South Africa Embraces Dutch Fans Despite Past

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (July 10) -- The Dutch came here 350 years ago to colonize Africa's southern tip, and ended up transforming this land with their language and religion. Later their descendants, the Afrikaners, fought a war with the British and implemented harsh, racist policies known as apartheid.

But surprisingly, South Africans have no hard feelings. In fact, they're wearing orange this weekend.

Planeloads of festive Dutch fans have landed in South Africa, donning Holland's royal color, in hopes of conquering again -- this time in today's World Cup final. Perhaps they even have a bit of a home field advantage, facing Spain at Soccer City in Johannesburg, a town established by Dutch settlers in the early 1800s.

What's remarkable about Holland fans' arrival here, given apartheid's Dutch ancestry, is how warmly South Africans have welcomed them. Many locals from across this country's racial divide are putting history behind them and waving Dutch flags this weekend.

Part of the reason could be the kinship of a shared language. Afrikaans, a dialect derived from 17th century Dutch, is the native language of about six million South Africans, more than 13 percent of the population. It's the mother tongue of most residents of mixed-race heritage in the western half of the country, and millions more have some command of the language, having been forced to study it in school under apartheid.

"Dutch blood is in our veins and in our language. As much as Holland colonized and ill-treated us, we're still sympathetic with them because they are our brothers," Yassin Mohamed, a 63-year-old South African historian and anti-apartheid activist, told AOL News. "You'll see our stadium in orange."

In the 1990s, Mohamed served as general secretary of the Pan Africanist Congress, a liberation movement outlawed under apartheid, along with the now-ruling African National Congress party. Because of his underground political activities, Mohamed -- whose mix of Malaysian, African and European ancestors classified him as "colored" under the apartheid system -- was forced to occasionally go into exile. Among the places he visited was Holland in the 1960s.

"We were running from the police in our country, and the Dutch took us in and protected us," he said. "I went to a supermarket in Leiden and couldn't' believe my eyes -- Dutch people giving out stickers protesting oranges grown in South Africa under apartheid. They said, 'If you eat this orange it's like sucking the blood of black South Africans,'" he said.

"I'll tell you, of all the European countries I've been to, I love the Dutch most," said Mohamed, a dark-skinned native Afrikaans speaker. "It was the Dutch who supported us in our struggle. They gave us millions of rand (South African currency) -- maybe out of a bit of guilt, but mostly out of generosity I think."

South Africa is dotted with Dutch namesakes bestowed under apartheid, particularly after 1948 when the Nationalist Party embarked on an affirmative action campaign to elevate the status of minority Afrikaners. Old Dutch-derived names of streets across the country are only now being replaced with words from the Zulu or Xhosa languages, or names of anti-apartheid heroes -- much to the confusion of some World Cup tourists trying to navigate with outdated maps.

Even the country's most infamous prison, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 brutal years, has a Dutch name: Robben Island meant "seal island" to the 17th century Dutch explorers who named it. Coincidentally, one of the stars of Holland's World Cup squad has the same name, Arjen Robben, though his family is from Groningen, Holland, and has no ties to the South African prison.

"I support the Netherlands because I've been there and I think it's a quite neutral, liberal place. Mine is a real layman's support of the Dutch team and Dutch people, not about 350-year-old politics," said Craig Rawraway, a 39-year-old Cape Town resident wearing an orange baseball cap with a Dutch flag.

Rawraway's skin is white and he speaks Afrikaans, but he said any kinship with Holland would be like an American feeling European because his ancestors came from there centuries ago.

"The Afrikaner link (to Holland) has just never come into my thinking. I grew up while the walls were coming down, and I think we as a society have hopefully moved beyond that now," he said.

While local support for the Dutch soccer team seems to come from across South Africa's different racial and ethnic groups, it may indeed be strongest among Afrikaners who trace their heritage directly back to Dutch settlers. But that support is also being scrutinized by academics who believe it may go way beyond language or soccer, betraying a longing by Afrikaners to belong to a larger nation that's not burdened by guilt over apartheid.

"It has more to do with Afrikaners' alienation under democracy, looking abroad for an identity rather than within South Africa. Some of them feel that their language also isn't getting as much respect as it should," Thivendren Reddy, a political science professor at the University of Cape Town, told AOL News.

"But make no mistake, Afrikaners see themselves as wholly African -- a local grouping with no ties to Europe. That was the whole justification for apartheid, that they were here to stay and had no other European home," Reddy said.

Whoever wins today, the Netherlands or the Spanish armada fighting against them, Dutch fans have been among the most spirited at this World Cup. Even this reporter found herself at a Cape Town coffee shop one morning at 9 a.m., surrounded by a sea of Dutch men in drag -- bright orange baby doll dresses and pigtail wigs.