I attended a Marketing & Sales class over the weekend and somehow the
De La Rey song got discussed. I had opinions of why I disliked the song including the
mshini 'wam song. They both makes me uncomfortable; my personal experiences, the connotations linked to them and our current political climate.
The song lyrics De La Rey
Op ‘n berg in die nag (On a mountain in the night)
Le ons in die donker and wag (we lie in the dark and wait)
In die modder en blood le ek koud (in the mud and the blood, I lie cold)
…
De La rey, De La Rey
Sal jy die boere kom lei? (will you come and lead the boers?)
…
Oor die Kakies wat lag (over the khakis who laugh)
‘n handjie van ons teen ‘n hele groot mag (a handful of us against a whole big force)
En die kranse le hier teen ons rug (and the crags lie on our backs)
Hulle dink dis verby (they believe it is over)
Maar die hart van ‘n boer le dieper and wyer, (but the heart of a boer lies deeper and wider)
Hulle gaan dit nog sien (they will still see)
Op ‘n perd kom hy aan (on a horse he is coming)
…
En die kakies se murg op (and the khakhis marrow runs)
Oor ‘n nasie wat weer op sal staan (over a nation that will rise again)
Mshin ’wam
Mshin ’wam, Mshin ’wam (my machine gun, my machine gun)
Awulethe Mshin ’wam (bring my machine gun)
My personal experiences
My father is a DSM type of priest and I spent my first 7 years in a Soweto church yard that regularly had archbishop (then bishop) Desmond Tutu coming, so we had some freedom fighters visiting my home.
Archbishop Desmond TutuThe earliest memories I have of this time is going to pick Bishop Tutu up from the airport with my dad, riots and chaos as we were rushed home from school + my head being shoved under a tap after teargas was gooied on us by mellow yellows(police vans) + hippos(war tanks) while we were playing soccer. My parents then made the decision, for safety and educational reasons, to take me to Bophutatswna, tjerrrrrrr to Pitsedisuleyang, to live with relatives. Can you imagine Soweto to nowhere??????
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Khaki-clad Eugene Terblanche (ET)Eventually when Tautona Mangope’s reign was overthrown, khaki-clad ET supporters rampaged the Bop capital city; pictures and TV visuals of them being shot were flighted all over the world. it traumatized me as the memory and fear of my earlier childhood was brought back.
Connotations My connotations of the songs can be summarized by a sentence on the case study "The Ministry of Art and Culture recognized that the
De La Rey song was in danger of "being hijacked" by a minority of right-wingers and cautioned against the song being used as a "struggle song" that sends out a "call to arms" ". However, the same ministry has turned their ears away from the jigga's
Mshini 'wam song. To me, the songs do not represent where South Africa needs to go, what reconciliation is, how the world sees our country and they don’t heal the wounds.
Current Political Climate I was, and to some extent, am still a hard-on-Mbeki-and-indifferent-to-jiggaman voter. Unapologetic kill-4-jigga-GG-in-woodwork-bearing-matric Julius Malema, does not help or draw me to what i loved about the ANC. his nauseating comments do not resonate what I believe real ANC freedom fighters lost their lives for; not just the dead ones but including the imprisoned, the exiled, the tortured, the missing and the mutilated.
Jacob (Jiggaman) Zuma and Julius (GoGanne) Malema
With all the above in mind, what is your opinion about the songs and am I being overly sensitive? How do you think the songs build our reconcialition as a nation and what we want the world to see and hear of South Africa?