I came across an interesting post and video today that suggests Afrikaner nationalism is not lost on the youth. The song “de la Rey” is in reference to one of the generals who lead the Boers in the Anglo Boer War. Why the attention is on him and not others, I do not know. The song’s chorus summons the general to lead his people, a people that will rise again.

The video sticks to a scene of men up against a sandbag wall, apparently waiting miserably for leadership as is represented by de la Rey riding on a black horse. To be stuck behind a wall, a fence for the wife and child in the video, has a curious connotation to it. Since the dominant strategy for the Boers was guerilla tactics, the image doesn’t seem historically accurate, leading me to believe that it represents something of the present situation.

The Ministry of Arts & Culture’s statement in response to the song, titled “on Bok Van Blerks’s Supposed Afrikaans “Struggle Song,” De La Rey and Its Coded Message to Fermenting Revolutionary Sentiments“, thinks the song is great as a “historical curiosity” but warns anyone thinking there is any contemporary relevance to the song. Anyone with the wrong interpretation of it are endanger of treason. The statement concludes by wishing the song writer good luck “and who knows, if it’s really good, it might even become an international hit.”

If it is really good. That’s pretty funny.