Definition, please. I am reading about education in SA and ran across another term I don't know. Here's the sentence: An army of teachers toyi-toyied last year for better wages.
March? Demonstrate? Lobby?
On March 29 he replied:
Lawd Ms Glenda, the things you come up with!
Toyi-toyi is a type of combative dance, really skipping from one foot to the other. It probably originated in Zimbabwe but has since become a symbol of protest in SA and is usually carried out on protest marches and at gatherings. It has a useful function in that instead of walkng, the assembled crowd shows a lot more movement which makes the police a lot more edgy. It is ultimately a form of active protest.
Not everyone is in agreement about the efficacy of toyi-toying. The other day our education mnister, Naledi Pandor, told a crowd of students at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal that they should spend a lot less time toyi-toying and a lot more time hitting the books as taking ten years to pass the first year of any course was unacceptable. Needless to say she was vociferously attacked by the Young Communists and the ANC Youth League who took up the cudgels on behalf of the said students and issued some truly fatuous press statements.
A book that you might find interesting, all about how SA used to be, is Allen Drury's 'A Very Strange Society'. It was published in the late sixties after Drury had spent some time in SA interviewing a number of people. It will give you a flavour of what things were like back then. Try finding it in your local library. Drury was of course famous for his novel 'Advise and Consent'.
Another book that you might like to look at is Hermann Giliomee's The Afrikaners, one of the definative books on the history of the Afrikaners and hence SA. It is a weighty tome because Giliomee is a Professor Emeritus at Stellenbosch U. and one of our foremost historians so expect lots of notes. Still, it is a fascinating work.
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