: Finally watched the Dookooms Larney Jou Poes video, which conservative white farmer lobbyists in South Africa are currently attempting to litigate against and ban as hate speech. I have spent a lot of time in conversation with people in the US countering and re-contextualizing narratives of white victimization and ethnic genocide that they have typically heard from Afrikaner ex-pats in the US .For my friends in the US who may be interested in South African rap music that goes beyond Die Antwoord and its now mindless appropriation, heres the video, as well as a short piece by University of Cape Town professor Adam Haupt that helps frame the song and its social justice concerns in the post/not-post Apartheid context. The democratic values of South Africa’s Constitution are not a reality for its rural citizens. Dookoom’s video situates farm workers’ experiences within the broader narrative of colonial violence: “I remember you came here in 1652/ You a skollie too.” Dookoom is speaking back to discourses that frame white, Afrikaans people on farms as victims despite the fact that racialised class inequalities continue to marginalise the black majority. He also seems to speak to his own experience as an unwitting “native informant” to Die Antwoord, who have done little to share their success. The video does not end with the killing of the farmer, the rape of his wife or the farmhouse being burnt down – as per the right wing narrative on “white genocide”. Instead, the defiant farm workers scorch the side of a hill with a message: “Dookoom” spelt back to front. The powerful mystical Cape figure of the doekoem is invoked to signify the workers’ revolt. It speaks back to videos like Bok van Blerk’s De La Rey, which erases black subjects from the South African War, and to Van Blerk’s racist depictions of black men in Tyd Om Te Trek?, which visualises a farm attack. Isaac Mutant may provoke allegations of hate speech or incitement to violence, but the fact is that little has improved since the farm protests ended. Larney Jou Poes inserts the rural black subject into public discourse beyond the limited terms set by Van Blerk, Roodt or Hofmeyr. youtube/watch?v=m9EZbEeGhTw
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 15:47:02 +0000
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