Dit my groot lekkerkry gee om hierdie hondeskou oop to verklaar, Meneer Zuma. You’ll be of a certain age and have an elephantine memory to match if you can place the first 80% of that line. It was, I believe, a running gag in a Springbok Radio comedy show in the sixties called Next Stop Makouvlei and uttered by an English-speaking South African character trying desperately to impress with a little Afrikaans but failing somewhat embarrassingly.
The line strikes me as being as good a start as any in my attempt, starting this momentous day for our new leader in waiting, to try to make myself more Afrikaans, less English, and consequently less marginalised and more of a proper South African in the eyes of he who must now be obeyed at all times. Unfortunately, I will still be white, even if I were suddenly to start sprouting Zulu, but I’m an old hand at inhabiting a minority skin colour, so I shall remain as thick-skinned as ever about that unfortunate accident of birth.
So ja, hartlik welkom by hierdie blog wat gededikeer is aan daardie outjie met die stort op sy kop. Ou stortkop. Or Jacob Stort, as he may have been called had he lived in parts of the Karoo, where Afrikaans-speaking white okes are often called after a personal characteristic. I once met an oke called Jan Snôr, after his impressive Hitlerian moustache, and another called Jan Pens, after his sizeable boep (I think — it may have been Spens, after the pantry that fed the boep).
Zuma, in that small-town milieu, would have all sorts of names to choose from. And if he wishes to pursue his newfound fondness for white Afrikaners, perhaps he should adapt his moniker to suit that part of his electoral base. First up, he needs to lose the “b” and become known to platteland folk as Jaco. He could be Jaco Skiet for his penchant for machineguns, or Jaco Donner for his ability to make mincemeat of his opponents. We (fledgling) Afrikaners know on which side our roosterbrood is gebotter.
As for the surname, “Zuma” doesn’t really have much of an Afrikaans ring to it, nor would it resonate all that well in such conservative climes. In Arabic, Zuma is a girl’s name meaning “Peace” and a derivative of Zulema, which somehow doesn’t seem to fit. Whatever you might say about our fearless leader to be, a girl he is not.
Wikiname.com says Zuma means Peace, Healthy, New Day or Running Horse. Now that’s looking much more like it. New day seems superbly apt, especially today (as I write) being the day all those nasty charges are being withdrawn. But Running Horse, now could anything be more perfect for Zuma as he breaks out of the starting gate on his easy lope to the finish line on April 22? He’s a cert.
But none of the above translates aptly into Afrikaans, as surnames go, so I guess he’ll have to settle for Zoema, which sounds suitably zesty and rhymes with voema, so there’s an election rallying song in the making there. But I shall hold out for the Afrikaans version.
In the meantime I have burnt my old Johnny Clegg and Juluka/Savuka CDs and bought some Afrikaans CDs and am playing them in my car, winding the windows down and turning the volume up so that everyone will know I am a proper South African and not one of those two-passport uitlanders.
I have become particularly fond of Ray Dylan’s Stoppie Lorrie (The Zumacade’s Coming Through), but just so that nobody thinks I’m a woes I’m also playing Fokofpolisiekar (The Zumacade’s Coming Through). Gotta cover all my bases, boet. I’m eating lots of steak, medium rare and sometimes even well done, washed down with Klippies and Coke, and I am delighted to report that my boep is coming along very nicely.
I am finding Helen Zille very attractive, I must say, and would vote for her party were it not such a sadly English thing to do. Since I am not yet quite Afrikaans enough to actually vote for Zuma’s party, however, I have decided to vote for the ACDP, which has as much chance of getting any noteworthy foothold in Parliament as the old Nats, which makes me feel perfectly at home in my new Afrikaner skin.
Ja-nee.
lekker!!!!!!!
Lol – good read and a great laugh!
You would be much more at home in the Freedom Front.
Mr Jackman,
Divide and conquer.
The animosity between the English South Africans and the Afrikaners stems from the concentration camps. No matter one’s age, the history of unacceptable behaviour is hard to justify.
It is very easy to focus on differences between cultural groups, and perceived negative attributes. Ir is also to charactarize your neighbour. Do you feel better now?
Please tell me where did an Afrikaner tell you that he/she is better/preferable to you, that gave you reason to generally ridicule the Afrikaner? Was your reaction/focus initiated by any unreasonable behaviour of an Afrikaner, or was this a convenient release valve of your general condescending dislike of another language group?
It seems that Jacob Zuma was successful in his quest. You sir, followed with your eyes the ball he kicked, and left the player who did the kicking.
Because it is so easy to keep everybody’s attention glued to his finger, he keeps on enjoying waving his finger all over the place, and it removes lots of attention from the actual issues.
I appreciate the attempt at humor (desperately needed in these times), but not at the expense of an undeserving portion of society. Please do not make the mistake of making unfounded generalisations.
I trust that you will make the effort to find just one Afrikaner with a cool head, compassion, and virtue to change your mind about about the unwanted nation.
That goes for you too D!
Nice one ou Boet!
The trademark of the ANC is bungling, and Zuma is proving his fitness for the role of party leader time and again.
Btw, “Gededikeer”? Horrible anglicism. Try “toegewy”.
Dankie
As a white Afrikaner from the platteland, I feel there is one particularly descriptive and relevant Afrikaans term you haven’t mentioned, which is “gatkruip” – and I am very annoyed that mister Zuma has been trying to do exactly that to “my people”.
All Zuma was indicating to is that Afrikaners are the only white nation in Africa whose identity and language was formed on the continent. He did not mean that other white people are not South Africans, we are after all a multicultural country i.e. one country many nations. You’re writing smacks off english supremacy, you show a utter contempt for Afrikaans culture and language in a desperate attempt to produce weak comedy.
It is this sort of contaminated writing based on weak analysis that would make an Afrikaner ask, if perhaps it is not time to take hands with our black brothers and run the imperialist pig into the see? After all apartheid is dead, its over there are no more need for racial solidarity!
Lioness, you are so far off the mark. The blog post is about Zuma’s recent comments about Afrikaans and English-speaking South Africans.
I detest English-South Africa’s putting down of the Afrikaner. The Boer/South African/Anglo-Boer War is one of my hobby horses. I despise Lord Roberts and Kitchener for their scorched earth policy; Emily Hobhouse and Olive Schreiner are two of my greatest heroes. I love Schreiner’s assessment of the boer nation in her Thoughts on South Africa, written if memory seves me well in the early 1890s with such remarkable foresight. I’ve even written a play about it and half a novel that ravages the Brits and their concentration camps. I’ve written a play in which Kruger is hero and Rhodes anti-hero. Yes, I despise Rhodes, especially for what his imperalist forces did in what became Rhodesia, murdering and raping (as per Schreiner’s Messianic allegory, Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland).
Ya Nee.
100% Baster thinks this blog is funny. Selfs al is dit in Engels.
My son sent this to a few newspapers recently:
Dear Editor,
My father wants to vote on 22nd but now, because Mr Zuma said something on TV the other day, he’s not sure if he can. His father was born in the Karoo, his mother in Pietermaritzburg and my father was born in Diep River, Cape Town. Dad asked me to write this as his hands are trembling for more reasons than I can imagine:
his bank balance is pretty low
the price of fuel is up once more
the street outside is riddled with crime and posters
But most of all he speaks English and he is “white” (although I think he’s got quite a tan as we haven’t had much rain lately). Because of his skin colour and the Engish that comes out of his mouth Mr Zuma says he is not a true South African.
Please Sir, I want to re-assure him: if I hold his trembling hands can I lead him to the polling booth to vote on 22nd?
Yours sincerely
Robin (aged 10)
on behalf of my father
PS: He only has one South African Passport even though Mr Zuma says he has two passports. Does he need a second one?
R.
Tony,
Well, if you think I am off the mark, then I need to apologise. I DO realise that the blog was about Afrikaans speaking people, and I concede that with emotions running high, some of us may be a bit touchy (note other reactions similar to yours by English speaking people on the internet.)
It seems the Anglo war is a pet project of yours, which seems to entitle you to make fun of the Afrikaner culture in this specific blog. You do say that you detest the putting down of the Afrikaner, why then do I repeatedly experience a suggestion of contempt for the Afrikaner while reading the blog?
Thank you for taking the time to give me better perspective. I do agree that we need to apply humor rather than anger, but maybe your approach was a bit insensitive. I think I should take the time to get familiar with your work.
Good luck Tony Jackman.
So Zuma has succeeded in dividing the remaining whites in SA as well with his absurd comments about Afrikaners! How inappropriate digging out the old Boer/Brit skeletons! Shame on you Lioness!!
Even lost your sense of humour…..
A GREAT post Tony! very funny.
Thanks Greendemon – gededikeer was intended to be a bad, horrible anglisisme. I’m sending myself/English-speaking Seffriccans up, not Afrikaners or Afrikaans.
Lighten up, some of you – it’s tongue in cheek for #@!*’s sake.
Great satire. So many of us have Brit & Boer blood that its hard to say who or what we are.
What I do note is the humour deficit at English irony, satire, or sarcasm etc.
Its taken personally. Only Schuster knows the secret.
Afrikaners are stoic, the hardest-working, “maak ‘n plan” sincere patriots. Their short tempers are legendary and they show it.
They, not the Brits, tamed our land. Us Sappe enjoy the harvests and are tepid politically, until we feel threatened. Then we run ! Except us mixed breeds – our boer blood rises to the surface and gloves come off.
A Xhosa man, many decades ago, told me “The Boer will “donner” you, tells you to voetsek and forgets it. We trust him as he shows what he feels.
The Englishman will smile at you, while stabbing you in the back. We do not know what he feels.”
He was nervous as he expected my reaction of smile-and-smite. Except that I am a mixed blood.
I knew that he spoke the truth!
My children say that when I show my anger – its ‘safe’
Us English are so PC – polite; hypocrites.
Then this matriarch is ‘dangerous.’
They scatter.
Foreigners do not understand the psyche of the Boer/Brit descendants. We are scorpions so Zuma must watch his step ! The Sting is in the tail.
Hilarious BUT: Good satire needs to be sharp – and definitely NOT apologetic.
The Dutchmen got off WAY too lightly in their plummet from power, and your roasting was overdue. Now you say it wasn’t even a roasting. Nooit, man! I’se disappointed, ek se.
A very sharp prick where it hurts most is needed against Afrikaners, please. Tony won’t do it – who will? Maybe we can mix uMshini w’am and de la Rey and get Zuma to the boere kom vry?
Tony
Since you like Paul Kruger and Oliver Schreiner, I am named after Lyndall in “Story of an Africsn Farm” and my great, great, great grandfather baptised and confirmed both Paul Kruger and John Dube.
Lioness
Just for you. My mother was Afrikaans and I was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church. And my grandmother’s greatest achievement was giving prickly pears to a troop of British soldiers to stuff down their shirts when they rode through her father’s farm.
As an afrikaner I also thought the tongue in cheeck had a bit of a condescending note.. but wrote it off to the typical “i’m enlgish and can criticize everything’ syndrome that runs along the same vain as most typically I’m english and can say a lot (very poignantly) while saying actullay very little pc behaviour!
The truth is as someome else said – we are actually all in the same boat, whether our parents spoke afrikaans or not… I do however thought the ‘A very sharp prick where it hurts most is needed against Afrikaners – was a little uncalled for. Perhaps you have some other issues you need to deal with since most afrikaners did not actually play politics or got involved in all the ills that so often get hurled at them. Life carries on, and every decision we make will in the long run build or break our country! I for one, have given up on the possibility that any of the people in power have what it takes to steer this ship clear of disaster! Afrikaners is not dead and they are very far from insignificant as Zuma clearly understands!