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To: sea_urchin who wrote (25889)	10/7/2007 2:06:45 PM
From: sea_urchin	Respond to of 81101

> You have to live in SA to know how they feel. This may give an inkling. emergingsa.wordpress.com >>De la Rey. To anyone in South Africa, even non-Afrikaans speaking people, the words of the title will have immediate meaning. To anyone not from South Africa, or not following South African news, you probably would have to be a student of South African history for this to mean anything to you. You can read something of the history of General De la Rey here, en.wikipedia.org but the part on pop culture leaves much to be desired. Basically this is what’s going on. This guy De la Rey was a very famous general in the Anglo-Boer war. Then someone wrote a song about him, Bok van Blerk start singing it, and the Afrikaner youth freak out. This song gets treated like a new national anthem to a lot of them. And the past few weeks it’s been basically daily news in the biggest Afrikaans paper (biggest paper?) in South Afrika. At the bottom I give a direct translation of the words, but basically the words sing about the war of 1899-1902, about how bad the situation is, and then ask General De la Rey to come and lead the Boer, telling him that they will fall beside him. But this is a basic thing of people giving meaning to words. Whether it was intended or not, this song is interpreted by many as the call of the Afrikaner that we will get a new leader, someone that will lead the Afrikaner youth. It’s becoming synonymous with a new flag of Afrikaner Nationalism. De La Rey On a mountain in the night We lie in the dark and wait In the mud and the blood As cold rain clings to my pack And my house and my farm were burnt to the ground so they could capture us But the flame and the fire that once burned deep now burn deep within my heart. De La Rey, De La Rey will you come lead the Boer De La Rey, De La Rey General, General united with you we shall fall. General De La Rey. Against the English soldiers that laugh A handful of us against a big force With the cliffs of the mountains against our backs They think it’s done But the heart of a Boer is deeper and wider they will still see it On a horse he has come, The Lion of West Transvaal. De La Rey, De La Rey will you come lead the Boer De La Rey, De La Rey General, General united with you we shall fall. General De La Rey. Because my wife and my child lies in a camp and die, As the English soldiers marrow runs over a nation that will stand up again De La Rey, De La Rey will you come lead the Boer De La Rey, De La Rey General, General united with you we shall fall.<< What I find so strange is something which I've not heard anyone else mention and that is that the Afrikaners sing about de la Rey and how the British burned down their forebears' farms, but now they choose to be mercenaries for the very people that de la Rey fought. That's why it's not possible for anyone other than an Afrikaner to really understand how they feel. They are a people unto themselves.