Afrikaner Feminism, De La Rey's girlfriend, and soft porn as social commentary

T requested a translation for the song I linked to in my last post. I was hoping to find the lyrics or a recording of the whole thing, but failing that, I thought I'd give you a transcription and translation of the lyrics from the fragment on the singer's website.

De La Rey ons wag op jou De La Rey we’re waiting for you
Hier onder die hemel blou Here under the blue sky
Hulle sê jy moet ons ly They say you must lead us
Maar dan moet jy ‘n meisie kry But then you must get a girlfriend

Generaal De La Rey General De La Rey
‘n Boere meisie moet jy kry You must get an Afrikaans (farm) girl
[inaudible] moet sy wees […] she must be
‘n Boere meisie met geen vrees an Afrikaans girl with no fear

For anyone familiar with South African history, the discourse around the fearless boer women who followed their men into the interior of South Africa, worked the land alongside them, and in some instances fought alongside them, is standard revisionist/early feminist fare. It's of course all deeply problematic, not least because the obvious connection between Son-Isha's song and Bok's De La Rey means that Son-Isha's image of a fearless woman is juxtaposed with Bok's helpless woman and child starving in a consentration camp. And of course, De La Rey's imagined girlfriend sits rather strangely alongside Bok's Girls in Bikinis (the second to last track on the De La Rey album), and the various other feminine figures that drift through his album. As always, the women are defined in relation to the men. But to avoid rehearsing that rather simplistic argument, let me make another, I think more provocative connection, with the aid of Wayne Barker and Annie Coombes. The former draws largely on the latter, though in shorter form.

De La Rey's Girlfriend

Dare I call this a feminist take on the De La Rey debate? (do keep your volume up when you click the link.) A little girl by the name of Son-Isha has recorded a song called "De La Rey Moet 'n Meisie Kry" (De La Rey must get a girlfriend).

more Zapiro

Another great Zapiro cartoon mentioning De La Rey. This one is even better than the last

UPDATE:

The link isn't working, and try as I might, I can't seem to get it right. So here, instead, is a screen-cap of the cartoon that appeared in the Mail and Guardian on the 30th of March 2007.

UPDATE:

This is an article in News 24 that describes, at least in part, what this cartoon is responding to.

Comic relief

Today's Zapiro cartoon in the Mail and Guardian is such a classic, I just had to link to it. And please note the De La Rey reference.

From the (not so) sublime to the ridiculous, and beyond!

It had to happen eventually.

And just to put this all into perspective, read the responses of the children interviewed for this report, and then read David Moseley's column. Unfortunately the comments facility is already closed, but I really think Jeremy Taylor's "Ag Pleez Deddy" (or for that matter, anything by Jeremy. What about "Mommy I'd Like To Be"? That one always makes me smile) should be the 'English South African song' he is searching for.

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.

In which the New York Times features

De La Rey made it onto the front page of the New York Times on Tuesday. I have been having a really hard time writing about it (partly because blogger refused to post and then lost the first draft I put together, though I think that that one didn't make it online is probably a good thing). I find it so hard to strike a balance between self-righteousness and utter naïveté on this issue. My advisor really knows what she is talking about when she says I need to read to develop the vocabulary I need to write. But quite honestly, why is it so difficult to write about Afrikaans culture? While I wouldn't put the song up there among my favourites, I quite like it. As enough people have said before, it is a catchy tune. And I do like the strategy of reclaiming a pre-apartheid history for Afrikaans. I do not align myself with a right-wing perspective, though, and recognize the capacity within this piece of music for alignment with causes I think are fundamentally flawed. But how to find the middle-ground....

It seems to me the pivot point is somewhere around the issue of the old South African flag, and most specifically the colour orange. When the new South African flag was chosen, it was stated specifically that the colours had no specific symbolism, aside from their use in some of the many previous flags that had been associated with South Africa. In general, the red, white and blue reference the Union Jack and the old SA flag, while green black and yellow recall various struggle organizations flags, including that of the ANC. The one colour that was excluded was the orange that had formed the lower bar on the old flag. The word "Orange" was also left off the new name for the province formerly known as the "Orange Free State". It was, however, adopted by the residents of Orania, a Northern Cape Afrikaner town with aspirations of independence. And I have vague (and I suspect unconfirmable) memories of orange being associated with a "no" vote during the 1992 referendum that led to the end of Apartheid. Is that too much symbolic weight to put on a single colour? I also have a remembered association between a horrendously violent act filmed and broadcast by the South African media in the 1980s, and the green, yellow and black flags that hid the faces of the perpetrators. What types of violence get demonized or justified by the state, and under what circumstances? The way that colours and flags get handled here, in the US, is very different from the way they are considered in SA, but in experiencing the American consideration of their flag, I think I am beginning to understand not why, but at least how, a flag can become such a contentious issue.

To return to the music, though, I must point out that none of the reports I have linked to yet note that the original statement by the Department of Arts and Culture, which seemed to ignite the already smoldering controversy, was not in fact a spontaneous effusion, but was issued at the request of the Afrikaans magazine Huisgenoot. The issue was then picked up by the FAK (which is where I first encountered it), and then by the national press, including the newspapers I have already linked to. The Blue Bulls Company then allegedly censored the song during rugby matches at Loftus Versveld, and then revoked that decision in the face of public outrage, though the company deny that any official decision along those lines was ever made, and claim that the song was played at last weekend’s match at Loftus.
Now is it just me, or does it begin to look like the controversy is really being fomented among white (I might even go as far as to suggest primarily Afrikaans) commentators? The DAC statement is pretty nonchalant in comparison to the FAK reaction, while the report in the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld, that I translated previously is significantly more agitated and even potentially inflammatory than that issued by the Citizen, or any of the other newspapers I have linked to. The New York Times buys into the ominous pessimism of the Beeld article somewhat more than the equivalent English South African press, but the assumptions made by that article about connections between Afrikaans culture and apartheid (no, they are not the same thing), and the direct connection, almost equation, drawn between De La Rey and Hendrik Verwoerd (most notably by the fronting of the article with a photograph of the diminutive statue of Verwoerd that overlooks Orania) which indicates the lack of subtlety concerning Afrikaans history that is precisely what this song and its popularity seem to be responding to, somewhat undermines the credibility of that report. I would suggest, though, that the noisy enthusiasm with which the Afrikaans community has opened this debate, indicates a strong desire to be heard. Michael Wines, the New York Times journalist, did make at least one strong point when he suggested that Afrikaners are afraid of their culture being “tossed into history's dustbin” (pg. 2) (this may have been an idea culled from the Sunday Independent, but as their articles are only available for perusal by subscribers, I am unable to confirm this). Certainly Afrikaans culture is rarely promoted along with post-apartheid South African culture in a broader sense: it is not exotic enough for either the world music or the international cultural tourism markets and too strongly negatively inflected by international opinion to fit into either pan-African or revisionist, Rainbow Nation rhetoric. And yet, the Afrikaans music industry, in particular, is big in South Africa. However it may look from the outside, contemporary Afrikaans musical culture did not spring spontaneously to life around this song alone. While I can't find stats for Afrikaans music sales right at present (I'm sure they must be out there), I can assure you that the Afrikaans music industry has a significant market, not least because the generational gap that is so evident among many audiences, is negligible among audiences for Afrikaans music. Musicians like Bok, Dozi, Karen Zoid, Chris Chamelion, Steve Hofmeyr, and the list goes no, play to audiences that span age-groups, while Afrikaans music crosses market-defined genre lines like classical, folk, pop, rock, and to a lesser degree, hip hop and jazz. There is no correspondingly strong white English South African industry, not because the music is not out there, but because, I would argue, assimilationist politics, coupled with post-apartheid white guilt and/or exodus created a self-conscious rupture in English South African music, as composers and performers attempted to navigate the opposing boulders of ‘paternalism’ and ‘eurocentrism’ that litter the rivers of postcolonial creativity. Afrikaans culture, from the Voëlvry movement, and beyond, has taken up the challenge, and is encountering the accusations and pitfalls that have kept me fearfully mute.
But New York heard this one. Free speech is a treacherous and ethereal idea, in situations like these.

More on De La Rey

Yet another link relating to the De La Rey story. Thanks to my parents for forwarding this one to me. It is in Afrikaans, but I will look for a translation this evening, after class.

And while I was writing that, my parents forwarded me a second link, this time from an English newspaper, reporting on the same concert. The two reports are markedly different, though, so if I can't find a translation of the first, I think I will have to translate it myself.

UPDATE:
I couldn't find a translation, so my own translation follows. I just must state categorically, however, how important it is to read this report along side the report from the Citizen. I am obviously dependent on these reports for my assessment of events, but I can't help but suspect that the sensationalism of the Beeld report is deliberately overstated, and I must say that I consider it very irresponsible journalism. My hope is that what could be a positive phenomenon is not turned into a problem. It's all in the interpretation, after all.

‘Everyone is a general’

By Retha
Grobbelaar

General Kees de la Rey was called loudly again yesterday to lead the boers. About 3000 people attended a Bok van Blerk concert at the Hillfox center in Weltevredenpark on the West rand in order to hear his song “de la Rey”.

“I’m here for De la Rey. I really like the words. It’s our culture that is standing up again,” said Ms. Bianca Bredenkamp (19).

“Bok awakens everything in me. He sings about things that we have forgotten, and he brings us together again,” said Mr. Kobus Laurens (37).

Ms. Nina Mouton (48) claims that the song proves that Afrikaans is still important for many people. “I am certainly a part of the De la Rey generation. It’s where our roots are,” she said.
At least ten old national flags were carried by audience members during the
performance. This came after Van Blerk told Beeld earlier that he doesn’t have a personal attachment to the old national flag.

“I don’t identify myself with the old national flag. We’re moving on” he said.

Mr. Herman Webster (35) was one of the people carrying the old flag.

“I am here to support my people. He sings about things that were taken from us, and that we want to take back,” said Webster, who was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the old flag.

When van Blerk sang “De la Rey”, his fans stood as one man. People sang along in full voice, with their fists raised in the air, as the old flag was waved.

“You are all generals” said Van Blerk at the end of the song.
When he thereafter sang about South African sporting hero, the Springbok rugby player Bryan Habana, the fans stood up and left.

According to Mozi Records, the agent for van Blerk’s album, De la Rey, the album had sold 106 983 copies by the 6th of February.