Recent events at Senekal resulted in so many reports and rumours, that it is difficult to make sense of it all. However, for me, ten lessons can be taken from these events.
Lesson 1: Farmer’s lives do not really matter
Most of the news about Senekal missed the central point: The heinous murder of a young white farmer, Brendin Horner. Most politicians, journalists and commentators want to soften the plotline by stating that “farm murders are part of violent crimes which affects all South Africans, and that race and politics do not play a role in it.”
Of course, every murder is tragic and reprehensible, but the racial factor cannot be ignored when it comes to farm murders. After all, radical black politicians target white farmer because of their race. This does not only apply to overt racism such as Malema’s “Kill a Boer” incitement. The ANC regularly calls farmers land thieves, and the expropriation without compensation of white farmers’ land is their official policy. A toxic political climate has been raging against white farmers for many years now. No one can be surprised if this results in murder.
However, the master story about Senekal is not the sudden murder on Brendin Horner. Julius Malema threatens with a racial war two days before the second court appearance. In addition, his supporters sing “Kill a (white) Boer” during a court hearing for a murder of a white farmer. How sick is this? But that is not all.
Next to Malema sits the Minister of Police! The Minister of Police sits silently next to a bigmouth politician who threatens the country with a racial war, who in fact is protesting for farm murders, and whose supporters openly sing a hate song that has been declared and banned by the High Court as hate speech!
Anti-white farmer racism is normalised and even politically justified. The fact is, farmer’s lives does not really matter anymore, because it is euphemised as “ordinary” murder.
Lesson 2: Malema and the media
There is a mutually dependent relationship between Malema and the media. Malema is seeking publicity and the media, news. The EFF and himself are largely created by media coverage, and he is the sweetheart of several journalists.
During the hard lockdown, the EFF disappeared because they could not create publicity. The media jumps at everything Malema says and does. Superficial criticism is made towards him, but there are very little penetrating reports that expose his stark hatred and racism for what it truly is.
Lesson 3: Power becomes “right”
Countless of cases have been made against Malema, but nothing happens. If organisations such as AfriForum does not pursue it, the police and prosecuting authority will not do it. In this way, power becomes “right”, and Malema and his supporters increasingly just do what they want. There are no consequences. Political power made that which is wrong, “right”.
Lesson 4: The ANC and EFF’s partnership
It is becoming increasingly clear that there is an unspoken partnership between the ANC and the EFF. It did not just come out in the two’s conspiracy with the deposition of the DA in Pretoria, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. The EFF is the ANC’s unofficial “youth wing”, which is pushing the country’s politics to the left. When the EFF threatens to do something with weapons, the ANC announces that they would rather do it with legislation. In this way, government manages to appear “moderate” when implementing radical laws.
Lesson 5: Double standards
Double standards are increasingly more in the country when it comes to race. Two farmers are being prosecuted over a police van, but there is no prosecution against the EFF’s years of large-scale destruction – recently seen with the Clicks protests.
The approximately 13 000 attacks and almost 2 000 murders on white farmers since 1994, attract far less attention than one white racist’s tweet. Helen Zille has made significant remarks about this “new” racism.
“Whites fulfil all the criteria for becoming a scapegoat for contemporary South Africa’s problems and policy failures — just as ‘the British’ remain the scapegoat for populist racial nationalism in Zimbabwe, 35 years after independence.”
“The condemnation of a whole category of people because of their (white) race is the new face of racism in South Africa.”
Lesson 6: Farm murders are part of the bigger picture
Farm murders form part of the bigger picture of the government’s decay in the country. This include the decay of rural towns, poor management by government, the economic recession, record low unemployment rates and the general failure of the ANC government.
Lesson 7: Minorities have fewer rights
The Constitution’s papers that guarantees everyone is each other’s equals and has the same rights have been overtaken by practice. Racial policy was not abolished after 1994, but merely placed under new management. Dr James Myburgh worked out that 83 pieces of race legislation (or similar) had already been passed down by the ANC government. The Constitutional Court itself confirmed that race determines employment.
The court, through the Chief Justice, made it clear that the judiciary shares the legislative and executive authority’s ideology of radical transformation of the entire society. The Constitution entrench majority rights instead of minority rights. The reality is that the rights of members of the majority weighs heavier than those of the minorities. The worst is that this racial dispensation is so “normalised” that many people will deny that there is discrimination against minorities. They think it is “normal”.
Lesson 8: Minority existence in rural areas become unsustainable
A minority with political power can ensure that the conditions for a sustainable minority life in rural areas exist. It involves issues such as Western town management, safety, property rights, infrastructure, working public services and cultural institutions such as schools and old age homes. These conditions for sustainable minority existence has expired, and the majority control almost all aspects of minorities’ lives.
Lesson 9: Estrangement
The events at Senekal, once again showed how deep the estrangement is between the government and the Afrikaner. There is very little trust that can be built on, and there few indications that the ANC realises that a new settlement is needed in the country to overcome all the crises.
Although personal relations between people of different races are still good, the poor political relations lead to estrangement. ANC politicians use white people as scapegoats to divert attention from their failures. It is becoming more and more popular to govern against white people. Politicians hope to move Afrikaner statues to a so-called “park of shame”, hoping that it will divert attention from the country full of monuments of ANC scandals and failures.
Lesson 10: We want to, can and will ourselves
The failure of ANC governance in the country necessitates greater Afrikaner self-government. We have no other choice. The only future we will have is the one we are going to create ourselves. Fortunately, we do not have to start at the beginning. We have long been building on growing self-government through the network of self-help organisations that the Solidarity Movement has built up over recent years. The challenge, however, is to shift to a new gear of accelerated building, in light of the accelerating state collapse we currently experience.
Let us honour the memory of Brendin Horner, by using these lessons to build the conditions for a sustainable free, safe and prosperous existence for Afrikaners.
