Afrikaans Newspaper Research Articles

Mary Susan Malahlela: practising medicine under apartheid

Until well into the 20th century, the only way Black South Africans could train as doctors was to travel abroad. This was an expensive option and there were few scholarships, so the numbers remained small. Not until 1941 did South African medical schools agree to admit a small minority of students of Indian or African ancestry. One of the first through the doors at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg was Mary Susan Malahlela. In 1947, she became the first Black woman to qualify in South Africa. The next year the government introduced its racist policy of apartheid, and she pursued her entire medical career against a background of extreme racial segregation and inequality. After Malahlela's death, her daughter told a reporter that when Malahlela graduated, her class photograph—a Black woman amid a sea of white men—appeared in the local Afrikaans newspaper, captioned “The black danger”. Women making medical history: introducing A Woman's PlaceIn December, 2017, The Lancet issued a call for papers for its special theme issue on women in science, medicine, and global health .1 The Comment outlined the gender inequalities in medicine that still persist, long after many overt barriers to women's participation have fallen. While that theme issue will be forward-looking, I believe we can also gain insights from looking to the past for examples of women who have made their mark against the odds, and by asking what it was about their particular circumstances that enabled them to do so. Full-Text PDF Rebecca Lee Crumpler: first Black woman physician in the USAA passionate vocation to care for others and a desire to empower her patients drove Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1831–95) to overcome 19th-century prejudice against her gender and ethnicity and qualify as “doctress of medicine” (the term she used), the first African American woman to do so. Crumpler gained extensive experience treating destitute former enslaved people in the southern states after the end of the American Civil War, and published A Book of Medical Discourses: in Two Parts, a practical guide to the care of infants and women's health. Full-Text PDF

Rabbi Andre Ungar z’l

Rabbi Ungar was born in Budapest to Bela and Frederika Ungar. The family lived in hiding with false identity papers from 1944 under the German occupation. After the war, a scholarship brought him to the UK where he studied at Jews’ College, then part of University College, and subsequently studied philosophy. Feeling uncomfortable within Orthodoxy, he met with Rabbi Harold Reinhart and Rabbi Leo Baeck and eventually became an assistant rabbi at West London Synagogue. In 1954 he obtained his doctorate in philosophy and was ordained as a rabbi through a programme that preceded the formal creation of Leo Baeck College in 1956. In 1955 he was appointed as rabbi at the progressive congregation in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Very soon his fiery anti-Apartheid sermons were condemned in the Afrikaans newspapers and received mixed reactions from the Jewish community. In December 1956 he was served with a deportation order and was forced to leave the country.

Containing the Ripple of Hope: Apartheid, the Afrikaans Press and Robert F. Kennedy’s Visit to South Africa, June 1966

The reportage of Robert Kennedy’s visit to South Africa in 1966 by the Afrikaans press reflected the incipient fractures within Afrikaner identity even as apartheid was at its zenith. This paper focuses on how Kennedy was portrayed in the Afrikaans press during the course of four days in South Africa, as both a potentially constructive as well as a destructive force for social and political change. It argues that the more conservative Afrikaans newspapers allied themselves with the state in their unequivocal hostility to the senator. Yet, newspapers such as Die Burger and Die Beeld, and Afrikaner journalists such as Piet Cillié and Schalk Pienaar, were influenced by the spirit of change that permeated the latter part of the decade in South Africa and abroad. Kennedy’s visit became a means by which to engage with the idealistic senator and the aspirations of liberal and black South Africans in an attempt to adapt and reform an increasingly insular and outdated Afrikaner nationalism.

The use of KAAPS in newspapers

In the increasingly competitive media landscape newspapers, among others, are underpressure from digital and social media. As a result, the performance and positioningof traditional Afrikaans newspapers like Rapport, Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad, aswell as the forms of Afrikaans they use, are constantly scrutinised in surveys about therelevance and profitability of the Afrikaans print media. These surveys often point tothe use of Afrikaans ‘as spoken by the people’ in emerging newspapers like Son andSon op Sondag, as the main reason for the growing popularity, healthy sales figuresand advertising revenue of these two newspapers. As a result, Son developed into thelargest Afrikaans daily in an Afrikaans print market long dominated by establishedtitles like Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad. In view of this, this contribution will firstlyinvestigate the profitability (in monetary terms and circulation) of actually using Kaapsin newspapers. Secondly, it will focus attention on the use of this form of Afrikaansin traditional newspapers in which Standard Afrikaans is the dominant form. Thequestion is: What is the nature of the Kaaps in these newspapers compared to theKaaps in Son specifically? The aim of this contribution is to explore how Afrikaansnewspapers create space for the use of colloquial varieties in general and Kaapsspecifically, and to determine the relevance or function of Kaaps in the news domain.On the one hand the focus will be on columns in which Kaaps is the medium and onthe other, on newspaper articles about the Afrikaans language variety. The data onwhich this paper is based were firstly, the responses to a list of questions posed to thenews-editor of Son, and secondly a critical content analysis and interpretation of themanifestations of Kaaps in this newspaper in comparison to the forms in the moreestablished Afrikaans newspapers. The general perceptions of, and attitudes towards,the use of colloquial varieties of Afrikaans, collated in a 2012 survey among readers,are also taken into account.

Nicola Hanekom’s Land van skedels – A Remembrance of Things Past and Present

SummaryNicola Hanekom’s Land van Skedels had its premiere at the Clover Aardklop National Arts Festival in October 2013 and this production, as well as later ones, received glowing receptions from both theatre audience and theatre critics. She was commissioned by an Afrikaans newspaper (Die Burger) and an Afrikaans television channel (kykNET) to write Land van skedels. She was requested to focus in the play on the Anglo-Boer War, as well as the role played by Emily Hobhouse in this war. The main theme is, as can be expected, in a play that works with historical material, the theme of remembrance. The play is not a realistic depiction of the war and the concentration camps where many white (and black) women and children often died after a period of drawn-out suffering. Her play is a subjective and sensory depiction of traumatic memories and makes use of both historical and literary references to evoke these memories. These references are discussed within the context of theatre memory studies. It is clear from the references to other wars and camps in this play (i.e. Rwanda, Auschwitz) that humanity seems doomed to repeat its own mistakes and that Hanekom’s play is thus emblematic of all wars and all concentration camps.

Translation features in a comparable corpus of Afrikaans newspaper articles

CITATION: Roos, D. 2009. Translation features in a comparable corpus of Afrikaans newspaper articles. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 39:73-83, doi:10.5842/39-0-75.

Afrikaanse vryheidsliedjies as herkonstruksie van Afrikaneridentiteit: ’n ideologies-kritiese perspektief

Afrikaans freedom songs as a reconstruction of Afrikaner identity Media polemics that centred on Afrikaner identity and language proliferated in Afrikaans newspapers of the early 2000s. It illustrates that although more than a decade has passed since democratisation, identity politics are still an important South African topic and renegotiation therefore continues. This article discusses the role of Afrikaans freedom songs as a reconstruction of white Afrikaner identity with the specific aim of establishing a point of departure for an ideology-critical theorising of the topic. In this regard, the interpretative tools of metaphor analysis and ideology critique of Johann Visagie (1996) are applied within the broader framework of the so-called Critical Theory. The five dominant postapartheid narratives recorded by Melissa Steyn (2001) serve as starting point for this study. The selection of freedom songs is related to specific constructions of “whiteness” portrayed in the mentioned narratives.

Sinergie as politiek-ekonomiese strategie by Die Burger 2004-2005

The leading South African media groups are subject to challenges to their political economic interests as part of the international capitalist profit economy. These challenges coincided with the democratisation and transformation of South Africa since 1994, which heralded many changes to the national political economic context within which media companies operate. In reaction to these challenges, local media groups have formulated strategies to reposition themselves, along with tendencies such as globalisation and commercialisation, with their (often negative) implications for substantial media content and ideals of equal democratic access and contribution to the media. This raises the question whether traditional journalistic ideals and practices of independence are being put under pressure at the Western Cape Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger by the popular management strategy known as synergy. This article describes from a theoretical perspective of political economy the manifestation, nature and influence of synergy at Die Burger, its publisher, Media24, and their holding company, Naspers. Synergy was found to be a popular strategy at Die Burger in an effort to balance political economic interests in reaction to real and perceived threats to the newspaper's survival and future growth. The study also shows that synergy has negative implications for the content of Die Burger, the organisation of coverage, as well as traditional journalistic ideals of independence.

"Ek is nie meer een van ons nie": Breyten en di volk. 'n Verkenning van die sikliese ritme en die terugkerende motiewe in die openbare reaksie op Breyten Breytenback

The Afrikaans poet-intellectual, Breyten Breytenbach, has been an active participant in South African public life since his debut in 1964. His artistic and political choices draw upon a culture and a politics of resistance based in the past, present and future. Over four decades he actively contributed to the polarization and expansion of cultural and socio-political debate in South Africa. Against this background the article explores the cyclical rhythm of approval and rejection that characterizes the relationship between Breytenbach and the Afrikaner people. Recently his dissident voice in local cultural and political discourse has been silenced following the results of a "people's poll" by a leading Afrikaans newspaper. The investigation contextualizes this watershed event by tracing key reception debacles in Breytenbach's career and highlights recurring motifs and the manipulative role of the Afrikaner press. These events include the reception of the Paris based poet's debut, Die ysterkoei moet sweet (The Iron Cow Must Sweat) (1964); the granting of a literary award and the ensuing refusal of a visa to his Vietnamese wife, an event that exiled the author (1965); his first visit to the country and participation in a "Sestiger" (Afrikaans authors of the 1960s) literary event (1973); his arrest, trial under the Suppression of Terrorism Act and subsequent imprisonment (1975); his release from prison and return to settle in Paris (1982); his return to South Africa to receive a literary award (1986); the reception of his first art exhibition, Painting the Eye (1994); the reception of his first play, Boklied (Song of the Goat) (1998); the reception of Die toneelstuk (The Play) and the subsequent opinion poll (2001); and the debacle that followed his decision not to publish for a wider Afrikaans readership and to disseminate his poems privately to a few friends (2002).

"Rocking the Boat" in South Africa? Voelvry Music and Afrikaans Anti-Apartheid Social Protest in the 1980s

The British social and cultural historian, Arthur Marwick, concluded his magisterial book on the cultural revolution of the 1960s in the West with a very brief final sentence on the transformation: has been nothing quite like it; nothing will be quite the same again.1 This deceptively simple and deliberately vague assertion masks an array of nuanced historical judgments in which Marwick teased out the complexities and contradictions of the sixties. In trying to characterize the decade, American author Hunter Thompson has succinctly formulated the analytical problem inherent in the dynamics of the period: History is hard to know-but even without being sure of history it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time-and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.... You could strike sparks anywhere.2 While there seems to be a firm understanding that the 1960s represent the confluence of meaningful social forces, there are some explanatory doubts as to how and why it happened. The conundrum invites historical analysis; the outlines of the phenomenon may appear clear, but the reasons for that are not immediately apparent nor is its historical significance self-evident.3 In a similar vein Afrikaans anti-apartheid social protest music during the 1980s was reminiscent, albeit in a much more muted form, of the cultural and social challenges to the status quo in the West two decades earlier. Perceptive observers picked up on this. Thus American journalist Tom Masland, who was based in South Africa, reported in mid-1989 on the similarities in dress, lyrics, and general political outlook between the followers of Afrikaans counterculture and what he considered to be their earlier American counterparts.4 The analogy, suggestive as it is, should not however be overdrawn. The South African variant had its own local character and emphases that impacted in a particular manner and generated its own complicated processes and codes of understanding. These need to be untangled and assessed primarily in the context they were moulded. This article has several related aims. It seeks to understand the conditions under which anti-apartheid Afrikaans protest music emerged in the '80s and why it took about twenty years after oppositional youth movements in the West for roughly comparable developments among Afrikaner youth to gain some traction. Central to the protest was an attempt to question, and even to reformulate through the medium of music, what it meant to be an Afrikaner during the latter phases of apartheid. The analysis disaggregates the dynamics and nuances of this process. Moreover, the actual impact of the phenomenon at the time is evaluated through a critical assessment of the claims made by band members and journalists. Finally the way in which the memory of this movement continued to have an influence among young Afrikaner people well into the post-apartheid era is explored. Emergence and Social Background One of the salient features of the tumultuous 1980s in South Africa was the cycle of on-going black protest orchestrated by the United Democratic Front and other extra-parliamentary anti-apartheid organizations and the declaration of successive states of emergencies by the predominantly Afrikaner National Party government. Overtly anti-apartheid Afrikaner voices were relatively mute during this period. However, initiatives such as the meeting between mainly Afrikaner intelligentsia and some of the leaders of the banned African National Congress in Dakar in Senegal in 1987 as well as the appearance of an uncompromisingly critical Afrikaans newspaper, the Vrye Weekblad (Free Weekly) stand out as distinct markers. To this must be added a sprinkling of Afrikaans literary works and some tentative soul searching in some Afrikaner churches about the morality of apartheid. …

Hoe dink vandag se mense oor die Bybel?

How do people from our day and age view the Bible? Not all members of the Dutch Reformed Church cherish the same view about Scripture. The letters in the Afrikaans newspapers on religious issues clearly reflect this. There are two groups of scholars in the church whose views on Scripture impact on church members’ views. They are (1) systematic theologians and (2) biblical scholars. A large number of systematic theologians adhere to the view which was formulated during the heydays of Protestant Orthodoxy, i.e. that the Bible reflects a double authorship. They prefer to use the Latin words “auctor primaries” and “auctores secundarii” when writing about Scripture. A large number of biblical scholars, however, work with the idea that the Bible reflects single authorship. God did not write. Humans wrote the books of the Bible. It goes without saying that ordinary church members do not always understand the differences and are often perplexed by these differences. It is of utmost importance to discuss these differences and to try and find some middle ground in the church.

The killing fields of soccer: Violence, villains and victims

The destructive nature of soccer violence and the resultant deaths of hundreds of supporters since the sixties have directed academic enquiry and scholarly investigation. The aim of this study was to utilize a synthesis of theoretical paradigms in order to provide some explanations for this complex and multifaceted local manifestation. Data was collected from major English and Afrikaans newspapers from April 1977 to May 2001, in which 180 incidents of soccer violence were reported. The interviewing of soccer officials (n=7, the conducting of focus groups with soccer supporters (n=20) and the attending of matches provided the ethnological background and context for analysis. The tabling and discussing of 23 occurrences of soccer-related violence between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates explored the nature of this local sociological phenomenon. Different layers of explanations were offered, including the relevance of class-based structural "fault lines", ideology, socialization patterns, poverty-related manifestations and situational factors that may sporadically trigger violent behaviour. Soccer violence and crowd behaviour should be understood and addressed within the wider social context without merely shifting the blame from "victims" to "villains", which would at best provide dichotomous and rhetorical answers. Key words: Soccer violence, theoretical explanations, South Africa, Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs. (Af. J. Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance: 2002 8(1): 149-160)

Die transformasie van Afrikaans - die afgelope dekade se mediadebat in oënskou

The transformation of Afrikaans - a review of the media debate of the last decadeThis article focuses on the language debate concerning the position and status of Afrikaans. This debate has mainly been conducted in Afrikaans newspapers during the past ten years. The apparent trends of the debate are interpreted against the background of transformation as a key concept. Apart from a brief theoretical investigation of the theory of social change, this article explores the applicability of these theoretical parameters on the transformation process to which Afrikaans has been subjected during the last decade. The article aims to demonstrate that the media debate on Afrikaans which has been conducted by members of the Afrikaans speech community is not unique but illustrates responses typical of all transforming societies regardless of time and space.

PEOPLE OF RELIGION ACTING TOGETHER

Whereas I ... have reason to apprehend that the safety of members of the public and their property and the maintenance of the public order will be seriously endangered by a gathering being organised, or purported to be organised, by the South African Chapter of the World Conference on Religion and Peace ... and since I deem it expedient for the public safety and the maintenance of the public order, I hereby prohibit the said gathering .... When a police order with the above wording was served on us on Friday, 13 September 1985, we were stunned. The meetings organized for that weekend were to be the culmination of both hard work and joyful co-operation during the first year of existence as an inter-faith organization. To mark this first year of working and growing together we decided to present the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture and a Consultation on Women for Peace and Justice, simultaneous to our first annual general meeting. All of this was however thwarted by a power-yielding brigadier of police to whom goes the dubious honour of having banned a peace lecture! In an interview with an Afrikaans newspaper, he explained that the banning was imposed because of the presence of well-known left-minded and inciting people. At a private social gathering that evening, Mrs Leah Tutu made our day when she called us left but exciting! Early history The incident related above forms one chapter in the life of WCRP-SA. But to get the whole story, let us start at the very beginning. It was an international meeting which directly contributed to the establishment of an inter-faith group in South Africa, namely the Inter-Faith Colloquium on Apartheid, which was organised by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston and held in London in March 1984. Attended by leaders of all the major world religions from as far afield as India and Japan, this meeting unanimously condemned apartheid as sinful and inhuman. In its declaration, the colloquium expressed itself as follows: We met together from different religions of the world to respond from the viewpoint of faith to the fact of Apartheid. We were united in concern at the suffering it causes South Africa and the affront it presents to the moral conscience of humanity. Returning home, the three South African delegates were deeply aware of the need for the different religions in South Africa to form a united front in addressing -- as people of religion -- the evils of apartheid. So when Archbishop Desmond Tutu (then bishop) called together a meeting of religious leaders in April 1984 the scene was set for an historic coming together of people of religion. During that meeting it was decided to establish an inter-faith organization and to seek affiliation with the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP). And so the South African Chapter of WCRP was born. Objectives The most immediate reason for the establishment of WCRP-SA was to share in the dismantling of apartheid. The silence of many religious people in South Africa had placed the credibility of all religions in jeopardy and by making itself available as a platform, WCRP-SA attempted to form a united front of religious people against an inhuman and oppressive system. …

'n Perspektief op Afrikaanse gedrukte media: 'n repliek op Pieter Fourie

In his article ‘A perspective on the Afrikaans print media: an answer to Pieter Fourie’, the author reacts to various statements made in the previous article of this edition. He emphasizes the strength of the Afrikaans newspaper and magazine; the role Nasionale Pers as a publisher played in history, as well as its future role. He further argues that successful Afrikaans media earned that position through competition and effective management

Die massamedia en politieke hegemonie

The events leading to and the effects following President F.W. de Klerk's important policy speech on February 2nd, 1990 is discussed in this article on The mass media and political hegemony as it pertains to the Afrikaans press, notably Die Volksblad. It is argued that Afrikaans newspapers in general were not taken by surprise by the landmark events that followed De Klerk's speech, because they were already since the early 1980's active in fostering the ideas embodied in the speech. What was not foreseen, however, was the way in which right-wing extremists would react, especially against Afrikaans newspapers. Reaction included boycotts, intimidation, assaults on journalists and threats of arson. It is further argued that the Afrikaans newspapers will not be intimidated. On the contrary, these papers will foster the idea of a more inclusive South African society free of discrimination, without abandoning the idea of Afrikaans and the ideals of Afrikanerdom, as well as the demands of Christian justness and ...

Leserbehoeftes: 'n Nuwe vorm van sensuur?

In one generation the world in which the Afrikaans newspaper operates has changed dramatically. In this article on Reader needs: a new form of censorship, the role of the printed media, especially the Afrikaans newspaper, in a changing South Africa is evaluated. Since February 2, 1990, the process of political change has put a greater responsibility on the shoulders of the press. The newspaper has to make sense to its readers of what they perceive as chaotic and disturbing events. In this process the Afrikaans newspaper has become an unwelcome guest in many Afrikaans speaking homes because it reflects a changing political world, and has become the bearer of examination and criticism of traditional values held by the Afrikaner. On the one hand newspapers have to lessen their reader's fears of a unknown future by interpreting political events in such a way that readers have better insight in the process of change. On the other hand readers have indicated that they prefer less disturbing political news about which they can do nothing and more local news about their own small world with which they feel they can cope.

South Africa: Controlling the News

The pressures to which the Press in South Africa is subjected are, according to the author, comprehensive. Examples of these pressures are: pressure by a Government which increasingly appropriates powers to exert control over reporting as well as the unfair competition from the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). The Afrikaans newspapers, established to support the ideal of Afrikaner self-realisation, are also particularly susceptible to direct or indirect pressure from readers. They serve a community split by unprecedented discord and dissension. According to the author the Afrikaans newspaper must continue to strive for the greatest measure of political and social justice and also for the biggest coalition of moderates, also across colour lines.

Die rol van die Afrikaanse pers in die taalstryd van die jare 1930/(The role of the Afrikaans press in the language struggle of the 1930's)

This article deals with the different ways in which Afrikaans newspapers in the 1930's supporting the United Party (Die Vaderland, Die Suiderstem, and Die Volkstem) and those newspapers supporting the National Party (Die Burger, Die Volksblad and Die Transvaler) covered the Afrikaans-English language question during the period of party political coalition (1934–1939). The newspapers of both groups attempted to promote language loyalty by pressing upon their readers the importance of education in the mother language and the need to uphold individual language usage. The United Party newspapers, especially Die Vaderland, in their editorial articles exhibited greater insight for the attitude of non-Afrikaans-speaking South Africans for Afrikaans. The National Party newspapers, however, stressed the importance of user functions. These factors confirm the idea that the difference between the U.P. and the N.P. was to a great extent a difference between, on the one hand the outward and, on the other hand the inward alignment of the Afrikaner during the years preceding World War II.

Suid-Afrika: Die Afrikaner en sy Pers (South Africa: The Afrikaner and its Press)

The relationship which exists between readers and a newspaper can be described as a “circular causality”: the newspaper expresses the ideas of its readers, sometimes polishing them, articulating them, but the first input is always made by the reader, while the newspaper completes the circle. This implies that newspaper owners could determine the course of a given newspaper, but if that direction was not vital and in tune with its readers, the newspaper would no longer be read by them. And a newspaper with a diminishing readership is a dying newspaper. In this article the political and cultural bond between the newspaper and its readers is highlighted, with particular regard to the inestimable contribution of the newspaper in the shaping of public opinion. Another aspect, namely the survival of newspapers, coupled with the survival of the language in which the newspaper is published, is speculated on. Obviously economic considerations also play a a role in this regard. Two matters make the future of the Afrikaans newspapers in particular very uncertain: the rising costs and the Government's growing monopoly with regard to the electronic media. The author pleads for a reasonable chance to compete, and for inclusion of the press groups in the electronic age.