Mr Charters > 2000 Farmers killed per year is a lot for a country south Africa's size. It would be a lot in Russia.
Not 2000 per year -- it's only 1,600 in ten years, and much less these days than before. And don't forget SA has just come through a relatively bloodless revolution where 90% of the populace became entitled to vote for the first time. Many can't write, but they can vote! When you compare what happened in SA to somewhere else don't think Canada but rather Cambodia, or even Russia in 1918, and then I'm sure you will agree that the SAn whites actually got off very lightly. And furthermore, the SAn revolution was not only about class but also race, so there was every reason for widespread violence, bloodshed and anarchy which simply did not happen or, if it did, certainly not on the scale one would have imagined. Fortunately, the political system remained capitalist although there was a time when it seemed socialism was very much on the cards. The new game seems to be pan-African black nationalism.
Why I say it's revenge is that many of the murders were done by workers on the actual farms where the murders occurred. And, despite what people like to say, conditions for farm workers in many cases were atrocious, frequently worse than in the days of slavery. Of course, on many farms conditions for workers were excellent but there was no uniform standard. And, as I mentioned, there is also the vexed problem of land and many blacks, and not without good reason, believe the whites stole the land from them. In fact, the "official" transfer of land from blacks to whites was going on right up to the 1980s.
> There is a fog in South Africa, it would appear that is taking people down the river.
Maybe, I suppose it could happen anywhere where people just go missing. |
