nationalism on the other. The two kinds of nationalism lead to two kinds of language movements. Louw described the defensive language movements of the communities that react against imperialist nationalisms. A language movement can only start when historically conscious intellectuals are concerned about a "crisis of despair" in a nation or language community, and plan to retain the language, to uplift (or empower) the community and thus ensure the survival of the people or language community. Such a crisis occurs when a large number of community members question whether it is worthwhile to retain the language and continue as a language community. The first agent used by communities in language movements are organizations and institutions established by the community. A language movement has a great chance of success if it has political support and is therefore not politically so powerless that it cannot influence government decisions. A language movement cannot succeed without political means. The loss of political support in a multilingual country can seriously harm a minority language. A language movement's chances of success in a multilingual country are best when the movement can succeed in connecting the struggle for the promotion of the language with the empowerment of a disadvantaged community. This factor was the key in the Afrikaans language movement in the early twentieth century in South Africa. Afrikaans was the language of the largest groups of voters in the country, white and coloured. It was also the language of mainly poor groups - "those who felt as oppressed, those who wanted to uplift themselves, those who wanted to upturn the economic conditions before 1900 with a kind of revolution. And in this weakness lay power. " The recognition of this "material base" does not undermine the national value of the movement. This proves that it was not simply a case of playing with phrases and ideals, but "a piece of the full Afrikaans social reality". One could say: the Afrikaans language movement was the socialism of the poor Afrikaans people. The movement succeeded because it was the bearer of crucial needs - even economic needs. In this lay its strength. It can have fatal consequences for a small nation and, by implication, a small language community, to have a small language group act unfairly against other groups in a multilingual country. Louw pointed out that a national movement can be so blinded by national rights that it may commit injustice by keeping individual rights from other ethnic groups. It is because of this crisis that Louw made his famous statement: "I believe that in a strange way this is the crisis from which a nation can be reborn, young, creatively, it may appear, this 'dark night of the soul' in which the nation said: I would rather perish than persist through injustice." In 1960, Louw criticized the National Party (NP) government's policy towards the coloured people. This he did in the preface to a startling case for white-coloured integration by D.P. Botha in Die opkoms van ons derde stand (The emergence of our third estate). In the preface, Louw rejected the NP policy towards coloured people. According to him, Afrikaner and South African nationalists spontaneously said: "We have done evil against the coloured people; we neglected and discarded them." This is according to Louw "a remarkable piece of national psychology". What furthermore made this preface significant is that Louw alters his view of a people by declaring that he had a "sincere desire - no, an ardent wish" that "my people, white and coloured, and the language we speak, continue to exist in this country". He hoped that white and coloured would cease to look to the past and blame each other. One explanation for the growing apart of the two groups could be: "There was a time when the white Afrikaner had to fight so desperately to keep alive at least a core of his own indigenous, South African conviction, that he could not always see clearly." Do Louw's views have value in this crisis in which Afrikaans and Afrikaners find themselves today? At least three of his beliefs can serve as clues. The first is the possibility to become the language of a group of people who are economically disadvantaged. The second is the development of the culture and the creation of institutions that can appreciate the culture, protect it and disseminate it. The third is to use the language out of self-respect and solidarity with the community.
Die digter N.P. van Wyk Louw het hom in verskeie opstelle en praatjies uitgelaat oor klein volke en tale, taalbewegings, taalstryde en nasionalisme en die voortbestaan van Afrikaans. In hierdie artikel word op grond van sy siening van taalbewegings en sy opvattings oor nasionalisme gelet op die faktore wat bydra tot die welslae van 'n taalbeweging. Hy betoog met voorbeelde dat 'n taalbeweging slegs kan begin wanneer histories bewuste intellektuele bekommerd is oor die taal en die taalgemeenskap en planne maak om die taal te behou en die gemeenskap op te hef. 'n Taalbeweging het 'n kans op welslae wanneer dit 'n "staatkundige stut" kan bekom en dus nie polities so magteloos is dat dit nie regeringsbesluite kan beïnvloed nie. Volgens Louw is 'n taalbeweging se kans op welslae die beste wanneer die beweging dit kan regkry om die strewe na die bevordering van die taal te verbind met die bemagtiging van die minder bevoorregte lede van die gemeenskap. Hy illustreer laasgenoemde stelling met 'n oortuigende verwysing na die vordering van Afrikaans in die eerste helfte van die twintigste eeu. Sonder om na enige taal te verwys meen hy ook dat dit noodlottige gevolge vir 'n klein gemeenskap kan hê om in 'n meertalige land onregverdig teenoor ander groepe op te tree.
