Afrikaners with proof of Dutch roots are eligible for Netherlands passports…

[Etienne Marais]

Afrikaners with proof of Dutch roots are eligible for Netherlands
passports…


22 October 2009

Voorburg, The Hague. Afrikaners with Dutch forebears are rushing to
apply for Dutch passports, reports the daily Algemeen Dagblad on March
28 2009 from their Voorburg office -- located in the diplomatic
section of the Dutch capitol The Hague.

More than a thousand applications for Dutch citizenship are waiting
for approval at the Dutch embassy in South Africa – and last year they
had granted some 500 work-permits for Afrikaners with Dutch roots.

Journalist Caspar Nabel interviewed one couple, Hendrik and Lynette de
Vries, who now live with their little baby in the The Hague suburb of
Voorburg.

The De Vries couple said they were mainly driven from South Africa
because of the crime: “Hendrik’s dad was murdered, and I feared for my
life,’ she said.

Thanks to Hendrik’s forefather, who left for South Africa from The
Hague during the 18th century, the couple now have been granted a
Dutch passport.

They don’t have to choose which nationality they prefer as yet: “We
have permission to keep our South African nationality and to adopt the
Dutch nationality,’ said Lynette. She was in The Netherlands before –
as an au pair fifteen years ago. She now has a job as design manager
and her husband is a systems manager. And they don’t ever want to go
back to South Africa, both said.

“We went through a lot of trouble to get used to the weather and the
cultural differences, but we live ‘baie lekker in Holland,’ both told
the Dutch journalist.

An embassy spokesman in Pretoria told Algemeen Dagblad journalist
Casper Naber, who published the story on March 28 2009, that while the
economic crisis in South Africa ‘is playing an important role,’ the
“flood of citizenship-applications from Afrikaners is mainly due to
recent changes in the Dutch laws, which makes emigration for people
for Dutch forebears – which applies to the vast majority of Afrikaners
– much more attractive.”

Afrikaners also have forefather roots in modern-day Germany, Denmark,
France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland and the Scandinavian
countries.