In Response to:
"There's a lesson in the farm invasions"

Jaco Strauss
Letter to The Sunday Times (South Africa) - 2 May 2000

The "left field" column "There's a lesson in the farm invasions" by Mondli Makhanya in The Sunday Times of 30 April is one the poorest columns I've ever read.

Unbelievably, Mr Makhanya acts as an apologist for the mayhem the desperate despot Mugabe is unleashing on the total Zimbabwean population. Take the following quote for example. It was made by a farmer, living under constant fear of being lynched by a racist mob of murderous thugs. "Oh, I don't need to explain to you. You know how mobs are. You were probably involved in Soweto yourself."

To try and make a big racist thing out of a statement that is at most insensitive is sickening against the background of the state-sponsored life-threatening racism the white minority has to deal with around the clock.

To my amazement the quality of the column actually deteriorated from this pathetic point of departure. We are told, for example, that "(White Zimbabweans) still have their own social clubs, tee off with each other at golf courses and attend cricket and rugby games with each other, but they are never to be seen at the national soccer team's games or any event that will have a predominantly black crowd.”

If whites only tee of with each other, you have to assume that blacks only tee off with each other as well. What is the point he is trying to make? Whites only tee off with whites, but blacks tee off with whites as well? And how does the soccer get to be "predominately" black, while the whites are being attacked for never attending it.

But as the heading suggests, there might actually be a lesson in these invasions. In South Africa we have a government unable to openly condemn these atrocities. Even worse, they are not prepared to give assurances that the rule of law and protection of property rights in this country will never be jettisoned. This, against the background of an already shocking 800 farmers murdered since 1994.

I am afraid the only lesson to be learnt from the current sad state of affairs is that Mbeki’s "African Renaissance" turned out to be a laughable concept.

Yours sincerely

Jaco Strauss

Cape Town