Encounters: Afrikaner Afrikaan, according to a young Afrikaner

“Afrikaner Afrikaan,” directed by Rina Jooste, explores the disorientated anger of today’s Afrikaner. Deon Maas, Sean Else and Johrné van Huyssteen – three prominent Afrikaans personalities with three very different ideals for their culture – put their heads together around the microphone of the RSG studio. In turn, they broadcast their selected songs. In three segregated streams, they take us on a musically guided tour of the intricacies of the uniquely out-of-place Afrikaner. This ungoverned people are searching for a common identity. For a culture fresh from the boots of the oppressor, this may prove to be tricky. Stick to the past, and the culture becomes isolated and dies off. Leap forward, and it loses its heritage. Catch 22. Johannes Kerkorrel, Koos Kombuis, Laurika Rauch, and Fokopolisiekar all play their part. Bok van Blerk’s De La Rey, however, plays the front man. This song has caused mixed reactions, even amongst the Afrikaners. For some, it is an outcry for a leader. Others, like Maas, feel that a healthy culture must be dynamic, without having to wallow in nostalgia, or bring to life ghosts from the past.

Afrikaner Afrikaan is not an aesthetic masterpiece, to say the least. Its subtitling is quite crude, but otherwise its coarseness reflects the rawness of the documentary. Initially, it struggles to gain momentum, but eventually, the pace picks up as emotions start to show. We see desperate attempts to reconcile, to forget and remember, to hold heads high, and to maintain a fading pride. This, while the young - who seem to have been included in the film simply for the sake of inclusion - have long moved on, bursting with zest. Cringing and goose bumps alternate, and so did the reasons for bursts of laughter in the audience.

Admirably, Afrikaner Afrikaan avoids elegantly the easy trap of self-pity and fixation in political deliberation. But as a whole, it is unconvincing. It barely skims the surface of a people much more intriguing than boerewors and the dominee. The old Afrikaner body has collapsed, its parts scattered, and Afrikaners must now find an innovative niche in the friendly hostility of the New South Africa. The fresh face of Afrikaans does not consist of middle-aged couples doing the langarm at the Voortrekker monument. But Jooste would certainly be pleased to know that it is constituted of a much braver, more liberal, and equally passionate generation.