Farmers are pictured outside Senekal magistrates court on the 6th of October 2020. The support was in retaliation of the murder of 22 year old Brendin Horner. When the crowd heard the suspects were still at the courtroom, they attempted to break into the holding cells and the situation turned volatile, with police cars being turned over and set on fire. Picture: Tracy Lee Stark
I was chatting to a Cape olive farmer the other week, a real character formed by the sunbaked earth and the sporadic rain.
“If I was in the South of France I’d be an actual GOD,” she said, laughing, but instead she labours
daily under the strain of two massive bank loans.
She’s always teetering. She hasn’t had a holiday in forever.
“But look at this view!” she said. “Look at this place. We might be murdered in our beds, but just look at it!”
I looked, and I bought the olive oil – a third of her business dried up overnight with the disappearance of tourists – and it was magnificent. But also terrifying. The property is remote, hard to patrol, with numerous potential breeches to the perimeter, and loyal staff juxtaposed by unknown seasonal workers.
Just look at that view though!
I thought about her again when AfriForum announced the 2020 statistics for farm murders last
week – 63 last year, following 382 farm attacks, which is horrific though no more or less so than
other murders.
ALSO READ: Farm murders increased in 2020 despite lockdown – TAU SA
And yet…I thought about the numerous isolated farms I passed; I thought about the Free State farmer who only days ago shot dead three intruders who attacked him as he opened his door in the morning; I thought about Brendan Horner, whose slaying caused the local farmers, siek en sat, to torch a police vehicle in protest.
I thought about the flight path into SA, the land seen from above where arid nothingness gives way
to the green polka dots of large-scale irrigation, the thirsty riverbeds identifiable by the surrounding ribbons of agriculture.
These vast farms gradually turn to smallholdings, shantytowns, houses, and finally row after row of cluster homes as Joburg approaches, with all these people needing feeding.
ALSO READ: Farmers union calls out DA and AfriForum for ‘politicising farm murders’
Now I object to murder being turned into a political or a race issue. I’m infuriated when one killing is deemed more terrible than another, one victim more pitiable. And there is no actual farm
genocide – we know that.
There is “just” murder, everywhere. However, it is true too that our farmers are so vulnerable and
yet so essential, for our food, our grain, our olives … for our view to the future.
Jennie Ridyard.
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