ORANIA’S VOLK FROM THE INSIDE
participation in the re-enactment of the Great Trek. This is where, she asserts, the “Volk” started building their own future, and by 1949 they were seeing Communism as the main source of evil (“Die Rooi Gevaar”).
The year 1960 saw the Sharpeville massacre, and a year later the creation of uMkhonto weSizwe; by 1987, the governing National Party had started to break up. Yet things were changing: by 1998, Ncome had become a new heritage site, facing the old Blood River “laager” monument, reinterpreting belatedly the events of 1838 from the point of view of the Zulu nation.
In 2008 a third re-enactment of the Great Trek took place and about 5 000 people arrived at the Blood River site. It seems as if those Afrikaners were gathering to revive a particular understanding of their culture, language and history. For decades many Afrikaners saw their history as the history of all South Africa; everybody had to learn that history in which “all Voortrekkers were heroes”. As history professor Fransjohan Pretorius of the University of Pretoria joked, “and they were all 10 feet tall!”
Now the rewriting of history is in full swing as owning the past is a mechanism to owning the future. For the first time Afrikaners are discovering that during the Anglo-Boer War there were also black concentration camps and that thousands of black people died; black soldiers (not only agterryers) also fought alongside the Boers.
Norman researched extremely carefully not only Afrikaner history but the history of this country as a whole, and she describes pretty accurately the role and development of Afrikaner thinking.
At first I thought that the role of Orania was overstated until I realised that for her, Orania constitutes a mindset, rather than a locality.
In a book of about 200 pages she has painted a very clear picture of how a group representing a section of Afrikaners view themselves in relation to this country and their future in it; and why they feel the “laager” may be the safest haven.
It is significant that the late Swedish author Henning Mankell, creator of the legendary detective Wallander series, and who himself had roots in southern Africa, was one of the main forces propelling her towards this country and this task. Highly recommended.