A new laager for a “new” South Africa: Afrikaans film and the imagined boundaries of Afrikanerdom Adriaan Stefanus Steyn Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Social Anthropology in the faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University Supervisor: Dr Bernard Dubbeld Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology December 2016 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za By submitting this thesis electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification. December 2016 Copyright © 2016 Stellenbosch University All rights reserved Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Abstract The Afrikaans film industry came into existence in 1916, with the commercial release of De Voortrekkers (Shaw), and, after 1948, flourished under the guardianship of the National Party. South Africa’s democratic transition, however, seemed to announce the death of the Afrikaans film. In 1998, the industry entered a nine-year slump during which not a single Afrikaans film was released on the commercial circuit. Yet, in 2007, the industry was revived and has been expanding rapidly ever since. This study is an attempt to explain the Afrikaans film industry’s recent success and also to consider some of its consequences. To do this, I situate the Afrikaans film industry within a larger – and equally flourishing – Afrikaans culture industry. I argue that the Afrikaans language’s uncoupling from the state has shifted the preservation and promotion of the language into market-driven domains. I show that Afrikaans-language media and cultural commodities – like film – are mostly tailored to and consumed by white Afrikaans-speakers. And I ask: if a “distinct” Afrikaner identity was first forged within the cultural sphere, through cultural rituals and through the consumption of Afrikaans media forms, what kind of subjectivities are, in the present moment, being produced by the Afrikaans culture industry? Specifically, I consider the ways in which the Afrikaans culture industry is reifying social life, how it is reaffirming the imagined boundaries of Afrikanerdom, and how, through the consumption of its products, Afrikaners can imagine – or re-imagine – themselves as members of the same collectivity or laager. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Opsomming Die Afrikaanse rolprentbedryf het ontstaan in 1916, met die kommersiële vrystelling van De Voortrekkers (Shaw) en het, na 1948, floreer onder the voogdyskap van die Nasionale Party. Tydens Suid-Afrika se demokratiese oorgang het dit egter gelyk of die dood van die Afrikaanse film op hande was. In 1998 het die industrie ’n nege-jaar periode binne getree waartydens nie ’n enkele Afrikaanse film op die kommersiële kringloop vrygestel is nie. Maar in 2007 het die Afrikaanse film teruggekeer na die silwerskerm en die Afrikaanse rolprentbedryf het, sedertdien, vinnig uitgebrei. Hierdie studie is ’n poging om die Afrikaanse rolprentbedryf se onlangse sukses te verduidelik ek ook om die gevolge daarvan te oorweeg. Om dit te doen, plaas ek die Afrikaanse rolprentbedryf binne ’n groter – en ewe florerende – Afrikaanse kultuurindustrie. Ek voer aan dat die Afrikaanse taal se ontkoppeling van die staat aanleiding daartoe gegee het dat die preservering en bevordering van die taal na markgedrewe domeine verskuif het. Ek wys uit dat Afrikaanstalige media en kulturele kommoditeite – soos film – meestal geproduseer word vir en verbruik word deur blanke Afrikaanssprekendes. En ek vra: as ’n “unieke” Afrikaner-identiteit vir die eerste keer binne die kulturele sfeer gesmee is, deur kulturele rituele en deur die verbruik van Afrikaanse media vorms, watse subjektiwiteite word, in die hede, geproduseer deur die Afrikaanse kultuurindustrie? Ek oorweeg spesifiek die wyses waarop die Afrikaanse kultuurindustrie sosiale lewe reïfiseer, hoe dit die verbeelde grense van Afrikanerdom herbevestig, en hoe, deur die verbruik van die industrie se produkte, Afrikaners hulself kan verbeel – of herverbeel – as lede van dieselfde kollektiwiteit of laer. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Acknowledgements Thank you to Dr Bernard Dubbeld, my supervisor, for his dedication to this project, but, more importantly, for his substantial and much-appreciated contribution to my intellectual awakening. Thank you to the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology that has, in the last three years, not only provided me with a productive learning environment, but also served as my second home. Lecturers, colleagues, fellow tutors and friends, you are all much-loved and appreciated. For funding, I am grateful to have received a scholarship from the National Research Foundation and also the HB and MJ Thom scholarship. Dankie vir my familie: my ouers vir hul volgehoue ondersteuning en toewyding, en hul bereidwilligheid om te luister; Rinet en Xander wat altyd daar was as ek hulle nodig gehad het. Dankie aan al my vriende wat, na alles, nog steeds my vriende is. Thank you to all my friends who, after everything, are still my friends. En natuurlik, dankie Anri vir al jou liefde. Dankie dat ek die wêreld deur jou oë kan beleef. Hierdie reis sou nie dieselfde sonder jou gewees het nie. Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. The Afrikaans culture industry after apartheid 27 3. A hundred years of Afrikaans film (1916-2015) 67 4. Story of a South African farm attack 118 5. Conclusion 163 References 169 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Tables and figures Table 1. Afrikaans-speakers according to race 33 Table 2. SABC programming according to language 56 Figure 1. Afrikaans as a brand 38 Figure 2. Ghoema winners 2015 52 Figure 3. The SABC and the ANC 59 Figure 4. Afrikaans films per year 68 Figure 5. White-only casts 108 Figure 6. A farmer in peril 123 Figure 7. Different relations with the soil 146 Figure 8. Disturbing crime scene 151 Figure 9. Farm attackers without faces 153 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za Chapter I Introduction This study deals with the recent revival and expansion of the Afrikaans film industry. While this industry flourished under the apartheid state’s extensive subsidy scheme – with sometimes more than ten films released within a single year – South Africa’s democratic transition and the subsequent rescinding of the subsidy scheme seemed to announce the Afrikaans film’s death. Only three Afrikaans-language feature films1 were produced between 1994 and 1998, appearing to signal the end of Afrikaans filmmaking. Not a single Afrikaans film was released on the mainstream circuit for the following nine years. And then the Afrikaans film made its unexpected return to the silver screen in 2007. Managing to find – or to produce – an audience for its films, this industry began to burgeon, attracting a substantial 1 I classify Afrikaans-language films as all films of which the vast majority of dialogue is in Afrikaans. Although I refer to some bilingual films in this text, I do not regard them as Afrikaans-language films per se. In addition, for the purpose of this study, I use the term “Afrikaans films” to include all Afrikaans feature- length films that have been released on the mainstream commercial circuit, excluding documentaries and films dubbed into Afrikaans. 1 Stellenbosch University https://scholar.sun.ac.za number of directors, producers, funders and other stakeholders. Between 2007 and 2015, a total of 61 Afrikaans feature films were released on the mainstream circuit at a rate akin to the heyday of apartheid. The vast majority of these films have been tailored to the imagined needs and expectations of, marketed to, and consumed by white Afrikaans-speakers – Afrikaners2 (as I show in Chapter 3). This, despite the fact that Afrikaners only make up about 40% 3 of all Afrikaans-speakers. In addition, the Afrikaans film industry is only one element within a much larger – and equally thriving – Afrikaans culture industry, also mostly patronized by Afrikaners. Here, I use the term “culture industry”, coined by Adorno and Horkheimer (1972 [1944]), to include all commercial media and cultural forms, and all the commercial products of art and 2 For the purpose of this study, I use the term “Afrikaners” to denote white people who speak Afrikaans as a first language. I am well-aware that such a categorization is and has always been slippery. What, for example, should the test be to determine whiteness? In addition, some “Afrikaners” choose to distance themselves from any identification with “other” Afrikaners or with some form of “Afrikaner identity”, while other “Afrikaners”, in their everyday lives, speak little or no Afrikaans. This does not, however, take anything away from the fact that many – and possibly even the majority of – Afrikaners today consider themselves members of an Afrikaner community with its own cultural identity and heritage. For the purpose of this study, thus, I admit to the fact that Afrikaners are a diverse group of people with no unique essence and when I make claims about Afrikaners, in the present or in the past, I do not wish to generalize these claims to all Afrikaners. I am also cognisant of the fact that such claims can apply in different ways and to different degrees to different Afrikaners. By reserving the term “Afrikaners” for whites, I am also opposing a popular movement to use the term to signify all Afrikaans-speakers (i.e. Van Blerk 2015). Already in the 1960s, members of a group of Afrikaans writers, the so-called Sestigers [Sixtiers], demanded that the term be cleansed of its racial connotations and used to refer to all Afrikaans-speakers (Giliomee 1975, 30).