LL-L "Terminology" 2006.05.02 (02) [E]

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 02 May 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Marcel Bas <marcelbas at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Terminology" 2006.05.01 (08) [E]


Dear Ingmar, Mark, Elsie and others,

Obviously, Ingmar couldn't have known that a word like _Boer_  could not be 
used interchangeably with _ Afrikaner_. I'm not sure if his trivial 
terminological mistake is a matter of prejudice, as Elsie states. Maybe it 
is even the contrary of prejudice: his use of _Boer_ as a synonym for 
_Afrikaner_  displays an egalitarian idea. He thinks they're the same. I 
like to believe that Afrikaners and Boers are the same, too, but I know that 
many Afrikaans speakers don't agree.

I guess that's one of the sad things about the Afrikaner people: as Elsie 
said, Boers might be offended when being called _Afrikaners_, and vice 
versa.

I have met several people who call themselves Boers, and the way I have 
always understood it, _Boer_ has a strongly idenititarian meaning. It is 
used by people whose ancestors joined the Great Trek in 1836, 1837, etc., 
and who are proud of their heritage and their culture, identity and 
religion. But anthropologically and linguistically there is not much of a 
difference, I guess. They are all considered Afrikaners since they are 
Caucasian Afrikaans speakers. They have the same ancestors. Ingmar, maybe 
you could compare it with the discussion we had the other day. It was about 
Radio Pretoria and about Radio Sonder Grense. Boers may prefer the former 
radio station (target group: the conservative, proud, religious, etc.) and 
Afrikaner the latter (target group: the default Afrikaans speaker).

As Mark points out, there are also Bruinmense (Coloureds) who are called 
'brown Afrikaners'. That would be a linguistically reductionist identity 
marker of the word _Afrikaner_ (they also listen to Radio Sonder Grense). 
Some po-mo Afrikaners even doubt the legitimacy of the word altogether. They 
say that they are 'Afrikaans speaking Africans'. However, if you ask any 
black South African, English speaker or average Afrikaans speaking 
individual to give a definition of _Afrikaner_ they will refer to a white 
Afrikaans speaking individual. As you can se, identity is not so difficult 
to define. Things start changing if you doubt yourself and your own 
identity. I guess one shouldn't try to rationalise identity too much.

To me this Boer/Afrikaner division is very sad and symptomatical for this 
small nation's dividedness. No matter how small the Afrikaans speaking 
nation is in a predominantly Bantu country with an increasingly 
anti-Afrikaans government & atmosphere, the Boers still feel that there is a 
great gap between them and Afrikaners, that they are different, etc. And the 
default Afrikaners feel they don't want to unite with Boers either.

There ar many more divisions within the Afrikaans community, which seriously 
hadicap the 'ex unitate vires' that the Afrikaans language needs so badly 
nowadays.

>From a European viewpoint this all seems rather trivial, petty and 
counterproductive. These days, Afrikaners cannot afford being divided and 
doubting their identity to this extent.

Best regards,

Marcel. 

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