We are all under attack

Farm attacks and murders trended again on social media this week after angry farmers in the Free State unexpectedly stormed through the small corridors leading to the Senekal Magistrate’s Court’s holding cells to confront suspects accused of the heinous murder of young farmer Brendin Horner.

The angry farmers overturned a police van which caught fire while damaging the court’s property and violently shaking a police nyala. I was reminded of the numerous mob justice incidents which sometimes happen in the townships and informal settlements, where angered communities preferred to deal with the perpetrators and seek their own vengeance.

While those who had previously insulted and slammed such violent protests, describing “these people” as “barbaric idiots”, this time they were quick to justify and defend the damage to state property by the farmers as “enough is enough”. But what we have all had enough of – which has affected much more people and has received little to no attention – is house robberies.

And judging from statistics by AfriForum, what has been dubbed “farm attacks” appeared to be house robberies taking place on a plot, small holding or a farm. I say this because according to their 2019 farm attacks and farm murders in South Africa analysis of recorded incidents, 91% of farm attacks did not involve assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, 91% did not involve murders and 96% did not involve any torture.

In total, there were 57 murders out of 552 farm attacks in 2019. There were even a larger 21 130 residential robberies in the country in the 2019-20 financial year and a total of 21,325 murders in the same period. Between April and June 2020, most murders were committed in Philippi East, an urban and semi-urban area in Cape Town.

I was recently told of a farm attack where a family was accosted by intruders who tied them up, beat up the husband and robbed them of their belongings. But that sounded exactly like the house robbery that happened to a friend who lived several kilometres away in Soshanguve.

She was tied up, along with her boyfriend, while he was hit over the head with a firearm. They fled with everything except the couches and curtains, even taking the fridge. We did not call that a house attack. To many, it was just another unfortunate robbery to unexpected, innocent victims.

This gives the perception that anger towards farm murders was not directed to the actual crime but the belief that the crime was a deliberate attack on white lives. To many, the blame is on political parties such as the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters in an attempt to forcefully remove farmers from their land.But looking at the crime statistics, we commonly have a problem of intruders forcefully entering our homes to harm us and take our belongings, whether it is in a house in the suburbs or a home on a plot.

Rorisang Kgosana.

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