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Afrikaans freedom songs as a reconstruction of Afrikaner identity Media polemics that centred on Afrikaner identity and language proliferated in Afrikaans newspapers of the early 2000s. It illustrates that although more than a decade has passed since democratisation, identity politics are still an important South African topic and renegotiation therefore continues. This article discusses the role of Afrikaans freedom songs as a reconstruction of white Afrikaner identity with the specific aim of establishing a point of departure for an ideology-critical theorising of the topic. In this regard, the interpretative tools of metaphor analysis and ideology critique of Johann Visagie (1996) are applied within the broader framework of the so-called Critical Theory. The five dominant postapartheid narratives recorded by Melissa Steyn (2001) serve as starting point for this study. The selection of freedom songs is related to specific constructions of “whiteness” portrayed in the mentioned narratives.

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