aiden choles

Helen Zille's faction/embittered approach to politics normally grinds my turkey, but a paragraph in her most recent weekly newsletter stood out as being congruent with my stance on Zuma's ascension to power:  read more »

I have a growing sense that as a nation, South Africa is heading towards a knife edge. In just a few months Zuma goes to trail (in which the prosecutors are calling over 200 witnesses). A few months thereafter, we go to the polls to vote for a new president (during which the president-elect will still be standing trial for corruption). As recipes go, this does not bode well for a peaceful transition between power regimes.  read more »

When I consider the state of culture and language in South Africa, it's almost as if someone has swung a pendulum in the language sphere of South African culture, and his name is Bok van Blerk. We are one of those nations where culture equates to language, and vice versa. From the bloody years in which Afrikaans was a forced language of education for all South Africans in the 1970s, and even before, South Africans have found solitude in the culture their language reinforces. Since 1994 however, there has been one language that has suffered at the swing of the pendulum - Afrikaans. Democracy has heralded the freedom of language and culture in our country and the Afrikaners have been struggling to find a cultural foundation on which to stand that honours their culture. (At least this is what I have perceived in the way Afrikaners are fighting for their Story - I'm English speaking).

And so, Bok van Blerk came on to the scene with a song, Delarey, that tells the story of a general in the Anglo-Boer war who courageously lead the Boere in the fight against the British many a year back. The songs chorus of “De la Rey, De la Rey, sal jy die boere kom lei? [De la Rey, will you come to lead the Boers?]”, and how well the song has done (SA's best ever debut album) is a salient narrative indicator of where the Afrikaaner culture finds itself - in dire need of expression and solidarity.  read more »