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Bridge Over Blood River: The Rise and Fall of the Afrikaners
Nelson Mandela is dead and his dream of a rainbow nation in South Africa is fading. Twenty years after the fall of apartheid the white Afrikaner minority fears cultural extinction. How far are they prepared to go to survive as a people? Kajsa Norman's book traces the war for control of South Africa, its people, and its history, over a series of December 16ths, from the Battle of Blood River in 1838 to its commemoration in 2011. Weaving between the past and the present, the book highlights how years of fear, nationalism, and social engineering have left the modern Afrikaner struggling for identity and relevance.
Norman spends time with residents of the breakaway republic of Orania, where a thousand Afrikaners are working to construct a white-African utopia. Citing their desire to preserve their language and traditions, they have sequestered themselves in an isolated part of the arid Karoo region. Here, they can still dictate the rules and create a homeland with its own flag, currency and ideology. For a Europe that faces growing nationalism, their story is more relevant than ever. How do people react when they believe their cultural identity is under threat? Bridge Over Blood River's haunting and subversive evocation of South Africa's racial politics provides some unsettling answers.
Norman spends time with residents of the breakaway republic of Orania, where a thousand Afrikaners are working to construct a white-African utopia. Citing their desire to preserve their language and traditions, they have sequestered themselves in an isolated part of the arid Karoo region. Here, they can still dictate the rules and create a homeland with its own flag, currency and ideology. For a Europe that faces growing nationalism, their story is more relevant than ever. How do people react when they believe their cultural identity is under threat? Bridge Over Blood River's haunting and subversive evocation of South Africa's racial politics provides some unsettling answers.
- GenresAfricaNonfictionHistory
208 pages, Hardcover
Published January 15, 2017
About the author
Kajsa Norman
9 books13 followersAs a writer, I’m fascinated by the way in which people and power structures act and react in extreme, politically charged environments, such as dictatorships and conflict zones.
At the age of 15 I left my hometown Hudiksvall in the north of Sweden and moved to Brazil. I’ve been on the road ever since, traversing all seven continents and living in over 20 different cities.
I began my writing career as editor-in-chief of the Mid Sweden University magazine in the year 2000. From there my trade as a journalist took me on extended assignments around the world. Besides various Swedish newspaper and magazine postings, I have covered finance as a reporter at The Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina and innovation as a journalist in Silicon Valley. I also spent a semester at Stanford University as an Innovation Journalism Fellow examining the impacts of technology on society.
My first book, about political prisoners in Cuba, was published in 2003 by Swedish publishing house Silc förlag. My second book, on the state of the opposition movement in Zimbabwe, came out in Swedish in 2010. It is also available in English under the title Give Me Cholera – Forging a Future for Zimbabwe.
In 2011 and 2012 I lived in South Africa where I researched Bridge Over Blood River, a non-fiction book about racism and the Afrikaners' fight for survival in the new South Africa. Renowned author and Africa expert Henning Mankell took an early interest in the project, becoming an important mentor to me. The book was published in Swedish in 2015, with a foreword by Mankell. In October 2016 it was published in English (by Hurst Publishers, in the UK and Oxford University Press (OUP) in the USA).
A Hero’s Curse – The Perpetual Liberation of Venezuela came out in Swedish in 2015 and in English in 2017. It covers the rise and fall of Hugo Chávez and how the pursuit of heroism has defined Venezuelan politics.
In my latest book, Sweden’s Dark Soul – The Unravelling of a Utopia, I take a close look at my native Sweden, scrutinizing the repercussions of the Swedish herd mentality on our democratic institutions. What happens to a country when brand and ideology takes precedence over free speech, real debate, and true pluralism of opinion?
In between writing assignments I have served as press and information officer for the Swedish Armed Forces in Afghanistan and Mali, and as an election observer for the OSCE. I enjoy photography, outdoor recreation, and spending time with my family travelling the world.
At the age of 15 I left my hometown Hudiksvall in the north of Sweden and moved to Brazil. I’ve been on the road ever since, traversing all seven continents and living in over 20 different cities.
I began my writing career as editor-in-chief of the Mid Sweden University magazine in the year 2000. From there my trade as a journalist took me on extended assignments around the world. Besides various Swedish newspaper and magazine postings, I have covered finance as a reporter at The Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina and innovation as a journalist in Silicon Valley. I also spent a semester at Stanford University as an Innovation Journalism Fellow examining the impacts of technology on society.
My first book, about political prisoners in Cuba, was published in 2003 by Swedish publishing house Silc förlag. My second book, on the state of the opposition movement in Zimbabwe, came out in Swedish in 2010. It is also available in English under the title Give Me Cholera – Forging a Future for Zimbabwe.
In 2011 and 2012 I lived in South Africa where I researched Bridge Over Blood River, a non-fiction book about racism and the Afrikaners' fight for survival in the new South Africa. Renowned author and Africa expert Henning Mankell took an early interest in the project, becoming an important mentor to me. The book was published in Swedish in 2015, with a foreword by Mankell. In October 2016 it was published in English (by Hurst Publishers, in the UK and Oxford University Press (OUP) in the USA).
A Hero’s Curse – The Perpetual Liberation of Venezuela came out in Swedish in 2015 and in English in 2017. It covers the rise and fall of Hugo Chávez and how the pursuit of heroism has defined Venezuelan politics.
In my latest book, Sweden’s Dark Soul – The Unravelling of a Utopia, I take a close look at my native Sweden, scrutinizing the repercussions of the Swedish herd mentality on our democratic institutions. What happens to a country when brand and ideology takes precedence over free speech, real debate, and true pluralism of opinion?
In between writing assignments I have served as press and information officer for the Swedish Armed Forces in Afghanistan and Mali, and as an election observer for the OSCE. I enjoy photography, outdoor recreation, and spending time with my family travelling the world.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 20, 2024
How you view this book will probably depend on how much you know about the history of South Africa and about the anti-Apartheid struggle. Being over 60, and going to school and university in Ireland and the UK, the anti-Apartheid struggle and consequently the history of South Africa is part of my DNA. That doesn't mean I don't need to learn more or that the things I grew up knowing were always correct but this simplistic, journalistic account isn't any use in providing insights or depth. Indeed, the authors revelations that one of her most significant post Apartheid Afrikaner interviewees was a liar and fantasist (in many ways similar to those who pretend to be holocaust survivors or, for example, the subject of 'The Imposter' by Javier Cercas), only reinforced my instinctive lack of trust in Journalists accounts. To often they give a impression of depth and significance which actual conceals superficiality as well as an unavoidable sell by date to most views/information provided.
How the Afrikaners continue, if Afrikaners can continue, in the new South Africa fascinates me because of my Irish roots. Without overdoing it, the comparison between Unionism in Northern Ireland and the Afrikaners is instructive, both had a philosophy/raison d'etre built on the fear of and domination of another group and, although they both claimed (with justice) to be as much 'natives' to the lands they lived in yet at the same time they rejected any connection/identity with the culture/history of the land they lived in. Their history is only of themselves as outsiders who have 'won' a place through the conquest and defeat/disenfranchisement of the original inhabitants.
In South Africa you have the complicating factor that not all whites were or are Afrikaners and also, that despite ideology, reality meant that various non-white groups, particularly those from overseas, had to be accepted as 'honorary whites'. The Afrikaner regimen also supported Ian Smith's Rhodesia and Mozambique when it was colony of Portugal simply because they were 'white' minority governments keeping, or trying to keep, larger black populations in subservience. The interesting question is how do you extract, or maintain, an ideological position that is no longer tenable? To simply make it a struggle for the preservation of language is to accept you are no different from any other tribal group in South Africa trying to avoid being absorbed into the majority Zulu/Xhosa/English dominant cultures/languages and your 'cultural' identifiers nothing more then 'folkloric' tourist attractions. That a great deal of the problem for Afrikaners is the loss of power, and the economic props that allowed less educated working class whites to enjoy a lifestyle out of all proportion to their ability to compete in a free labour market, is revealed by how by how uncomfortable so many of the whites in the all white Afrikaner town/homeland of Oramia find doing ordinary things like washing, sweeping, or general tasks that used to be done exclusively by blacks.
Exploring these sort of issues would be fascinating, but they aren't the sort of thing you do by sitting in some kitchen and making friends and empathizing. Hard questions attract hostility, but the truth is often ugly.
I found this book a major disappointment - but accept that others might enjoy it and imagine they have learnt something from it.
How the Afrikaners continue, if Afrikaners can continue, in the new South Africa fascinates me because of my Irish roots. Without overdoing it, the comparison between Unionism in Northern Ireland and the Afrikaners is instructive, both had a philosophy/raison d'etre built on the fear of and domination of another group and, although they both claimed (with justice) to be as much 'natives' to the lands they lived in yet at the same time they rejected any connection/identity with the culture/history of the land they lived in. Their history is only of themselves as outsiders who have 'won' a place through the conquest and defeat/disenfranchisement of the original inhabitants.
In South Africa you have the complicating factor that not all whites were or are Afrikaners and also, that despite ideology, reality meant that various non-white groups, particularly those from overseas, had to be accepted as 'honorary whites'. The Afrikaner regimen also supported Ian Smith's Rhodesia and Mozambique when it was colony of Portugal simply because they were 'white' minority governments keeping, or trying to keep, larger black populations in subservience. The interesting question is how do you extract, or maintain, an ideological position that is no longer tenable? To simply make it a struggle for the preservation of language is to accept you are no different from any other tribal group in South Africa trying to avoid being absorbed into the majority Zulu/Xhosa/English dominant cultures/languages and your 'cultural' identifiers nothing more then 'folkloric' tourist attractions. That a great deal of the problem for Afrikaners is the loss of power, and the economic props that allowed less educated working class whites to enjoy a lifestyle out of all proportion to their ability to compete in a free labour market, is revealed by how by how uncomfortable so many of the whites in the all white Afrikaner town/homeland of Oramia find doing ordinary things like washing, sweeping, or general tasks that used to be done exclusively by blacks.
Exploring these sort of issues would be fascinating, but they aren't the sort of thing you do by sitting in some kitchen and making friends and empathizing. Hard questions attract hostility, but the truth is often ugly.
I found this book a major disappointment - but accept that others might enjoy it and imagine they have learnt something from it.
January 17, 2017
Great information on what really went on with both Blacks and Whites in South Africa before, during and after Aparteid. Great to read this after Trevor Noah's, Born In Crime. Did not like how disjointed the book was and the writing left much to be desired. I recommend it for those interested in the history of South Africa but I don't recommend it, in general.
January 28, 2019
Wow. Not only the best book I've read on South Africa, but one of the best books I've ever read. Norman seeks neither to condone or judge, but mostly to understand, and the result is comprehensive and profound. Full of thought-provoking insights and revelations, this book is IMPOSSIBLE to put down until the end.
March 3, 2017
A very interesting collection of history, reportage, anecdote and conversations that give an insight into the modern Afrikaaner experience. I felt I understood my family background more from reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews