In a New South Africa, an Old Tune Lingers - NYTimes
Andrew
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
NY Times
PRETORIA, South Africa, Oct. 2 - Every morning, thousands of wistful South
Africans switch their radios to 104.2 on the FM dial.
They tune in to hear "Die Stem," the national anthem during the apartheid
years, and to hear the weatherman describe the sizzling heat in South West
Africa, the former South African territory that has been called Namibia by
the rest of the world since 1990.
They listen to commentators discuss whether AIDS is the solution to "the
problem of black population growth." They call in to defend white
separatists accused of plotting to topple the black government. Many hearts
soar when political analysts contemplate reclaiming South Africa, or at
least a portion of it, for white Afrikaners.
This is Radio Pretoria, where apartheid is still revered and the white man
reigns supreme. While this country often promotes its multicultural
identity, this radio station steadfastly opposes it, with white station
managers groaning openly at the surge in racial intermingling since white
rule ended in 1994.
The radio station provides a unique voice for conservative Afrikaners, the
white minority that oppressed blacks for decades and then resisted,
sometimes violently, the transition to multiracial democracy. Today, many
right-wing Afrikaners, uneasy in this new South Africa, look at the past
with nostalgia.
So they turn to Radio Pretoria, which broadcasts in the Afrikaans language
and nurtures the memories and aspirations of a small but vocal audience of
more than 100,000 people.
The studio is a treasure trove of apartheid memorabilia: portraits of former
presidents, old Afrikaner flags and a framed copy of "Die Stem" adorn the
walls. The station managers proudly acknowledge that they refuse to hire
blacks, even though racial discrimination is unconstitutional these days.
Their policy has inevitably raised eyebrows. Last year, the Independent
Communications Authority refused to renew Radio Pretoria's operating license
because of its hiring practices. It said that it had no vendetta against the
station but that it had to obey the law.
The station can continue broadcasting until the hiring issue, among others,
is resolved next year in court. The reprieve gives station managers time to
promote their dream of establishing a whites-only homeland, an independent
territory within the borders of South Africa that would be occupied and
controlled by whites.
Afrikaners, who are the descendants of Dutch, German and French settlers,
have little chance of regaining power through an election. In a country of
44 million people, they make up only about 8 percent of the population, and
even among Afrikaners, the station does not have an enormous pool of
dedicated listeners. But station managers here still insist that a white
government would be better for everyone, including black people, even though
many Western governments praise the black government's performance.
"What do we have to offer Africa?" asked the Rev. Mossie van den Berg, the
70-year-old chairman of Radio Pretoria, seemingly indignant that anyone
might ask such a question. "This European heritage of civilization,
development, ambition.
"We, the Afrikaner people, opened up this country, developed this country,
put this country in the front ranks of the developed countries of the
world," he said. "And it is now on the rim of becoming a typical banana
republic. Black Africa is wiping out everything we have brought. We would
like to bring it up to a civilized level."
"We voted against this new South Africa," Mr. van den Berg said, his gray
eyes glinting as he made his point clear.
"But we lost," Jaap Diedericks, the station manager, pointed out.
Mr. Diedericks was sitting with Mr. van den Berg under an oil painting of
Hendrik F. Verwoerd, a former prime minister and the principal architect of
apartheid, whose fiery rhetoric still inspires employees at Radio Pretoria.
But Mr. Diedericks, 64, abandoned the tough talk for a moment to acknowledge
that many Afrikaners are feeling lost, alienated and frustrated as they
struggle to find their place in this new world.
"We feel a bit useless, a little hopeless, a little washed up," Mr.
Diedericks admitted. "We are maybe three million people up against 40
million of all sorts of people. We've got to stand fast or we'll just be
absorbed and vanish as an identity."
To the folks at Radio Pretoria, the challenges facing the Afrikaner
community are enormous.
There is the marginalization of Afrikaans, which once dominated the
airwaves, but has now been widely replaced by English.
There is crime, which has exploded since the black government eased
apartheid-era restrictions on movement. In recent years, hundreds of white
farmers have been killed in what the police describe as random attacks. Many
Afrikaners describe the attacks as a conspiracy to wipe out their community.
The end of apartheid has also meant that whites, for the first time, must
compete with blacks for jobs. Affirmative action is now official government
policy, and a small but growing percentage of whites is unemployed,
something that was unimaginable under the white government.
Then there is integration. Wealthy blacks are moving steadily into white
neighborhoods, which is sometimes hard to accept, particularly for people
who still embrace the idea of racial separation. Mr. Diedericks, however,
says he is flexible on the issue of community integration.
"Blacks are fine as long as they behave and are up to standard," Mr.
Diedericks said. "Of course, mixed marriages are completely out. There are
13.5 sociological reasons for that as well as psychological ones."
Unable to cope with the changes, many Afrikaners have decided to start over
elsewhere. No one knows precisely how many people have emigrated, but the
trend is already raising alarm bells. On Radio Pretoria, young people are
urged to reproduce so that the community can increase its numbers and its
political clout.
"Our natural growth will have to improve, you know that?" a commentator told
a group of young people recently. "There can only be growth in the numbers
of the people if we have four children per household."
Not everything is politics and race. Radio Pretoria also runs a farming show
every morning that tracks the prices of wool, corn and cattle. Music makes
up 70 percent of the programming: Afrikaner accordion music, German march
music, Swiss yodeling and some old American favorites.
"There is one thing we don't play: this rap, this underground township
music," Mr. van den Berg said. "Good Western music is known by its melody,
not by its rhythm. For rhythm, you need nothing more than a drum and a
stick. For melody, you need 30 or 40 instruments."
Delene Visser, a 58-year-old housewife who lives in the tree-lined suburb of
Doringkloof, listens to Radio Pretoria in her kitchen and in her car. She
loves the music and the women's program, which focuses on children and
health. Listening to Radio Pretoria helps her forget about crime and
affirmative action, she said.
"You feel more at ease when you have that on," Mrs. Visser said. "It's my
language, my kind of music, my kind of people. We just hope the radio
station survives."
The managers of Radio Pretoria are convinced that it will survive. To close
it, they say, might touch off an uprising among whites, and no one wants
that. Besides, the black government supports freedom of speech which means,
they say, that officials must also support the radio station's continued
existence.
Despite all the naysayers, the station managers remain hopeful that if they
fight hard enough and broadcast long enough, Afrikaners may someday end up
with their own homeland.
"We all believe we're going to get some form of self-determination so we can
keep our identity," Mr. Diedericks said. "If we're not forced to marry
blacks and we're not forced overseas, it will happen."
Andrew
NY Times
Radio Pretoria's Niche
In a New South Africa, an Old Tune Lingers (October 7, 2002)
Re "In a New South Africa, an Old Tune Lingers" (front page, Oct. 7):
The supporters of Radio Pretoria have apparently failed to notice one of the
greatest political miracles of the 20th century: the peaceful transition to
nonracial democracy in South Africa.
Even more disheartening, however, is their odd embrace of a post-apartheid
legal framework to enshrine their free speech while ignoring its
prohibitions on racially discriminatory hiring practices.
Perhaps they used that same logic when dreaming up a claim distinguishing
South Africa from the "banana republics" of "Black Africa." With a black
population approaching 90 percent, Black Africa is an appropriate
description for South Africa.
Moreover, the station's à la carte approach to a Constitution that remains
one of the most admired in the world ironically casts Radio Pretoria itself
as an agent of banana-republic tendencies.
RYAN DAVID WIRTZ
Palo Alto, Calif., Oct. 7, 2002
Andrew
NY Times
In a New South Africa, an Old Tune Lingers (October 7, 2002)
To the Editor:
Your Oct. 7 front-page article about old racist dinosaurs of apartheid
clinging to their symbols of past power may have left an impression that all
Afrikaners are like that ("In a New South Africa, an Old Tune Lingers").
As one of them, I can say the majority of us white Christian Afrikaners who
once embraced apartheid as a gift from God have accepted democracy as a gift
from Mandela.
As in the United States, South Africa will experience a serious right-wing
resurgence only if the left wing slumbers. Democracy in South Africa is
strong enough and healthy enough to tolerate a minority of old white losers
and their empty dreams.
PIETER-DIRK UYS
New York, Oct. 8, 2002
Oom Gert
and above all hopeful that this African experiment will work. It is after
all just an experiment. We have no guarantees that this new rainbow nation
will succeed. There are no clear-cut ways in which we the people or the
government can ensure that we won't end up like most of Africa. South Africa
is fragile. It is something that neither Mr. Pieter Dirk Uys nor Ryan David
Wirtz can go out on a limb about and say this or that is fact. The truth is
that South Africa's future is simply too blurry. Nobody has but a hopeful
clue of what is going to happen. We can say what we hope but neither the
liberal left nor the far right have any clue as to who has got the best
tools for making South Africa a success.
There is one fact however which many people tend to forget in the name of
being politically correct and that is that South Africa is the leading
economy and infrastructure powerhouse in Africa. It attained this status in
Apartheid. This cannot be simply talked away by saying this or that nice and
politically sensible statement. It is a truth that stands like Table
Mountain above the sea and yet everybody turns a blind eye to it. I am not
going to elaborate on this fact, as I am sure you can spend some time by
yourself to ponder this issue on your own.
What I am going to say is this. South Africa is a story not yet fully told.
Time will dictate whether Mandela is the God of Africa, as Mr. Uys wants to
put it. Time will also have its say about Mr. Wirtz's statement that the
supporters of Radio Pretoria failed to notice one of the greatest political
miracles of the 20th century: the peaceful transition to non-racial
democracy in South Africa. These conclusions are premature in my opinion (no
matter how true I want them to be) and because it took twenty years for
Zimbabwe to burst at the seams, we should not be too hasty to call our own
experiment a success.
The proof that South Africa is the miracle Mr. Wirtz makes it out to be will
be clear when fifty years down the line South Africa is still a successful
developing nation where there is a marked improvement in the lives of the
majority of the people who live in it. That evidence is still lacking.
I doubt whether Mr. Uys will be around in fifty years to see whether the
proof of his statement has been revealed. If democracy is the answer to
South Africa's problems, the same test can be given to that statement as is
given to Mr. Wirtz's.
Time will tell.
"Andrew" <n...@home.co.za> wrote in message
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