BRING ME MY MACHINE GUN!

Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa, is particularly fond of the Black Nationalist song "umshini wami" ('bring me my machine gun'), which dates from the days of armed struggle. It is also popular among the members of the African National Congress Youth League, which has sporadically threatened to defend Zuma's controversial rule and violently exterminate opponents.

Another song favoured by the ANC Youth League is "Shoot the Boer", which has frequently been performed at rallies, though recently it is somewhat discouraged by the saner heads who wish no discord prior to and during the World Cup next year.


A sample of the charming lyrics of that second song:


Dubula! Dubula! Dubula nge s’bhamu,
Dubul’ ibhunu!
Dubula! Dubula! Dubula nge s’bhamu,
Mama, ndiyeke ndidubul’ ibhunu!
Dubula! Dubula! Dubula nge s’bhamu.
Shoot! Shoot! Shoot them with a gun;
Shoot the Boer!
Shoot! Shoot! Shoot them with a gun,
Ma, let me shoot the Boer!
Shoot! Shoot! Shoot them with a gun.

[The word 'boer' means a farmer, but in the more general sense the term means Afrikaners (South Africans of predominantly Dutch and Huguenot descent), and is frequently applied to all white South Africans - even to those English South Africans who made certain that we knew that they were NOT racists, good heavens no, some of their best friends were black, and it was all anyway the fault of those damned Boers, who were primitive, uncivilized, and superstitious. And they didn't personally know anybody like that. No. Not them.]


TRIBAL EMOTIONS

Many ANC stalwarts are displeased that an Afrikaans language song has proven popular among the descendents of the people who have been there much longer than either the Anglo-Saxons, OR the Xhosa, Zulu, and Matabele. There have been indignant assertions that the song encourages race-war and a sense of Boer superiority.

The song in question recalls the great Boer general Koos De La Rey, who was among the last to hold out against the British during the Second Boer War.

Among other things, it makes mention of concentration camps and genocide, the first of which was invented by the British for the purpose of perpetrating the second on the Boers.
The song 'celebrates', if that is the right word, the inhumanity of the greatest imperial power of that age, which had already seized the original Boer homeland in 1806.

After the discovery of diamonds near the Orange River, the British decided that the independence of the northern Boer republics, which they had recognized in 1852 and 1854, was not worth the paper it was written on.
In the process of furthering the noble aims of empire they proceeded to imprison and starve Boer women and children. Tens of thousands died in addition to multitudes who perished as a result of general Kitchener's scorched earth policy.

[This was also when the British developed the practice of extrajudicial killings, shooting Boer prisoners in cold blood. During both the First and Second World Wars the Germans applied the tactic to suspected members of the resistance in the areas they had conquered. It is very effective.]


The song is about the burning of farms and the hunting down of Boers by the British, as well as the spirit of resistance that that barbarity ignited.



De La ReySung by Bok van Blerk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjxtSN9V_HQ


Op 'n berg in die nag,
Lê ons in donker... en wag.
In die modder en bloed lê ek koud,
Streepsak en reën kleef teen my,
En my huis en my plaas tot kole verbrand, sodat hulle ons kan vang,
Maar daai vlamme en vuur brand nou diep, diep binne my.
De La Rey, De La Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey;
Generaal, generaal! Soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De La Rey!


Oor die Kakies wat lag,
'n handjie van ons teen 'n hele groot mag.
En die kranse lê hier teen ons rug,
Hulle dink dis verby,
Maar die hart van 'n Boer lê dieper en wyer, hulle gaan 't nog sien.
Op 'n perd kom hy aan, die Leeu van die Wes Transvaal.

De La Rey, De La Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey;
Generaal, generaal! Soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De La Rey!

De La Rey, De La Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey;
Generaal, generaal! Soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De La Rey!

Want my vrou en my kind lê in 'n kamp en vergaan,
En die Kakies se murg loop oor 'n nasie wat weer op sal staan.

...

De La Rey, De La Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey;
Generaal, generaal! Soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De La Rey!

De La Rey, De La Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei?
De La Rey, De La Rey;
Generaal, generaal! Soos een man sal ons om jou val, generaal De La Rey!
Generaal, generaal! Sal jy die Boere kom haal?


The offending part of the song is this expression: "'n nasie wat weer op sal staan" ('a nation that will stand up again'). Given the context, it means a beaten people that will once again be free and independent - a hope among all the nations of the British Empire during the age of colonialism.
It still resonates - and that disturbs the modern world, which much prefers to believe in convenient and simplistic truths about nationality.