South Africa has eleven official
languages. After democracy came,
people said, “Okay, how do we
create order without having
different groups feel like they’ve
been left out of power again?”
English is the international
language and the language of
money and of the media, so we had
to keep that. Most people were
forced to learn at least some
Afrikaans, so it’s useful to keep
that, too. Plus we didn’t want the
white minority to feel ostracized in
the new South Africa, or else they’d
take all their money and leave.