What do you guys think of the song De La Ray from Bok van Blerk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGh4lA1S7yc

I think its a very good song, and it will be a classic that wil llive for many years.

Its cool,

But I like all kinds of SA music...

Of course the 'controversy' won't last long, like any music, it can hold various social constructions for different people.

If some people feel its a 'a call to arms' for young Afrikaaners, so be it....personally I don't at all. Its simply new Afrikaaner Folk Music, and like lots of that genre before it, its great. The Voelvry Toer in the 80's was helleva controversial...you had young white Afrikaaners like Bernoldus Niemand, Johannes Kerkorrel etc etc opposing govt. status quo...and they were not well loved by the NP Govt at the time. hell, the bad influence was supposed to come from outside, not the product of the schools!....I guess its the nature of the artform, just like elsewhere!

People act like it's the first 'pro Afrikaaner' song ever, which is of course 'kak' ...there are many.

Of course there is also politically controversial Kwaito as well viz.groups like Skwatta kamp et al.

I guess thats why art entertains us if we so choose!


Jislaaik, more to the point, how do Bangladesh have us at 68/2??? Bliskems!! At least they copped it from us already today!
Cheers

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Alf

Guess what? We agree. Now isn't that something?

Very good tune, I do not understand the language but I think I get its meaning. A world of new problems face the South Africans, God Bless them all.

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I could not underatand a word of it ... was also wondering where the hunting theme was (-:

Chers, Peter

quote:

It is interesting that when one of the
" previously disdvantaged" gets caught with his grubby hands in the cookie jar and a Court case follows they all break out in song and chants from the struggle years..... stuff like "bring me my machine gun" or " one bullet one farmer"....... and no one says a word...... then along comes Bok and he sings a sond about the Boer war and a Boer war general, nothing to do with modern Afrikaander politics and yet the world is up in arms and somehow this is now percieved as the new anthem for the white consciousness ???

Just shows you how skew the world is in their view about the white, Afrikaans speaking South Africans or also known as the Boer nation.

Although the song 'De la Rey' has nothing to do with modern Afrikaans politics, it helps to give the outside world a better perspective of what the Boer nation had suffered many years ago
- lost 26 000 innocent women and children in British concentration camps;
- all farm properties burnt down by British forces, etc.

And yet, these are the same people who are prepared to stay on in the country today and make it a better place to live in for ALL it's people!

For heavens sake, grant us the freedom to make songs about our past in remembrance of our long ago fallen heroes without attaching all sorts of dark connotations to it.

I do hope the Boers and English will share the rule of their great nation, instead of fighting over trivial shit if they ever get to take it back again!

I hunted with some Boer's in Namibia in 2005. We had our differences, but you have to respect a group of people that has fought like hell to stay in Southern Africa, whilst the English have gone back to England, Australia, New Zealand, or moved to the States in galloping hoards.

It's really too bad the Rhodesians and Boers couldn't have helped eachother out with Mugabe.

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I like the song, and i think the people(Government) are making a helluva fuss over nothing, maybe they just feel threatened....
Cheers, Eugene.

Alf,

It's not something I am completely familiar with. I have the second hand information from my PH's, and a little bit I have researched.

I was under the understanding that most of the whites that had left South Africa were English and very few were Boers.

The books on moving to Australia, the US, Kiwiland, Canada that I saw for sale in a Namibian book shop were oriented toward the English speaking folks. I didn't see a similar guide book written in Afrikaans though I am sure they exhist.

I know a few English South Africans in the states, and they speak of it as a lost cause.

Only time will tell in Africa!

quote:

Just shows you how skew the world is in their view about the white, Afrikaans speaking South Africans or also known as the Boer nation.

Precisely!!! As ALF also alluded to, most people I meet over seas think white South African = Afrikaaner = Boer = racist = some kind of Jingoist = they have no clue but feel like sound byte educated authorities

I personally think this singular cultural determinism is crap. I am truly split between a staunch Afrikaaner paternal family and British colonial maternal family. I speak both languages fluently and take pride and interest in both my histories, probably a bit more in the Afrikaaner one. But day to day I speak English as first language, what does that make me? Sure as shit not English, not really a 'true' Afrikaaner by 'lived daily practice'....oh no, I have no pigeon hole!

Its like saying, if you are from the US South, you must dream of days of confederacy and slavery, you're from urban California, well you are obviously gay then, Quebec, a francophone separatist...blah blah.

One hear's all kinds of taken for granted blanket statements that make no sense.

Yes, the extreme right wing Afrikaaners exist; proud, less political Afrikaaners exist (as they should, along with others) and as far as I'm concerned the most creative, vanguard and 'out-there' 'liberal' white artists in SA are often Afrikaans speaking, that leaves us with a deterministic conundrum, does it not? What about Brit descendants in SA who definately don't call themselves English and have no recent ties to ol' Blighty?

I think it's great that De La Ray has sparked at least a ground level "awakening" or Pride with a capitol P toward being a Afrikaaner.

I wish we had a De La Ray song in English for being American that would make people remember 9/11, be happy about protecting the border, and instill being proud to be an American weather white, green, purple, orange, yellow, black, or pink.

I am proud for the De La Ray song. I hope it does bring you all together.

You know the guy I met in Windhoek that was a liberal ANC guy, was a openly gay German who had AIDS. So yes it does take all types.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by D99:
What do you guys think of the song De La Ray from Bok van Blerk?

Excellent! And about a true hero for the '98/01 War or any other. (At least it's not about Slim Jannie.)

quote:

The thing about this song is that the tune is catchy and to the Afrikander the words combined with the tune literally causes the hair on your arms to rise..... it's amazing what emotional chemistry this song evokes!

Alf,

I know just a few phases and words of Afrikaans and found the song evoked similar emotional reaction. I must have listened to it 10 times from your link. It is a haunting tune and combinded with the video I don't believe one has to understand the language to appreciate the sentiment of the song. How it can be controversial is beyond me. That would be similar to folks in the US getting bent out of shape over the playing of Dixie or the display of the Stars and Bars. Oh, wait...that happens all the time. Never mind.

Perry

Generaal De la Rey = symbol of courage !!!

JACOBUS HERCULES DE LA REY (“KOOSâ€) (1847-1914)

Genl Koos de la Rey was an austere Boer general. He stands out as morally the most powerful and unyielding of the generals. It was he who was to keep alight, in its purest form, the fierce flame of Afrikaner nationalism. He was the grandson of an immigrant from Holland who settled in Lichtenburg in the old Transvaal Republic.

Genl de la Rey was deeply religious and a small pocket Bible was rarely out of his hand. He had formidable looks. A long neatly trimmed brown beard, a high forehead with deep-set glowing eyes gave him at 52 a prematurely patriarchal appearance.

When he spoke everybody listened and he is best remembered for his speech in parlaiment when he condemned Krugers war (against England) policy.

Some trivia for a Saturday afternoon ...

If your interested in purchasing it and you live outside of South Africa a mate of mine in the UK has started selling them on Ebay. Do a serach for Bok Van Blerk De La Ray on ebay.

It's an anti-British anthem with no implications, at least not overt, toward the ANC so I can't see how it is controversial at that level. The Afrikaner-English thing is moot now. As someone stated, a lot of the English-speakers have emigrated. Those that are left fought the bush war side by side with the Afrikaners and they now have a lot more in common than ever (being formerly advantaged and currently disadvantaged..) Most of the "living memory" people (whose fathers or grandfathers fought in the Anglo Boer war) have joined their ancestors in the afterlife...after all this war is 105 years old.

The ANC are a little paranoid about the Afrikaners with good reason. That's why they want to disarm the civilian population..before any wholesale attempt to take the land. They suspect, with good reason, that the farmers (who are disproportionately Afrikaner) will take up arms if there were a Zimbabwe-like attempt to take the farms.

There has been a lot of talk in SA about the concentration camps in recent years. It's a very emotional issue obviously, and the relevance to today's situation is that someone calculated that had there been no concentration camps, in which many thousands of Afrikaner women and children died, the Afrikaners would be in the majority today and thus would still be running the country even with universal franchise. In other words, the British and their concentration camps are responsible for the loss of power, status and yes prosperity of the Afrikaner in RSA. I don't know whether the math holds up but this talk has rekindled anti-British feelings. Hence the popularity of the song.

It's too bad that the English and the Afrikaner couldn't work together for the good of the country during the formative years of the country. The fact that they were divided socially, politically and spiritually no doubt contributed to the chain of events that led to today's reality in RSA.

Anyway, history cannot be changed. The question is whether songs like this are positive forces or negative forces in South African society today. I can't see a lot of good coming out of rekindling these memories, or bolstering Afrikaner nationalism and militancy. Frankly, the remaining whites, whether they be of English, Boer, or other stock should work together within the political framework to influence government policy in a positive direction, to the extent that's possible. To attempt anything else would be similar to David Koresh's stand against the Feds.

Living in Pretoria and with the Universirty of Pretoria with a lot of young Afrikaner adult I can see the difference they are proud to be afrikaans but they are also not stupid to commit a crime for being proud. More and more students are starting to wear boer Khaki clothes that we can see in Hatfield square where they express themselves. But the same ones wearing it will not go and wear it in downtown Johannesburg. They have their own space here a niche as you might call it. And they still love to party with their english friends with a joke or two about De la Ray but otherwise except for expressing themselves and being proud afrikaner I only see this as making the whithe folks stronger and believing in themselves and not to finish studying and flying overseas for jobs.

I have six years until I retire from the Navy.

If the war comes, I'll come down there and fight the war! At least after 20 years I could say I fought for something greater than oil and religion.

So would you take help from an American-German-English-Irish-Norwegian?

D99,

No problem as long as you get accustomed to the Boere Taal/Afrikaans.

Cheers]
BTW I'm a Belgian Boer

Most societies in the world have fought the British at one time or another. Most are now friendly, societies evolve...tribes and clans have disappeared in the european culture and have prospered by working together. Those that continue the tribal culture are in failure at the moment, and will continue a downward spiral.
PS thanks for the translation it would have taken me a little while to fill in the blanks from my dictionary. Speaking of that could anyone in South Africa connect me with someone I could get some grade school grammer type books from in Afrikaans (through the internet). The only one available on Amazon is very expensive. Also, any childrens books would be great!

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Alf, you are right....but at the same time, how come Botswana's transition was less traumatic and th outcome positive for everyone (well except for the San people perhaps)? I think it has to do with the way the whites in SA handled the last few decades of last century.....don't you?

Water under the bridge in any case....and possibly a lost cause.