Bok Van Blerk Song
Interest in the life and career of De La Rey has recently made a resurgence in South Africa as a result of a song entitled "De la Rey", by the Afrikaans folk singer Bok van Blerk. The song is about a Boer soldier who, towards the end of the 2nd Boer War, after Lord Kitchener had implemented his scorched earth policy, and had burned the Boer's farm to the ground and put his wife and child in a concentration camp facing almost certain death, in desperation and contemplating the destruction of the Boer nation, calls for General De La Rey, a powerful figure even amongst other successful Boer Generals, to lead the Boer Volk (people) to victory.
The Department of Arts and Culture responded to a request for a statement on the song's potentially subversive lyrics saying that the song was "in danger of being hijacked by a minority of right-wingers", defending the composers' right to free speech and citizens' right to oppose the government through constitutional means, but warning that "those who incite treason, whatever methods they employ, might well find themselves in difficulties with the law." The Democratic Alliance opposition party responded by saying that the song was not nearly as potentially subversive as ANC president Jacob Zuma's song Umshini wami (Zulu for "bring me my machine ").
Read more about this topic: Koos De La Rey, Pop Culture
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