Tom’s Big Picture

One of the greatest embarrassments for Marxists of all varieties these days is the post-Apartheid experience of South Africa. Since the fall of that system, South Africa has gone from being the economic powerhouse of Africa (with a GDP exceeding the rest of the continent combined) to a basketcase whose distinction these days is as the rape capital of the world- a London firm actually sells “rape insurance” to South African women to cover the cost of AIDS treatments. Their esteemed President, Mr. Mbeki, believes that AIDS is actually not caused by a virus, but rather is a plot of the white man to hold down African achievement, and has funded “alternative medicine” studies to test the prescriptions of native witch doctors- the most popular of which, tragically, is the belief by many Africans that sex with a virgin cures AIDS- this obviously exacerbates the rape situation.

What should be most embarrassing for the Marxists is the racial record of the new government. Whereas apartheid was physical separation and political disenfranchisement in an otherwise free society, the new government has mandated all sorts of racial preference laws. Among these are regulations that all businesses must be at least 50% black-owned, extensive affirmative action programs, gun confiscations from law-abiding citizens, and seizing land and property- not to mention the predictable lack of crime prosecution. So garden-variety oppression, mild by African standards, has been replaced by Communist anarcho-tyranny.

In the middle of all of this is a little-discussed group of Christian people called the Afrikaners, or Boers, Dutch-descended Protestants who have formed the backbone of the productive part of the country for 200 years. Very few people realize that South Africa was mostly uninhabited when the Boers arrived, save for a few primitive nomadic Stone Age tribes. Only later did Zulus and other tribes now claiming oppression move in and try and claim the land. In fact, much of the racial problem in South Africa stems from the fact that so many blacks from other parts of Africa moved there for a better life- to get a job and make a living beyond subsistence farming- and to escape the much more onerous oppression (usually of the machete-wielding limb-chopping variety) of their fellow black tribes in their native lands. A curfew and an assigned neighborhood sounded pretty good compared to getting your arm chopped off, and so the apartheid government actually had a huge problem with illegal immigration, esp. since the relatively small British and Dutch population was hungy for cheap labor. Is this beginning to sound familar?

The Boers have a rich history as a Christian people, their adventures in many situations reading like something out of the Old Testament. Consider the Afrikaner holiday called “The Day of the Vow”:

The day is observed as a religious holiday by some Afrikaners in memory of The Battle of Blood River between a group of about 470 Voortrekkers and a much larger Zulu force on 16 December 1838.

Before the battle, the Voortrekkers had received word that a force of 10 to 20 thousand Zulu was approaching. Certain of being overwhelmed, the Voortrekkers assumed a prime defensive location at what is now known as Blood River. As the Zulus approached, the Voortrekkers prayed that they would not be killed. The name Day of the Vow stems from this prayer, in which they made a covenant to God that, if they were delivered, they would build a church there and keep the day as a holy Sabbath for them and all that followed in their lineage. At the end of the battle, only three Afrikaners were wounded, although over 3,000 Zulu warriors had lost their lives. The Voortrekkers built a church at the location, and passed the vow to their descendants.

Unfortunately, and as I will cover similarly in a subsequent post on the War Between the States, such a Christian people could not be tolerated by the coming age. In 1899, the British initiated a war with the Boers over gold deposits in their lands- in short, the British wanted them and the Boers weren’t keen on letting them have them. Playing out much like our own conflict, the Boers proved hard to conquer, inflicting mass casualties on the British at little cost to themselves. The British, like the Union, could only win by breaking Christian law and declaring war on women and children- in this case, coining the word “concentration camps” for where Boer women and children were taken after having their farms and houses burned, often starving to death (despite British food surpluses, much like how Lincoln starved Confederate POW’s in a land of plenty) or dying of disease in unsanitary conditions.

One of the leaders of the war was a general named Koos De La Rey:

He married Jacoba Elizabeth Greeff and the couple settled on the farm Elandsfontein. They had ten children. 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 and a high forehead with deep-set eyes that gave him a prematurely patriarchal appearance.

He is generally regarded as the most powerful and unyielding of the Boer generals during the Second Boer War and as one of the leading figures of Afrikaner nationalism. As a guerrilla, his tactics proved extremely successful. De la Rey opposed the war until the last, but when he was once accused of cowardice during a Volksraad session, he replied that if the time for war came, he would be fighting long after all those clamoring for war had given up. This proved to be the case.

In South Africa today, the Boers are pretty much prohibited from any expression of national pride. In fact, celebration of the Day of the Vow can be considered a “hate crime”, while of course African tribal groups are encouraged to celebrate their history and holidays. Again, does this sound familiar?

So you can imagine the stir when a young Afrikaner folk singer named Bok van Blerk releases a rock anthem called “De La Rey” that becomes a cultural sensation:

The question goes out, and the response is always the same.

“I’m proud of my language and culture. Are you?” Bok van Blerk demands of the emotionally charged crowd.

Up goes the cheer, and then comes the song - an Afrikaans folk number about a Boer war general that has become a sensation in South Africa as an anthem for young whites who say they are tired of being made to feel guilty about the apartheid past.

The song, De La Rey, has swept into rugby matches and pubs where Afrikaners belt out its plea for the old Boer general to come back and lead. Many stand with a hand over their heart as they sing the lyrics about a “nation that will rise up again” as if it were a national anthem.

But while the song is a best seller among South Africa’s 2.5 million Afrikaners, it is also generating a heated debate about what its success means.

Bok van Blerk characterises De La Rey as a stand against historic guilt.

“Young Afrikaners are tired of having the apartheid guilt trip shoved down their throats. This song makes them proud of their heritage,” he said.

The song is about an Afrikaner Boer war general, Koos de la Rey, who opposed war with the British because he did not believe the Afrikaner republics could win. But once war began de la Rey threw himself into the fight, playing a heroic role in the British defeat at Magersfontein.

The government, obviously, is not very keen about this young man, as South Africans do not enjoy free speech, esp. when spoken in a Dutch tongue:

The Department of Arts and Culture responded … warning that “those who incite treason, whatever methods they employ, might well find themselves in difficulties with the law.” The Democratic Alliance opposition party responded by saying that the song was not nearly as potentially subversive as ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma’s song Umshini wami (Zulu for “bring me my machine gun”).

Youtube music video and translated lyrics below:

On a mountain in the night
we lie in the darkness and wait
In the mud and blood I lie cold, grain bag and rain cling to me

And my house and my farm
burned to ashes,
so that they could catch us
But those flames and that fire
burn now deep, deep within me

Chorus:
De la Rey, De la Rey
Will you come to lead the Boers?
De la Rey, De la Rey
General, General, as one man we’ll fall in around you
General De la Rey

And the Khakis that laugh, a handful of us against their whole great might,
with the cliffs to our backs, they think it’s all over

But the heart of the Boer lies deeper and wider,
that they’ll still discover
At a gallop he comes, the Lion of the West Transvaal

Because my wife and my child are perishing in a concentration camp,
and the Khakis’ reprisal is poured over a nation that will rise up again

General De la Rey
De la Rey, De la Rey
Will you come for the Boers?
We are ready