On Afrikaans

There is, for me, something remarkable about well-crafted Afrikaans prose. Her words are fertile; a faithful translation into English will often demand of a translator three words for each pregnant Afrikaans word. She remains, for this writer, a language that at once embraces and estranges her readers, for she is essentially tribal.

Any engelsprekende that has ever ventured into a conversation in Afrikaans with Afrikaners might know what I’m trying to place my finger on: his toungue immediately betrays him as an outsider; there is an awkward moment of sheer horror when conversation halts — and resumes — in English. There is little to no middle ground for those who speak Afrikaans as a second, third or foreign language. Our battered vocabulary and slaughtered syntax betray us immediately for the buitelanders that we are. It is our shiboleth.

Afro-pessimism: Robert Mugabe

By David Mpanga

“I will never, never, never, never surrender. Zimbabwe is mine, I am a Zimbabwean. Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans.”  Robert Mugabe, December 2008.

If a white fiction writer had dreamt up the Zimbabwe-under-Mugabe plot, he would have been roundly condemned as an Afro-pessimist and a racist. But we have all seen that after ruining the Zimbabwean economy with misplaced policies, purportedly intended to emancipate the downtrodden black man, Mugabe “secured” an 85.51% “landslide victory” by beating his opponents into submission.

Having failed to declare official results for over a month when it looked like the great hero of the revolution was losing, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission reclaimed its reputation for efficiency by counting all of the ballots and verifying the results of the presidential run-off election in one day. So it is back to business-as-usual in Zimbabwe.

Die Nag van die Vlieënde Miere

Deur ‘n onbekende skrywer

In English

“Ons het selfs tot aan die uur van ons dood die illusie dat ons onsself ken, wéét wat ons wíl…”

Inleiding

deur Roon Lewald

Hieronder verskyn die oorspronklike Afrikaanse manuskrip van die kortverhaal Die Nag van die Vlieënde Miere, waarvan my noodgewonge eienmagtige Engelse vertaling elders op hierdie blog verskyn. Ek wens dat die onbekende skrywer van hierdie pakkende, heel toevallig deur my tussen my oorlede suster Deanne Lewald se besittinge na haar dood gevonde storie daarvan te hore sal kom en sy eie kommentaar sal lewer daaroor. Intussen wens ek hom geluk met sy raak siening van intellektuele Afrikanerdom se sielewroeginge op die drumpel van rewolusionêre veranderinge in die ontstuimige 1980er jare. Hierdie laat publikasie daarvan, seker goed 20 jaar na die verhaal se ontstaan, is m.i. ‘n déja vu wat vandag nog – of miskien weer – groot aktualiteit besit. Sekerlik sou lesers graag meer wil weet oor die tyd en omstandighede van die verhaal se ontstaan, hoe die outeur vandag dink oor die werklikheid van die ou bedeling se destyds al onvermydelike einde, en hoe hy die huidige asook toekomstige rol en toestand van die Afrikaner en sy taal in (of buite) Suid-Afrika sien.

Bishop Jefferts Schori on Zimbabwe

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, issued a statement May 6 on the political and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. The full text of the Presiding Bishop’s original statement follows:

Together with millions of people around the world, my heart has been drawn in recent months to the political and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Zimbabwe. The tragedy of that nation’s descent into internal chaos is magnified by the high sense of purpose and prosperity that a newly independent Zimbabwe brought to Africa and the world nearly three decades ago. Sadly, Robert Mugabe’s government has undermined that promise beyond recognition with its systematic repression of human rights, democracy, and economic opportunity for the people of Zimbabwe. The turmoil in the wake of Zimbabwe’s recent elections signals an urgent need for governments and other leaders in the international community to stand in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe, and call for an end to this long hour of human suffering and the beginning of a new era of promise and opportunity.

Durban 1947

By Roon Lewald

1947 was a good time to be a white five-year-old in Durban. The beaches offered halcyon days beside the Indian Ocean. The Durban July turned the town into an exciting tourist mecca. The Bioscope was still the gateway to Hollywood’s dream factory of the world. In that stronghold of English speakers, blimpish super-patriots of Empire basked in the last rays of the setting Empire, and the 1947 Royal Visit whipped monarchist enthusiasms to fever pitch. “Our magnificent Zulu” were complacently thought to be quite content with white overlordship, and one of the few blots on white horizons was the rapid encroachment of increasingly prosperous Indian merchants on previously all-white shopping and residential areas.

The Night of the Flying Ants

Die Nag van die Vlieënde Miere

Klik vir Afrikaans

Author unknown. c. 1986. Translation from the original Afrikaans manuscript by Roon Lewald.

“Right up to the hour of our death, we have the illusion that we know ourselves, that we know what we want . . .”

The sun is rising blood-red over the sea and the dagga (marijuana) sellers have not yet taken up their positions as we drive out of the city. As we turn off onto the Kwamashu road, about the only other traffic consists of rickety Putco busses and minibus taxis, over-filled with black faces. The whites, high up against the Berea, are still dazed with Saturday-morning weariness after waking up to Nescafé and “Goeie môre, Suid-Afrika!” – good morning, South Africa! Altus lights cigarettes for us as we try to work out how to tackle the Afrikaans tutorial for the black matriculants today. We have to do Ernst van Heerden’s “Die hardloper” (the runner) and the passive and active voices (I silently consider the irony that, in this country, the Afrikaans terms for these two grammatical expressions — “lydend” and “bedrywend” — literally mean “suffering” and “perpetrating”).

South Africa’s Proposed Pledge of Allegiance

“We the youth of South Africa
Recognising the injustices of our past,
Honour those who suffered and sacrificed for justice and freedom.
We will respect and protect the dignity of each person,
And stand up for justice.
We sincerely declare that we shall uphold the rights and values of our Constitution
And promise to act in accordance with the duties and responsibilities
that flow from these rights.
! KE E: / XARRA // KE
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika“

There is something unnerving about putting social ideals into words, especially when it’s about a country with a fairly fresh memory of an uneven and divided history. South Africa’s proposed Pledge of Allegiance, intended to be memorized and recited by millions of school children throughout the Republic, has caused a national debate over identity, inclusion and guilt.

An Apology to Africa

Bishop Catherine Roskam delivered this apology to Africa during a Service of Liberation at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Sunday January 13th 2008:

I am sorry, Africa.

Of all the places we have exploited-and we have exploited many – it is only from you that we have also stolen the people.

I am sorry that we took your people and held them in bondage for centuries, a holocaust of perhaps twenty million souls.

Africa, we transported your children in conditions unfit for any living creature. When they became sick or died, we threw them overboard, like so much unwanted ballast. Those that completed the excruciating journey, we sold like cattle, auctioning them off to the highest bidder.

++Desmond Tutu kry ’n kil ontvangs in Kenia

Foto: Blane (Tutu Center, New York 2007)

Emeritus aartsbiskop ++Desmond Tutu het hier kort ná sy aankoms in die geweldgeteisterde land die koue skouer van die Keniaanse regering gekry, wat hom bloot as ’n toeris beskryf het omdat hy nie genooi is nie.

Dié koue ontvangs vir Tutu, wat ’n afvaardiging van besorgde Afrika-kerkleiers sou lei, het ook pres. John Kufuor van Ghana, voorsitter van die Afrika-unie (AU), in sy spore laat omdraai toe hy sy beoogde besoek laat vaar het.

Terselfdertyd was oudpres. Ahmed Tejan Kabbah van Sierra Leone, wat deur premier Gordon Brown van Brittanje as bemiddelaar voorgestel is en hoof van die Statebond se verkiesingswaarnemerspan was, gister op ’n vlug uit Nairobi nadat hy ingelig is oor pres. Mwai Kibaki se standpunt jeens buitelandse bemiddeling in die Oos-Afrika-staat se ergste krisis in ’n kwarteeu. Lyke in sommige strate in Nairobi was gister die stille getuienis terwyl die polisie en die anti-regeringsoproeriges slaags gebly het.

Tutu het wel met die verslane opposisieleier, mnr. Raila Odinga, vergader. Ontleders meen die land se skielike spiraal na chaos skaad Afrika se demokratiseringsproses.

“Die prentjie van Kenia as ’n model vir stabiliteit is flenters,” het Tutu gesê.

Afrikaners: Voed die nuwe nasie die ou etnos?

Jan van der Merwe , Doktorale student in antropologie aan die Universiteit van die Vrystaat , oor Afrikaners in ’n post-apartheid Suid-Afrika:

Lees die oorspronlike opsetel hierso.  Listen to Eban van Renen’s podcast reading of this essay here.

Impak op Afrikaners se Kultuurbeskouing

“Een van die realiteite waarmee Afrikaners voortdurend gekonfronteer word en wat telkens in ’n onlangse antropologiese studie aan die Universiteit van die Vrystaat na vore getree het, is die feit dat Afrikaners ’n kulturele minderheid in Suid-Afrika is. Hierdie realiteit, tesaam met die ANC-regering se eksplisiete proses van nasiebou, het ’n regstreekse impak op Afrikaners se kultuurbeskouing.