Bok van Blerk’s De La Rey has rapidly become one of the most popular Afrikaans songs of all time. Some fear it’s become the rallying cry for a new form of white supremacism in South Africa, others declare outright that it is much rather the rallying cry of a new generation of Afrikaners who finally found a new icon for their cultural identity without the shame of appartheid (leading to a thousand jokes about how the only leader the Afrikaans youth could find has been dead a hundred years). As for the songwriter ? He says he chose the specific general because “his name was the only one that was easy to rhyme” and the singer is blatantly honest “I’m in this for the money and I will play for anybody who pays me”.
Far be it from me to declare an opinion on so hot an issue (I have one, but I don’t want to discuss it here – the debate has been way too silly for way too long). So instead, I have decided rather to do something truly constructive.
The biggest problem I see in this debate is that a very large number of debaters don’t have a clue what they are talking about. Now I can at least help remove their excuse for not having a clue. In other words, rather than joining this debate, I wish to inform the debaters a bit. I did this by translating the song.
More specifically, I translated the video (you can see it on youtube here) and I suggest having a look at it before reading the translation. Since the purpose here is at least mostly to inform, I have also added a number of clarifications below – especially where the expressions and deeper meanings would have been lost in English.
Without further ado then:
Intro screen:
By die end of the Anglo boer war only
a handfull of boers* were still holding out
against the full force of Britain
Their farms burned down, their wives and kids
dying in concentration camps
82,742 Boers
346,693 British soldiers
In times like these, legends are made…
——–
Lyrics:
On ‘n mountain in die night
we lie in the dark and wait
in the mud and the blood I lie cold
floursack and rain cling to me
And my home and my farm
burned to ashes* so that they can catch us
but those flames and fire now burn deep,
deep within me
Chorus:
De La Rey, De La Rey*
Will you come lead the boers ?
De La Rey, De La Rey
General, General
As one man we’ll fall around you
General De La Rey
Hear the khakies* that laugh
a handful of us
against ‘n huge big force
and the mountains* lie here at our backs
they think it’s over.
But the heart of ‘n boer
lie deeper and wider
they will see it yet
on a horse he is coming
the “lion of the Western Transvaal”*
Chorus X 2
Because my wife and my child
lie in a camp and “whither away”*
and the khakies’ marrow is running*
over a nation that will stand up again.
Chorus X 3
Final line:
General, General
will you come fetch the boers
*Boer is another name for the Afrikaner nation, it literally means farmer. At the time, it was the name Afrikaners preffered to refer to themselves by, “Afrikaner” though coined as early as 1658 was not in widespread use until the 1930’s.
*The orriginal word would literally mean: coals
*In case anybody DOESN’T know this part yet – a famous general of the boer forces,
especially in the second part of the anglo boer war. Afrikaners believe he invented modern guerilla warfare – this may very well be true.
*A derogatory name used by the Boers for the British forces – refers to the colour of their uniforms.
*The orriginal word would literaly mean: cliffs
*This was ‘n wellknown nickname for General De La Rey among his soldiers, the Western Transvaal refers to the region in the old ZAR republic where he came from, now largely in the North-west province of the South African republic.
*Very difficult word other possible translations could be: pining away and dying slowly.
*This is a refference to a common Afrikaans expression: “marrow” in Afrikaans has
conotations very similiar to “backbone” and “spine” for courageousness or audacity in English.
Technorati Tags: Bok van Blerk, De La Rey, Afrikaans, South Africa, Afrikaners, cultural identity, appartheid
