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| KEN OWEN oor AFRIKAANS [boodskap #7832] |
Sa, 14 Desember 1996 00:00  |
Izak Bouwer
Boodskappe: 464
Geregistreer: Januarie 1996
Karma: 0
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Senior Lid |
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Ken Owen, voorheen redakteur van die "Sunday
Times," het 'n ruk gelede 'n "think tank" in Stellenbosh
bygewoon oor die toekoms van Afrikaans. In 'n stuk ge-
titeld "A future beyond the laager," sê hy onder andere
die volgende:
"To Nelson Mandela and Joe Slovo and, yes, to the
cadres who ravaged the townships in the eighties, I give
thanks -- they have liberated me to use and enjoy Afrikaans,
the only language that properly describes the landscape and
life of my Lowveld childhood. For many years I denied my-
self that pleasure...
"Some poetic concepts come to me only in Afrikaans...
By forgoing Afrikaans, I diminished myself and limited
my sensibility. Now the collapse of Afrikaner hegemony has
set me free and I am euphoric. Never before had I fully
savoured the rich endowment in the possession of two lan-
guages...
"...Afrikaans has never seemed to me more secure than
since the ruling class of Afrikaners stopped courting the en-
mity of all mankind. Afrikaans-speakers number six or seven
million people - the Swedes number no more - and they have
a regional power base in the Western Cape comparable to the
Zulu base in Natal. The language is both modern and indige-
nous, and has important lines of support to northern Europe.
"The support base is sound. Speakers of Afrikaans encom-
pass a proletariat of (mainly coloured) urban workers, peasant
and countryfolk; a powerful intellectual community; and a
prosperous (mainly white) middle class. These elements are
complementary: if the intellectuals provide the angst, the prole-
tariat and the peasants provide stamina and durability, and the
middle-classes provide the newspaper readers and theatre audien-
ces. It is a formidable alliance... English in this country... is di-
vorced of its proletariat... and is doomed to an artificial existence
... the self-liquidation of the core English-speakers by emigration.
" The outlook of Afrikaans then is altogether rosy, provided
one does not confuse it with the career interests or the status of
the dispossessed white elite...
... Breyten Breytenbach was there of course, he who lives in
Paris and writes in English... Antjie Krog.. she marches miles
ahead of her people.... Adam Small, who once tried to give up
Afrikaans as a drunkard tries to give up drinking, vainly......
a clever Gujarati-speaking Harvard-trained professor from Ugan-
da, Mahmood Mamdani...(who professed afterwards to have been
startled to find an audience 95 percent white male) offered some
interesting insights: Arabic has conquered North Africa because
the Arabs defined as an Arab anyone who spoke Arabic...
" White Afrikaners are above all the children of an open
frontier, perpetually insecure. Among the earliest political docu-
ments... a petition the frontier Boers beseeching Holland for
help to save their children who, without prospects of work, were
drifting into the Khoi communities, and becoming absorbed in
heathen Africa...
" That, really, has always been the temptation and the threat -
to slip across the frontier - Van Riebeeck's hedge, Lord Graham's
line of forts, the mad distinctions of the race classification boards
- and to become truly African. To vanish into the greater whole.
To be no longer seperated, no longer sustained by an umbilical
cord to Europe...
"For those, like Beyers Naude or Derek Hanekom, who have
stepped across the chasm, life is easier. One defends one's langu-
age by using it, by writing, by teaching, .... by offering it in the
service of South Africa...
"... for those who, in the deep recesses of their minds, are
still defending frontiers to keep Africa at bay, the future must
inevitably seem heavy with gloom. Raka has breached the gates
of the citadel and will live among us, as N.P. van Wyk Louw
foretold, forever."
(Aanhalings is van "Natal Witness" 10 Desember 1996)
(Ingetik deur Gloudina Bouwer, wie se seun Andre in
Januarie 1997 na Suid-Afrika vertrek om vir 'n jaar
by die Universiteit van Kaapstad te studeer. Sonder
enige aanmoediging van sy ouers, geheel op sy eie
inisiatief, het hy begin Nederlands studeer sodat hy
makliker Afrikaans kan aanleer wanneer hy aankom
in Suid-Afrika. Mag ek ook byvoeg dat hy verkies
het om in Suid-Afrika te gaan studeer, tenspyte van
die hewige proteste van sy ma.
Lank lewe Afrikaans, ook in die mond van Kanadese!)
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| Re: KEN OWEN oor AFRIKAANS [boodskap #7842 is 'n antwoord op boodskap #7832] |
Di, 17 Desember 1996 00:00  |
KLAASVAKIE
Boodskappe: 53
Geregistreer: Oktober 1996
Karma: 0
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Volle Lid |
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Eerstens moet ek sê ek is baie bly om te hoor dat die toekoms van
Afrikaans rooskleurig is. Maar 'n groot belediging vir enige Afrikaner
glo ek is dat die mense die nodigheid gesien het om 'n dinkskrum te hou om
oor die toekoms van Afrikaans te besluit. Was dit nie lank gelede al
besluit dat Afrikaans aan al die nodige vereistes voldoen om te
kwalifiseer as 'n taal nie? Wonder maar net.
Ook wonder ek wat se soort Kunstenaar verloën sy taal. Ek is trots op my
taal en gebruik dit so gereeld ek kan. Ongelukkig het ek nie die talent
van die mense wat die taal verloën nie, so aan die kunstenare wat
Afrikaans hoog hou wil ek net sê BAIE DANKIE, ons waardeer dit en geniet
julle werk.
JHV
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