Boetman is die Bliksem in!

Boetman is die Bliksem in!, a play by Pieter Fourie, based on a letter to the press by Chris Louw in reaction to the book Afrikaners: kroes, kras, kordaat by Willem de Kerk, including the resulting reaction to Louw's letter. Essentially an older generation of Afrikaner leaders was accused of misleading a younger generation of Afrikaner males into fighting and dying for the despicable cause of apartheid. Directed by Marthinus Basson at Aardklop, 2000. Performed at several venues countrywide during 2001.

Background

A different dimension of Afrikaner guilt was explored in the docudrama Boetman is die Bliksem in! [Laddie is the hell in!], developed by dramatist Pieter Fourie with director Marthinus Basson, premièred at the Aardklop National Arts Festival in 2000 and later staged at the KKNK and Grahamstown Festival and in mainstream theatres. The project’s point of departure was an angry open letter sent by journalist Chris Louw to prominent academic Willem de Klerk in response to a book de Klerk had written about the Afrikaners. Louw attacked de Klerk and the older generation of Afrikaner rulers for lying and deceiving the younger Afrikaners and this led to a vigorous debate in the Afrikaans media. Louw’s letter and subsequent book on the subject, together with transcripts of radio and TV interviews, newspaper articles and other documentation of the debate were used as the basis of the stage play. Here were Afrikaner baby-boomers addressing the recent past and attacking the patronising manner in which the apartheid rulers had treated even their own offspring and left them to face the music after the demise of the regime, and to deal with the legacy of the leaders’ racist actions while they could go into comfortable retirement. [Van Heerden (2008)][1]. p. 114

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