“Reconciliation Without Amnesia”: Woman Explains How Afrikaner History Is Bigger Than Apartheid
- South African digital creator Phiwa shared a history lesson on Instagram arguing that Afrikaner identity cannot be reduced to apartheid
- Phiwa highlighted two Afrikaners, Beyers Naudé and Bram Fischer, who came from elite backgrounds but chose to resist apartheid at great personal cost
- The video sparked a wave of emotional responses from South Africans reflecting on reconciliation and shared history
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Source: Instagram
South African digital creator and cultural storyteller @phiwa_thelongview, also known as Lwazi, filmed a video at her home on 18 September 2026 that quickly resonated with thousands of people across the country.
Her message was direct: Afrikaner and apartheid are not the same word, and conflating them does a disservice to a far more layered history.
Phiwa pointed out that the Afrikaans language itself was not born from white settlers alone. It developed through contact between European settlers, the Khoikhoi communities, and enslaved people from Africa and Asia, making it a language shaped by many hands.
Two Afrikaners who chose differently
To make her point concrete, Phiwa named two men who came from the very heart of Afrikaner power and chose a different path.
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Beyers Naudé was raised inside Afrikaner nationalism, his father a founding member of the Broederbond. He became a prominent Dutch Reformed Church minister before the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 shook him to his core. He publicly broke from the Broederbond, founded the Christian Institute of Southern Africa, and was banned, placed under house arrest, and stripped of his passport for his defiance.
Bram Fischer came from one of the most powerful Afrikaner families in the Orange Free State, his grandfather a Prime Minister and his father a Judge President. He became Nelson Mandela's lead defence lawyer during the 1963 to 1964 Rivonia Trial, successfully keeping Mandela and others from the death penalty. Fischer was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for his resistance to the apartheid state.
The wound before the power
Phiwa also walked her audience through what happened to Afrikaners before apartheid. During the Anglo-Boer War, British forces burned farms, destroyed republics, and forced women and children into concentration camps where over 26,000 died. That generational trauma bred a fierce protectiveness over language, community, and economic survival.
As she explained, that pain became Afrikaner nationalism. But as she was equally clear to state, the political leaders who later came to power chose to twist that protective instinct into a rigid, cruel system of racial control. "Understanding the wound," she said, "helps us understand history without excusing what followed."
She summed it up with a phrase that has stayed with many viewers: "Reconciliation without amnesia."
Watch the Instagram video that sparked the conversation here.
South Africans react to Phiwa's history lesson
The video on Phiwa's Instagram page drew a wide range of heartfelt responses:
@elz.yakof16 shared:
"Phiwa, your breakdown of Afrikaner history is a history of struggle. That does not excuse the harm done during apartheid, but it explains the reason. Now we are in a new era. All South Africans need to put the hurt aside and work together for a new future for South Africa."
@minkipool added:
"We all built Afrikaans together. And the Afrikaners themselves come from a history of oppression by the British. Apartheid eventually formed an ugly part of it, but it is not the whole story. The more we learn about our past, the more we can make better decisions for the future."
@arteyegallery responded:
"Beautiful lady, beautiful spirit, thank you. Hate has no place in our beautiful country."
@mphomoshe noted:
"The importance of history! The history of Magaliesberg also illustrates how nuanced our history is, how some of our people collaborated with the Boers to save themselves. We must learn the nuances."
@sibusisorise concluded:
"Profound teaching sis, keep it up, and Yahweh bless you with more wisdom and knowledge."
Source: Instagram
More on Afrikaner identity and SA-US relations
- Briefly News recently reported on a TikTok creator who questioned an Afrikaner family's return to SA for medical care weeks after receiving US refugee status.
- US Ambassador Leo Brent Bozell III called on President Ramaphosa to condemn a controversial chant, while giving an update on Washington's diplomatic demands.
- The Trump administration outlined plans to welcome thousands more South Africans as refugees, with Afrikaners forming the majority.
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Source: Briefly News
