The roots of boeremusiek, which has now become such a big white symbol, are not nearly exclusively white. "Just as Afrikaans is a fluid and multiracial language with many cultures that influence it, so also is Afrikaans music. There are even articles on how poor Afrikaners spent their money on records and music!"Īlthough Van der Merwe's research focuses specifically on Afrikaans music that was recorded by white artists, he explains that Afrikaans music has strong influences from all sides. The FAK therefore was strongly opposed to this other Afrikaans culture of listening to music and dancing and partying. The only capital that they had as journalists, ministers of religion and teachers was their culture. "For example, there were very strong class elements in the music – there was your country music and then you had the FAK, which had strong nationalistic links to the Broederbond. "To make recordings therefore also was a form of nationalism," he says. His research also highlights the power struggle and elitism that developed between Dutch Afrikaners and other Afrikaners in the first decades of the 20 th century.
Afrikaners outside the FAK, however, thought very differently of their culture and Afrikaner music," says Van der Merwe. For example, in the thirties there was conflict between record companies that released country music ( boeremusiek) records and the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations) – basically the FAK did not like the country music of the time because they regarded it as inferior. In my investigation I therefore did not concentrate on what the music sounded like, but at how the political history is reflected across the various decades of recordings. "It was clear from music and correspondence that some of them were stalwart nationalists and also supporters of Hertzog. By studying that music he could look at how these artists depicted their identity at that time. The first Afrikaans music recordings, says Van der Merwe, were recorded by musicians who lived in London in the early 1900s. By creating an overview of popular music over a long historical period, certain noticeable themes in the development of Afrikaner culture over this period – for example class tension and the repeated attempts of cultural nationalistic entrepreneurs to co-opt popular Afrikaans music for the Afrikaner nationalistic project – are exposed," he explains. "By using popular music as a lens, a clearer idea could be obtained of the lives of ordinary people, viewed against the background of fundamental social and political change. His research provides examples of the support of, and resistance against, the master narrative of Afrikaner nationalism as it existed for large parts of the twentieth century, and also provides examples of how these values still are manifested in the present. It started with the first recordings of the national folk songs of the Boer republics during the Anglo-Boer War and concluded with expressions of racial exclusivity in post-apartheid Afrikaans pop music. His thesis analyses the interaction between political events and popular music, with specific reference to recorded Afrikaans music over the last 115 years. "It was my attempt to look at ordinary people," says Van der Merwe. Van der Merwe obtained his PhD degree from Stellenbosch University in December last year. This is the view of Dr Schalk van der Merwe, who is not only a lecturer but also a freelance bass guitar player, on his research on the history of Afrikaans music in South Africa that he did as part of his doctoral thesis in the History Department. Many people listen to music, and my research shows that there is a link between the music we listen to and the values we hold." "While many researchers who write about South Africa's history view history from a political perspective, my research is an attempt to look at the history from an entirely different perspective.
0 kommentar(er)
