Leipoldt: The Universal Afrikaner

by Roon Lewald

Louis Leipoldt

In one of my latest visits to the blog of an American friend, I was intrigued by a sensitive description of her visit to the remote grave of Afrikaans poet C. Louis Leipoldt, sheltered by an overhanging ledge of sandstone at Pakhuis (Storehouse) Pass in the rugged Cedarberg mountains some 200 miles north of Cape Town.

Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt (1880-1947) is revered by Africa’s only white tribe as one of its finest poets. He was a leading luminary of the “Second Movement”, the generation of language pioneers which produced the first poems of genuine literary value in Afrikaans immediately after the 1899-1902 Anglo-Boer War. His name is hardly known outside an estimated 10 million or so native speakers spread over South Africa and the now rapidly expanding diaspora of Afrikaner emigrants to the USA, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere. But blog hostess Jenny Bennett has such wide interests that I wasn’t too surprised by her tribute to such an exotic poet.

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.

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”).

Gebet für Afrika

by Roon Lewald

 

(Empfindungen in der Karro-Halbwüste
während der Apartheid-Ära, ca. 1987)

Die Feuergeißel schwindet.
Kühle lindert
das verschmorte Land.
Im Wolkenbrand
verkohlen letzte Tagesopfer
auf dem Rost der Nacht.
Myriadenfach
lodern Feuerkugel kalt,
erschreckend groß, uralt
im Indigo des Himmelsdachs.

Dankbar hüllt das nackte Land
sich ein in ihrem Glühen,
andächtig harrend
auf das Kreuz des Südens.
Endlich steht es tröstlich da,
Dein Zeichen, Herr, bis es
erblasst im Morgengrau.

Nkulunkul’ Nkoos’!
Großer Gott, wir danken Dir
für Deinen kurzen Trost.
Doch warum nimmst Du
ihn denn von uns,
gerade wenn Dein Licht
in unsre Alltagsnot
so gnadenlos einbricht?

Nkosi, sikelel’ i Afrika:
Herrgott, erbarme Dich!
Segne Afrika
bei Nacht UND Tag!

Amen.

Helen van Pletsen – the Nightingale of Natal

By Roon Lewald, son of Helen van Pletsen, author of “The Van Pletsen Saga”

In a personal twist to the old show-biz saying that “you haffta be Jewish”, my Afrikaner mother had a stock diagnosis of people she considered too humourless to appreciate the funny side of life. Irritated by an encounter with some particularly dour, self-righteous grudge-bearer, she would shrug and say: “His / her problem is a lack of irony in the blood.”

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.

 

 

 

South Africa: A Lesson of Freedom

 

From the Pacifica Radio archives, this archival audio gem:

“Rhodesia came into existence as a colonial slave state, established during the halcyon days of the British Raj. A quick glance at a modern world map, however, attests that the powerful colony would eventually assert the right of self-rule… that from the belly of Rhodesia, the independent nation of South Africa would be born.

LISTEN to this episode.

“National independence, however, is not synonymous with freedom. Was it possible that the oppressed could set a new standard for freedom-fighters the world over? In the face of modern technological warfare, could they succeed? And if so, how without the gutters of Johannesburgh running red with blood?

“Stephen Biko, a soon-to-be martyred activist,

 

Desmond Tutu – an Anglican priest from a township parish,

 

and Nelson Mandela, an imprisoned social activist,

would inform history of a new process of emancipation. Together they would prevail upon the state and the world to recognize humanism as the true basis for national sovereignty, and demonstrate a method whereby, for the first time in history, the slaves would free their masters.

“This week, From the Vault explores the stories of three heroic South African leaders, woven together by the songs of Mama Africa, Miriam Makeba, and the recollections of Pacifica’s own Eva Georgia and Bridgette Ramasodi, women who grew up in South Africa under Apartheid.

“From the Vault brings you the inspiring story of South Africa’s struggle for freedom and social justice – South Africa: A Lesson of Freedom”

LISTEN to this episode.