I sat, earlier this week, in a back room in my hometown in upstate New York informally presenting my experiences in South Africa to town leaders. They -- a hardware store owner, travel agent, and three retired teachers -- wanted to know if "everything was really okay between the blacks and the whites." The killing on Saturday of Eugene Terreblanche, a white supremacist leader, by two black employees, mandates us to look at this issue in a period when the World Cup and political spectacle has perhaps eclipsed this very basic question.
Early reports have indicated it was a dispute over wages that led the two suspects, aged 28 and 15, to bludgeon Terreblanche to death while he took an afternoon nap. Farm conditions are notoriously bad, evidenced by the fact that a 15 year old was even a laborer to begin with. Although it is hard to find reliable estimates, it is true that the murder of a white farmer by black laborers is not an isolated phenomenon. But this impetus could also be fueled by a lifetime of relative deprivation even after the transition from apartheid promised a better life, and the ANC pledged to help "the poorest of the poor". So why have so many decried the increase in racial tension?
Major figures in South Africa have contributed to a political circus of late, and many fear the surreal nature of these public spectacles will only increase. Julius Malema, Youth League President of the ANC, consistently makes statements so absurd that they seem ready made to insert into a political cartoon. At his worst he is inflammatory, and most recently a court ruled that his singing of a struggle song with the lyric "shoot the boer (farmer)" qualified as hate speech. (Zuma's campaigning to the tune of "Bring Me My Machine Gun" did not set a strong example in this regard). Reactions to Malema's antics reveal widespread insecurity and fear about the future of South African politics and the decline of the ANC. His mention in nearly every article about the murder is further evidence that people feel he is dangerous and to blame for inciting violence.
Fear is also stoked by the experience of neighbor Zimbabwe, where land reform was poorly executed and "land grabs" by black laborers have resulted in white flight and a lack of faith in the state to carry out rational policies or the justice system to combat impunity. White flight has also occurred in South Africa. Due, on the surface, to rising crime rates and lack of economic opportunities, some may speculate about the lack of confidence in black governance.
Declining trust in the government, however, is not a white phenomenon. Interpreting their yearly nationwide public opinion survey for 2009, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation concluded that while race relations have recently remained static, confidence in public institutions and trust in political leadership is on the decline across the board. The South African government is rapidly losing the confidence of its people in its will or ability to provide them with the basic services promised under the 1994 constitution. This is also evidenced by increasing numbers of service delivery protests.
While this data may not measure the complexities of political compromise, it certainly makes a strong statement that South African leaders and major media events are unrepresentative of citizen priorities.
This is somewhat paradoxical: while inflammatory rhetoric is on the rise, race relations are consistent as a whole. The problem is that these two forces, leaders with a dose of celebrity and citizens with underexpressed priorities, act to shape one another and cannot drift wider apart indefinitely. Polarizing citizens according to race is an attempt to break a strong, non-racial consensus that the government desperately needs to improve performance. The question is in which direction will the country be pulled. South Africans must find some way to reorient their government to their concerns and away from distracting performances by politicians.
Race is the most easily understood dimension of South Africa for Americans, but it does not explain strain in South Africa today. Racial tensions are not the fuel waiting to be ignited by a symbolic murder. The frustration over lack of progress on structural transformation, however, is providing ample amounts of rage. This rage can either become a tool for destruction or for increased pressure on the government to make good on their promises to provide a better life.
Your article talks like the issues of race are fact because of the way that the media is presenting them. Does the media represent, always, the thoughts of the people? Does it not represent the words that sell and catch peoples attention? Much like a politician?
My point is you make assertions about the happenings in our wonderful country based on what you are reading in South African newspapers (and one thing most South African's will agree on is that our papers are pretty sad state of affairs).
Race - it is an issue, but a non-starter. Please, don't talk about South Africa as if you know it because you have read the paper.
My paternal grandmother was "Austrian" and my paternal Grandfather "White Afrikaaner"
So both my parents were mixed, what does that actually make me? And the answer is???
South African...and proud of it. We are a nation of many cultures....we should embrace this....
I hate what is happening at this moment in our Country, feels like we are taking a step back.
The world is watching us, and we are not behaving.
To the commenter 'white african' I say this: Do you really think that after hundreds of years of brutality that the whites just stopped?
A recent report by (OECD,2010) that seeks to analyze the trends in South Africa’s Income distribution and Poverty since the fall of Apartheid reveals that ‘South Africa’s high aggregate level of income inequality increased between 1993 and 2008. The same is true of inequality within each of South Africa’s four major racial groups. Income poverty has fallen slightly in the aggregate but it persists at acute levels for the African and Colored racial groups. Poverty in urban areas has increased.’ A further analysis of the report at a policy level contends that ‘intra-African inequality and
poverty trends increasingly dominate aggregate inequality and poverty in South Africa.’
http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2010doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT000009C2/$FILE/JT03279710.PDF
The killing of Terreblanche not only reveals the unresolved issues caused by the Apartheid regime but also sends a message to the South African Government to examine how it will address the root causes and devise strategies towards knitting together its people as one unit or face bigger challenges in the future.
This is the second article I've seen in your newspaper which chooses to be hazy on the number of white farmers killed since 1994.
Even the very left and liberal BBC prints that it is over 3.000 .. OVER three thousand.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8602347.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7078730.ece
Murdering someone in their sleep over back wages is no less vile.
Clearly boss sides have a long way to go.
One statement caught my attention in your piece: “Farm conditions are notoriously bad, evidenced by the fact that a 15 year old was even a laborer to begin with.” I’ve blogged about child labor in Africa before: http://freshconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/03/putting-child-labor-in-developing.html. It’s a very different situation and shouldn’t be compared to child labor in the States, where school is free. If a family is too poor to send their child to secondary school, which many are, I have no problem with them working. Our first goal should be to get these kids in school. But if that’s impossible, why not let them provide food for their family? Their brothers and sisters are literally starving. Why not work instead of sitting around idle and getting into trouble? Fair conditions are one thing, but hiring a 15-year old is no offense IMO.
Unfortunately, I think that race is still a 'wedge' issue, so to speak. I would agree that most people would contend that the ANC's kleptocratic nature is the real problem in South Africa, but caution that the historical narrative still mitigates in favor of consolidating the ANC's power. Put another way, I think that while all parties can agree that the ANC has made (huge) mistakes in terms of service delivery etc., whites and blacks have vastly different opinions as to why that is the case.
I'm sure you were equally concerned about the of thousands of blacks imprisoned and murdered during white racist rule of the country. The number of white victims of race violence (any number is deplorable) pales in comparison. But the history of the black struggle against racism and exploitation doesn't seem to matter one whit to you and your ilk. You're just concerned with the prerogatives and privileges of the "whites."
Compared to 14 000 for the period 1990 to 1994.
Compared to 174 220 for the period 1994 to 2000 (under Nelson Mandela)
The report also states that about 92% of deaths were caused by 'black-on-black' violence. (1990 to 1994)
http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/report/index.htm
There are extremists within the ANC, like Malema, that have plans by provoking the extreme right wing trying to get an all race war. This is to justify the take-over of farms like in Zimbabwe.
Please get up to date news here on of the murders occurring against the white minority.
http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/
However with the SA governments inability to stop its Youth Leader from singing to kill whites is really worrying. Currently he is in South Africa to learn from Mugabe to take over farms. If this is done there will be bloodshed.Some are likely to believe that the fact that his alleged attackers were arrested so rapidly smacks of a cover-up. It is a tragic fact that more than 3,000 white farmers have been murdered since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Song is attack on Afrikaners
http://www.newstime.co.za/rs_headlines.asp?recid=4426
Keep in mind that white South Africans are being systematically exterminated. A more certain and less detectable method is process genocide.
This recent killing, in fact, appears to be related to Malema's antics in absolutely no way whatsoever.
Human Rights Watch has addressed the "farms" matter in a way that is enlightening:
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2001/safrica2/
What seems to garner far less media attention is how these so very put upon landowners have been abusing their serfs, through far more frequent and concerted campaigns of rape and brutality. With a burning desire to maintain a sense of racist privilege extending from their concerted campaign of abuse against their farm workers, the white supremacist AWB now hopes it can incite violence in South Africa. Few beyond rabid racists would miss the man now passed, but it is clear that he was killed over a wage dispute rather than a land confiscation campaign or his despicable ideology. Sadly, those who would advance that ideology promulgate lies about what actually happened and why. Their hope is that they can exacerbate the sense of resentment that the formerly so very privileged feel over the dismantling of apartheid