Afrikaner anthem casts cloud on rainbow nation

Published on Sunday 4 March 2007 02:55

"PROUDLY South African" has long been stamped on products and echoed in radio commercials; the phrase is written into the country's DNA.

Now enter Louis Pepler, who has cast the notion of South African pride in a whole new light. He and two friends penned an unlikely rock ballad about an Afrikaner general, Koos de la Rey, who battled British forces a century ago, and have watched it become an Afrikaner anthem.

Pepler, whose stage name is Bok van Blerk, calls the song, 'De la Rey', a testament to Afrikaner pride.

But a dozen years after the end of a government that invented apartheid, the mere concept of Afrikaner pride remains an exquisitely sensitive issue among all races.

'De la Rey' began to saturate Afrikaner radio airwaves late last year and suddenly, at some of Peler's concerts, a small number of fans began to wave the old orange, blue and white flag of apartheid South Africa.

Pepler repudiated them but the Ministry of Arts and Culture was unpersuaded. Two weeks ago it warned that 'De la Rey' was "in danger of being hijacked by a minority of right wingers".

A ban on singing 'De la Rey' has since been revoked at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, the nation's hallowed rugby pitch.