Sunday, March 04, 2007

De La Rey in the Blog-o-sphere

My daily blog search on the De La Rey issue was getting so unwieldy that I thought it might be useful to post blog links here as I find them.
This posting by Don on The Muso received a lot of comments. They make for interesting reading. Thanks to my parents for passing this link on. A later posting on the same site about the NYTimes article generated fewer comments.
Cobus has this long post , and this slightly shorter one with many more comments, and now a third one with some thoughtful commentary, on his blog, Emerging South Africa. Pete at My everyday walk with the creator has responded to the first two here.
Kiefpiet has also received quite a number of comments on his post, and Mhambi has posted on this topic here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. (and I thought I had posted a lot!)
Vincent Maher, on his blog Media in Transition posted this, Mike posted this at Inside South Africa, Rudi Groenewald posted this, and Attie Heunis posted this, which pointed me in the direction of yet another article on the topic. Thanks Attie.
Rouvanne at Peak People posted this, and SilentCoder posted a good translation here.
Here, too, is the Thought Menagerie post, Paul's post on Wired Gecko, a post on Maggsbunny, another by Guy McLaren and bb's post at Smarter than the Average Bearnot. This seems to be more of a forum than a blog, but I thought I'd post the link anyway.
I couldn't resist adding my two cents worth to this post at Musings of a Post-Millenium Mystic, and this post on Cherryflava, though slightly OT, made me laugh.

And of course, following the NYTimes article, there had to be US bloggers picking up the story. NYMary posted this on PowerPop. It is interesting to read her perspective alongside that of the various SA bloggers, and in relation to the comments to her post. This later post is also worth a read. Compare that with Michael's post at Western World Politics. This post at Vox ex Machina mentions the song only briefly at the bottom of the post.
I haven't yet figured out whether this blog is American or from elsewhere, but nonetheless, here is Michael H. Cognato's post. And Christo De Klerk calls himself a "Canadian Afrikaner in America, so I'm not too sure whether to put this link with the South African or the US responses.

Finally, I have been very careful not to pass judgement on the blogs I have linked to (though I have been pretty oppinionated in relation to the news articles), but I can't post this link without a disclaimer. Tom's Big Picture posts the first really frighteningly extreme right-wing response I have yet read. I link to it simply because I really do want to document as vast an array of responses as I can, and not because I in any way endorse his oppinion. So if you visit the blog, be forewarned. Fascism is not dead.
This post is more neutral, but many of the comments aren't, and the same disclaimer as above applies.

UPDATE:
It seems there are a frighteningly large number of extreme right-wing responses out there. I am really torn about whether or not I should link to them, because I don't endorse their perspective, and don't want to publicise them, but on the other hand, it does suggest a bit of a retake on the perspective I have hitherto dismissed: that the song is being hijacked by right-wing extremists. Interestingly, as far as I can determine, all of these bloggers are from the USA, rather than South Africa. It doesn't mitigate their responsibility, but it does suggest to me that the problem does not lie predominantly in South Africa, and that, at least, makes me breath a little easier.
So in addition to the two links above, right-wing blog posts on De La Rey are here, here, and here.

I also wanted a space to link to other writing of relevance to this issue:
One World Cyber Music Store posted this article on the controversy surrounding the song.
An article in the Sunday times on a sense of Alienation among Afrikaans South Africans.
A Business day article on the Rainbow Nation.
The Saturday Star article on tribalism in South Africa.
A Mail and Guardian column by John Matshikiza.
A Sunday Times article by Achille Mbembe on reconciliation in South Africa (Thank you, Thembela).
A Mail and Guardian article based on a paper by Antjie Krog on De La Rey (Thank you, again, Thembela).
A News24 report on posters mentioning Bok Van Blerk at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (Thank you, Mom and Dad).
And another report, again on News24, about Bok at the KKNK, this one more about his performance.
News24 again, this time on De La Rey at Loftus.
The Mail and Guardian has an article about street signs in Potchefstroom, one of which was defaced so that rather than Nelson Mandela Rylaan, it now reads dela Rylaan. This is also relevant to my post on Name Changes in South Africa.
In May 2007, the Mail and Guardian Thinking Forum held a debate with De La Rey as the topic. Afrikaansnet comment on it, or you can hear a podcast of the actual debate.

4 comments:

Dave said...

Hi Nicol, nice blog, I've added you to my RSS feeds.

This post must have taken quite a while to pull together, some interesting links and I think you are right to link to the more inflammatory posts as the conversation on those blogs is often more interesting and thought provoking.

My opinion on the song - I like it, the Afrikaners are entitled to celebrate their history and pride in their culture. The song is not rascist.

choirgirl said...

Thank you for your comments, Dave. I agree with you that the more inflamatory posts can be particularly interesting, but I was far more excited to discover some of the really thoughtful posts on many of the other blogs (and in particular, many of the South African blogs. Go SA!)
I also agree with you, that the song itself doesn't seem to be racist, and I find it interesting that there have been only a few suggestions (none of them particularly serious) that it may be offensive to English South Africans.
Again, thank you for your comment, and I look forward to reading your blog regularly.

Anonymous said...

I posted a last post to the De La Rey conversation a few days ago
De La Rey 3 - some other songs and no final words.
Cobus

http://emergingsa.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/de-la-rey-3-some-other-songs-and-no-final-words/

Anonymous said...

Wow! This is great, I'm just about to write my bachelor thesis on this song and the discussions surrounding it.

Thanks for the effort!

Ilja, the Netherlands