Just a song?

2007-02-07 13:20

Pretoria - A military drum beat sets the scene, a young Afrikaner with a bloodied face grips his rifle in a ditch - it is the start of one of the most talked about music videos in South Africa.

While the visuals are stirring enough, it is the lyrics that have caused a string of newspaper articles, internet discussions and debates by high profile South Africans.

The catchy chorus of the song goes:

"De la Rey, De la Rey, sal jy die boere kom lei, De la Rey, De la Rey, generaal, generaal soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De la Rey." (De la Rey, De la Rey will you come and lead the Boers? De la Rey, De la Rey, General, General we will fall around you as one, General de la Rey.)

Bok van Blerk is the young face at the start of the video and also the singer of the hit song about Boer War general Koos de la Rey.

Nothing political

He has co-written the song with Sean Else and Johan Vorster and says there is nothing political about it.

The song was meant to reflect a part of "Afrikaans speaking people's" history, and was not intended as a political statement.

"If we are not proud about our history, then people would walk around spineless and that would not be cool. In the past Steve Biko told his fellow countryman that we have to share the country with each other but we still had to hold on [to] our identity. it is part of history," he told the Rapport newspaper recently.

This has not stopped the far right wing and even some international fascist groups from hailing the song as a call to arms.

But Van Blerk say he wants nothing to do with them. When a man tried to shove an old South African flag into his hands at a show this week, he rebuffed him and had him removed.

He has convinced the renowned Afrikaans alternative musician and author Koos Kombuis of his credentials.

Kombuis at first described Van Blerk's song as another attempt at Afrikaner nationalism.

Baggage of the past

Van Blerk took up the matter with Kombuis, and changed his views.

On Litnet, an Afrikaans literary discussion website, Kombuis wrote that he and Van Blerk were not very different.

"Even though he is still young he carries the heavy burden that all thinking Afrikaans speaking people and the rest of South Africa carries; very heavy and painful baggage of the past 40 years," Kombuis wrote.

While Van Blerk says no political message should be read into the song, commentators felt that it reflected a new political consciousness among Afrikaner youth.

"Is Bok van Blerk tapping into a wider sentiment, especially among young white Afrikaners, who are fed up with being demonised as nasty racists who have done nothing right while they are constantly reminded of their 'shameful' history?" Rapport editor Tim du Plessis recently wrote in Business Day.

"The 'colonialists of a special kind', as Mbeki branded Afrikaners six years ago, are becoming restless," Du Plessis concluded.

Wanting to identify

Zelda la Grange, personal assistant to former President Nelson Mandela, takes a different view. She wrote to several newspapers that De le Rey is evidence of a longing among all youth, black and white, for someone to identify with.

"Everyone wants to work towards something, it is because we all have - due to our history - inherited a will to fight," she wrote.

The song is popular. Van Blerk's album - with the same title as the song - has already sold over 100 000 copies, no mean feat in South African music.

"We never expected it to reach gold status that quickly, in fact we are on our way to double platinum status," Van Blerk said.

His agent Theresa du Preez said he is fully booked for the rest of the year, and has already received requests for next year.

But De la Ray is not the only recent evidence of young Afrikaners commenting on their position in South Africa.

'Apartheid was wrong'

For weeks the charts of Afrikaans campus radio stations were headlined by the song "Nie langer" (No longer).

In it, Pretoria band Klopjag admit that apartheid was wrong but plead for the country to move beyond it.

"Ek sal agter in die tou staan my reenboog op my mou dra, maar ek sal nie langer jammer sê nie." (I will stand at the back of the queue and wear my rainbow on my sleeve, but I won't say sorry any more.)

Vocalist Salom de Jager sings: "Hou op geld mors op naamsveranderings, daar is mense sonder huise en kinders sonder kos, wie is nou die sondebok?" (Stop wasting money on name changes, there are people without homes and children without food, who are now to blame?)

As with De la Ray, enthusiastic youngsters stood on tables singing along wherever the band performed.

Crime is a major theme in Afrikaner youth music. A North West band called Radio Suid-Afrika in their song Bid (Pray) ask people to pray because things are going wrong.

"Want dis moord en kinder-rape, en skelms wat nog messe slyp." (It is murder and child rape, and crooks who sharpen their knifes.)

It is also the theme of Fokofpolisiekar, the hugely popular Western Cape rock band's song Brand Suid-Afrika (Burn South Africa).

"Landmyne van skuldgevoelens, in 'n eenman-konsentrasiekamp, jy kla oor die toestand van ons land, wel fokken doen iets daaromtrent, brand Suid-Afrika." (Landmines of guilty feelings in a one-man concentration camp, you moan about the situation of our country, well fucking do something about it, burn South Africa.)

Die Melktert Kommissie, another young Pretoria band, ask in their song Proudly South African for a movement away from the past.

"Toi-toi-toi toys are us, daar word met ons gespeel, deur mense van 'n hoër;r, klasse is oorvol, maar die kosblikke bly leeg, en almal vreet net politics, in plaas van aanbeweeg." (Toyi-toyi-toyi toys are us, we are being played with, by people from above, classrooms are overcrowded, but lunchboxes are empty, everyone eats politics, instead of moving on?)

Political commentator Frederik van Zyl Slabbert warns not to read too much into the popularity of De le Ray and similar songs.

"I think one should distinguish between temporary whims and big historical processes, I don't think we're on the eve of a big new movement."

He said music is an easy medium to get a message across because of its wide appeal, and is often is used by young people to voice their angst.

"What is exciting is to see young people voicing their opinion. It would be rather boring if they were sitting do nothing," Van Zyl Slabbert said.

Haddad Viljoen, marketing and publicity manager for music channel MK89, agrees.

"Our generation is not the same as the Voëlvry beweging (Kombuis and others anti-apartheid music of the 1980s), the music these guys make is of a more personal nature rather than getting someone to go out and do something," he said.

MK89 does not feature exclusively Afrikaans music, but is seen as a huge boost for the resurgent Afrikaans music scene.

It was one of the first to play De la Ray and says it was chosen, like all other music videos on its playlist, because it was well made.

"The artists do sing about issues, but normally how it affects them personally, rather than being a voice for someone else," Viljoen said.

He said the majority of "issue songs" are about identity.

"Who are we, where do we come from and where do we fit in?" is the question the music asks.

- SAPA