De/Re-Constructing Borders - University of Minnesota

NOTES
1 All textual references are from Deon Opperman’s Donkerland. (Cape Town:
Tafelberg, 1996). All translations are my own.
2 Deon Opperman is one of the popular contemporary playwrights writing in Afrikaans.
Educated at Rhodes and Northwestern Universities, he is as prolific as he is
controversial. His other plays span every genre and have exposed South African
audiences to the taboo subjects of HIV and AIDS, right-wingers and racism, the
trauma of the Border Wars and teenage conscription, and most recently,
homosexuality. Of all his plays, Donkerland received the highest praise and marked
him as an Afrikaans dramatician of the utmost caliber.
3 Donkerland premiered at the Afrikaans-speaking Klein Karoo Festival in Oudtshoorn,
South Africa, in April, 1996. Thereafter, it received a national audience at the
Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in July, followed by a 3-week
engagement at the State Theater in Pretoria. The play was written and directed by
Deon Opperman with a star-studded cast of South Africa’s most accomplished actors.
The production was presented in two parts, each of two and a half hours in duration,
with a dinner break in between.
4 Donald G. McNeil, Jr. “With Apartheid Done For, What’s a Festival to Do?” New
York Times International: Tuesday, July 16, 1996.
5 The term ‘nationalistic’ suggests those activities that a nation engages in to forward its
interests. In this case, the ‘nation’ I refer to are white, Afrikaans-speaking South
Africans known as ‘Afrikaners.’ Afrikaner nationalistic behavior and thought implies
the common national sentiment associated with a group rather than the political or
geographic entity itself. Afrikaner nationalism, on the other hand, refers more directly
to the political activities that lead to, and upheld, apartheid and is strongly connected
to the National Party and its activities. Thus, I consider Opperman’s play a
nationalistic act, in that it is aimed at and serves the Afrikaner sense of nationhood;
in contrast, the Grahamstown Festival was created out of a political climate of
overwhelming Afrikaner nationalism.
6 South Africa’s colonial history is multilayered. Briefly, Dutch and French settlers
colonized the indigenous peoples of the region (Xhosa, Zulu, Griqua, San and Khoi
Khoi) in the 17th century. Seeing a favorable economic opportunity, the British
followed soon after. The longtime tensions between the Boers and the English came to
a head in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). Suffering a huge defeat, the Boers set
about a project of nation-building that lead in 1938 to the formation of an Afrikaner
national identity and in 1949 to the victory of the National Party and the beginning of
apartheid. After prolonged political struggles lasting decades, South Africa ended its
battle with England by claiming its independence and becoming a Republic in 1961.
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