It’s amazing what the youth are up to. Thank goodness for the youth. They look at things differently to those with murkier pasts and all that baggage. They seem to bypass the dogma completely.
On TikTok, it came as a surprise to see a remix of the old anthem Die Stem. They’ve spiked the song a few notches. It’s not unlike that remix version of Suzi Quatro’s Stumbling In that Cyril did recently — with that woof-woof beat and the wow-wow-wow layered in. Same idea. Same irreverence. Same “why not?”
Most people — probably the majority, ha ha — would be lukewarm, if not violently opposed, to any singing of this song at all. It’s a cultural song, yes, but it carries heavy associations from the past. A lot of negativity lives there for many people. Yet the youth seem to have sidestepped all of that and come up with their own version. Today’s youth, that is.
If you go back — very far back — you discover something interesting. Die Stem was originally a poem by the legendary C.J. Langenhoven. It wasn’t an anthem at all. It was written as a poem in 1918, can you believe it? Only a few years later was it set to music. And even then, it was only the opening part of the poem — the first few stanzas — that became the anthem. The link below gives you the full version of Langenhoven’s original poem.
Cultural things can be positive and uplifting. There’s no doubt about that. The downside comes when cultural performances, writings, and artefacts are pressed into service as propaganda. For that reason alone, there will always be people who want nothing to do with this particular cultural artefact. Some may dismiss what’s happening now as a new or neo-cultural phenomenon. Those views, from other cultures, are valid too.
So what do we make of all this?
What fascinates is how, through AI and social media platforms, youngsters from different cultural groups are breaking down barriers. They’re forgetting the past — or ignoring it — or perhaps they don’t even know it. This song is now being sung by many cultural groups in the country, not just one. Do a quick search on YouTube and you’ll find multiple versions popping up.
Hats off to the youth for their inventiveness, and for stepping over barriers that their elders — across all cultural groups — allowed to drop, fall, and ultimately block progress.
https://majuba.arkpark.net/stem.htm
