Bok van Blerk’s Darkest Africa

Bok van Blerk's new music video mines familiar racist tropes of starving, diseased children in a war-torn African country saved by a blonde heroine and her white male companion.

All images are stills from the video for "Tyd om te trek."

You’d be forgiven if you thought the images in this video was sourced from a B-grade Hollywood, straight-to-DVD action flick. Complete with the familiar racist tropes of starving, diseased children in a war-torn African country being saved by a blonde heroine.  But this is the latest installment in Afrikaner schmaltz peddled by Bok van Blerk, who a few years back achieved fame in the overheated Afrikaans music market with his song “De la Rey,” a plea to a general in the South African (or Anglo-Boer) war (1899-1902) to guide the Afrikaner tribe who, apparently, have lost their way in the new democratic South Africa.

The song featured here is called Tyd om te Trek (‘Time to Move’), and the lyrics refer to debates among white South Africans whether to emigrate or stay in South Africa–which, of course, is full of fearsome gun-toting black men, defenseless white women and heroic white men, just like in the video.

Van Blerk has also been capitalizing on the nostalgia for an imagined heroic past of Afrikanerdom in another recent song, Die Kaplyn. This song, complete with footage from the apartheid-era South African Defence Force, recalls the Border War between South Africa and Swapo, for which all white men older than 16 were conscripted.

The excellent South African literary website Litnet is currently hosting an online seminar about the meaning of Van Blerk’s songs, led by contributions from academics Adam Haupt and Stephanus Muller. Their inboxes must be overflowing – a few years ago when I wrote an article about the song “De la Rey,” I became the target for rightwing extremist hate mail and threats of violence. They take their music seriously down South.

Further Reading

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.