The South African War and Afrikaner nationalism in Afrikaans-language films and television : changing representations circa 1930s - 2000s

Abstract

The South African War is an important historical event for Afrikaners, not only because of the suffering endured, but also for how the war came to symbolise Afrikaner identity and ethno-nationalism. The South African War is central to Afrikaner beliefs and conceptions of the Afrikaner volk, or nation, its sense of belonging in South Africa, its sense of self and divine mission. Afrikaner perceptions of the war, its causes and consequences have influenced and continue to infuse a specific group identity, as well as an ethno-nationalism that eventually witnessed the political, economic and cultural growth that also fed into the problematic apartheid project.

This research focuses on Afrikaans-language films and series produced from the 1930s to the first decades of the 21st century, focusing on representations of the South African War, either as a topic or as a backdrop to the filmic narrative. The films are analysed as sites of memory of the war, its causes, and consequences. As such sites, these films have played an important role in nurturing and sustaining Afrikaner identity and ethno-nationalism, in which the war has been framed as a liberatory war for the very survival of the Afrikaner nation. The war and group memories of the war can be seen to have ignited not only group survival against the mighty British empire, but also provided impetus for the political triumph of Afrikaner nationalism as the bedrock of the apartheid project. As such, the films analysed in this research function as filmic memorials of specific historical moments and personalities. As filmic memorials, these films recall and commemorate a traumatic past in service of a specific ethno-nationalist and political agenda using a range of narrative devices and tropes. Some of these tropes, such as, the volksmoeder, Afrikaner myths of origin and belonging and the importance of land are also critical to iterations of ethno-nationalism throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries.