Kill the Boer

by Ernst Roets

Media complicity

  A nationwide protest against farm murders erupted on 30 October 2017. Tens of thousands of people participated, protesting on highways and at public gatherings across South Africa. The event – known as Black Monday – saw people wearing black in protest against farm murders, calling for the prioritising of these attacks and mourning those who had been murdered. The event was largely sparked by several farm murders that had taken place during October 2017, including that of Philadelphia farmer Mark Fagan (46), Bloemfontein farm manager Kyle Stols (21), and Klapmuts farmer Joubert Conradie (47). The purpose of the event was twofold: Firstly to send a message that the victims of farm murders are still remembered, and secondly that these attacks should be prioritised.

  Fagan was shot in the chest while fighting off attackers who tried to kill his 14-year-old daughter. It was her friend’s birthday and the Fagans had hosted the birthday on their farm.1 Stols was shot dead outside the farm’s guesthouse. He had bullet wounds in his chest, head and feet. He managed to broadcast an emergency message that he had been attacked to a group of people, but when they arrived, he was already dead.2 Conradie heard a noise at around 01:00 in the morning, took his firearm and went to investigate. He was shot in the chest by intruders. He ran back to his wife, Marlene, and told her that he had been shot. He died during surgery soon thereafter.3

  The reaction of the loved ones of these murdered farmers struck a chord with the community at large. Mark Fagan’s wife, Jo, spoke to several news outlets about how her husband had died fighting off intruders and saving the lives of his daughter and her friends.4 Gawie Stols, the brother of Kyle Stols, delivered a heart-breaking message at a press conference hosted by AfriForum.5 Marlene Conradie allowed the media to produce a video clip of her discussing how she had held her husband in her arms as she told him that she loved him for the last time while he was choking on his own blood, fighting for his life. Their daughter had stood by watching.6

  One of the biggest triggers that led to the Black Monday protests was a video clip of Conradie’s friend, Chris Loubser, sitting on his farm in his bakkie (English: pickup truck) speaking into his cellphone. Loubser was visibly fighting back tears as he said the following:

  I feel so powerless and I feel so badly that I want to do something for the country’s farmers. If I could do magic, then the whole of Cape Town would have been surrounded this morning by big tractors, so that nobody can get in or out. Because it seems that you can only get heard if you create chaos. I feel that we need to do something to be heard as farming community. [I ask] the few people that I know, to support me and dress in black on Monday, for our country’s farmers. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or any of these things, but I believe that the twenty of you that are on my cellphone, that you will forward the message to your friends. So that we can distribute this thing, not only us as farming community, but also my friends who work in offices. Let’s wear black on Monday – at least I have a black T-shirt in my dresser – so that we can show respect to the farmers that have lost their lives this year. I ask you to support me. I ask you to send this to your friends, so that we can contribute in a way … My wife gets a cup of tea in bed, every morning and every evening before she goes to bed. Sometimes a man doesn’t feel like it. But this morning it was a privilege again to make her a cup of tea. So I ask you, let’s wear black on Monday.7

  Loubser sent the message to his friends. It quickly went viral from there. A 21-year-old local resident, Talita Basson, started organising a public march from Klapmuts (where Conradie had been murdered) to Cape Town on 30 October. AfriForum threw in its support and encouraged its members to support Loubser’s plea by participating in the events to be held across the country on that Monday.

  On that day, tens of thousands of people participated in the public gatherings across the country, as well as abroad. Protests took place in Oudtshoorn, Vryburg, Tzaneen, George, Johannesburg, Brits, Bethlehem, New Zealand, Perth, Melbourne, and South Dakota in the USA. A big truck with the words ‘Stop. Pray for South African farmers’ was displayed in South Dakota.8

  About ten thousand people gathered in Klapmuts in support of Basson’s Genoeg is genoeg (English: Enough is enough) initiative. The convoy of vehicles was so big that it took over four hours to reach Cape Town from Stellenbosch. People of all races participated in the events. Calla Arendse, a brown farm worker in the Western Cape, spoke to the media:

  Actually, we as farm workers, we don’t even know if we’re safe in our houses. And the reason I say that is, in the old days we had a good life. We could go wherever we wanted, but these days we can’t go wherever we want, because you don’t know where the danger is waiting for you. In South Africa I think it’s reached a stage where we all have to stand together to put a stop to this.9

  As the convoy drove through black townships, people lined up along the streets in support of the campaign, chanting slogans such as ‘Enough is enough!’ 10

  Mariandra Heunis, widow of Johann Heunis (43) – who had been murdered in a farm attack one year prior to the event – attended an event in Pretoria together with her three little girls and baby boy, who had been born five days after his father’s funeral. She gave a message of hope:

  They shot my husband six times in front of me and my eldest girl, of which the last was a shot to the head … They took my husband, but they cannot take my children. I’ve spoken to a couple of widows of farm attacks. We all have our own story and our own sorrow. But the one thing that we all have in common is that the road that we have to walk is a lonely road. It doesn’t matter how many people are around you, it remains a lonely road. But this morning, as I stand here in front of you, I realize that we are not alone and I thank you for that.11

  The event was, however, severely criticised in the media, allegedly for suggesting that farmers are more important than other people. Some even went as far as depicting the events as racist.

  BLACK MONDAY IN THE MEDIA

  Controversy soon erupted when pictures of the old South African flag started circulating on social media. Pictures of the flag were posted by the then Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula, and various journalists, including eNCA reporter Nickolaus Bauer. Mbalula tweeted three pictures of people wearing the old South African flag, photoshopped into a picture of Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), and asked: ‘@MmusiMaimane, is this the #BlackMonday you’re in support of? What is this arrogance display of insensitive and disregard of our past?’12

  Bauer tweeted two other photos, one with a couple wearing T-shirts of the old South African flag and one of a white man burning the new South African flag. He added: ‘#BlackMonday Regardless of #Farmurder numbers, highly doubt you’ll EVER enjoy any sympathy in democratic SA if you wear old flag&burn new one.’13

  The tweets went viral and the protestors were severely criticised in the media for being racist. However, it soon came to light that the pictures that were said to have been taken at the Black Monday protests had been taken years before at another event. The picture of a man burning the South African flag had been taken in 2012 and several of the other photos had been taken at the Red October march hosted by singer Sunette Bridges several years earlier. One photographer threatened to take legal action for the distribution of the pictures he had taken years ago.

  This did not stop Mbalula, who said in Parliament: ‘The lawlessness racist insurgency by hood rat racists who hijacked a serious civic topic for a racist political insurgency agenda was open for all to see.’ However, Mbalula refused media interviews about this.14

  Neither did it stop the media, who kept reporting about the display of the old South African flag at these marches as the major news angle. Several journalists called me for comments about the old flag. None of them was deterred by my reaction that it was fake news. One journalist even asked me to accept, for the purpose of our conversation, that the flag had been displayed and then to comment on that.

  Complaints were filed against Bauer with eNCA and the press ombudsman fo
r distributing fake news. Bauer apologised in another tweet, posting some additional pictures of people displaying the old South African flag, including a picture of a man standing on a bridge over a highway. Bauer added: ‘#BlackMonday These images did not come from today’s march. I have severely erred in sharing them. However, the message remains relevant.’15

  Eventually, the only alleged evidence that the old South African flag had been displayed at an event that was aggressively covered by the media, was a tweet by the mayor of the Midvaal Local Municipality, who claimed to have seen someone standing next to the road, displaying the flag on that day.

  Musician Chris Chameleon, who attended the Black Monday celebrations, reacted to the reports of the old South African flag:

  One very upsetting aspect of Black Monday to me was the way in which the issue at hand was in many cases and by a great many influential people opportunistically ignored for the sake of focussing on the rare and isolated incidents of displays of old South African flags, which eventually were proven to be even rarer than first thought, because many of the images attributed to Black Monday were in fact stock footage from years ago. As if the cause of so many people to end the senseless murders of so many people can at once be delegitimised by the isolated and senseless provocation of a single displayed icon. How is it that waving a flag can justifiably delegitimise an entire movement that has nothing to do with the flag? And if it’s that simple, I should be able to find out which slogan, image or icon is most offensive to every good cause in South Africa and pitch at these protests, brandishing that icon and thus delegitimising the entire cause. Is it really that easy? And why do we thus prey for unrelated iconography to neutralise the good intentions of good people using their good time to fight bad?16

  But it was too late. The perception had already been entrenched that the event had been racist. That evening I was invited to participate in a televised panel discussion about Black Monday on eNCA.17 The event quickly erupted into a heated debate, mostly about the flag.

  Kevin Ritchie, Editor of The Star newspaper, described the event as a ‘lost opportunity’, suggesting that farm attacks are pulled out of proportion and expressing his concern about the narrative of the event. ‘This could’ve been a nation building exercise. Instead it does create a narrative especially when the old South African flag is displayed, that white lives matter at a premium to other lives.’18

  ‘They [the protestors] were just longing for the past,’ added eNCA news anchor Vuyo Mvoko. ‘These are not people who belong to the kind of South Africa that everyone wants to build.’19

  As I explained why we argue that farm murders need to be regarded as a priority, the visuals on the screen interchanged to images of the old South African flag and a stereotypical white right winger, sitting on the back of a bakkie, dressed in what appears to be leather and khaki clothes, with a cowboy hat and a big grey beard.

  Jonas Sibanyoni, former ANC MP, turned Commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), said that the protests infringed on other people’s rights, expressed his dismay at the fact that we had not been arrested and called on me to publicly condemn the event.

  ‘Do you agree with the issues that they are raising?’ asked Mvoko. Sibanyoni struggled to answer to a simple yes or no question:

  You know, it is not only the farm owners who are on the receiving end. We have got also farm dwellers who’ve complained. We have been monitoring the coffin assault case. We have also other incidents. Our statistics, Mr Mvoko, the issues on racism or discrimination based on race is topping all the complaints that we as the Human Rights Commission have received in the past financial year. And then also, maybe further than that, to say AfriForum, we’d like AfriForum to join hands whenever other issues are addressed. For example we’ve got the 16 days of activism for no violence against women and children. Nowhere is AfriForum seen to be participating.20

  I responded, explaining that the difference between the campaigns against farm murders and the campaign against violence against women and children was that the one is a priority crime with a government-backed counter-strategy, while the other was not, and that we were campaigning for farm murders to also be regarded as a priority crime. However, the Human Rights Commissioner was not prepared to publicly state that he agreed that farm murders need to be prioritised.21

  Mvoko agreed with Ritchie’s criticisms and accused me of creating a narrative that there is white genocide in South Africa. ‘Today at ten o’clock this morning, two things happened,’ I responded.

  ‘A photo emerged of a man standing on a bridge with an old South African flag, out of thousands of people protesting, and Bokkie Potgieter, a 70-year-old man was hacked to death with a panga [machete] ... ’

  Mvoko didn’t allow me to finish my sentence and interjected: ‘In Midvaal the mayor objected to people who came to him with an old South African flag.’ I angrily lashed back:

  While I’m saying to you a man was hacked to death with a panga, you’re objecting to me. This is exactly the point. We’re sitting here debating the fact that there was some guy with a flag on a bridge. There was a man hacked to death today, while these people were protesting. Why are we not discussing this? This is exactly the problem. This is why people are angry. This is why it’s not a nation building exercise, because we are being marginalised. The people who are trying to raise awareness about these attacks are being depicted as racist, are being accused of things they’ve never said. Now you’re accusing me of claiming that there is a genocide happening. We’re not saying that. We’re just saying the murders need to stop.22

  Ritchie interjected, expressing his concern about ‘the binary position that we’re in’ and that the ‘Africa Addio’ or ‘it’s all going to hell’ narrative should not be tolerated. 23

  A DOUBLE STANDARD

  During the course of writing this book, AfriForum conducted a quantitative study about the manner in which the South African media report on farm murders. Our suspicion was that there is a double standard in the manner in which the media report on farm murders.

  For this purpose, we identified 15 of the most popular news outlets and checked every article about violence on farms we could find that had been published by each of them, and that had been published during the whole of 2016 and 2017. These are The Citizen, Daily Sun, eNCA, EWN, Huffington Post SA, IOL, Jacaranda News, Mail & Guardian, Maroela Media, Netwerk24, News24, SABC, Sowetan Live, The New Age and Times Live. The results were published in a report called Complicity: A critical evaluation of the mainstream media’s reporting of incidents of violence on South African farms.24 Our pessimistic suspicion was proven to be accurate.

  THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

  A serious crisis arises when media outlets claim to be objective while executing a very clear political or racial double standard in their reporting. The main problem with this is that the readers, listeners or viewers of that outlet tend to know about those incidents reported on, while they tend not to know about those incidents that the media outlet chose to ignore. This leads to false narratives, negative stereotyping, misdirected public policy and opinion, and in extreme cases, a justification of violence directed at particular communities.

  REPORTING ON FARM MURDERS

  During the time frame that forms the focus of this report, at least 148 farm murders were committed during at least 737 farm attacks. The numbers provided here are the incidents that could be verified by AfriForum, in cooperation with the the Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa (TAU SA). These figures should therefore be regarded as the ‘at least’ numbers. It is fair to conclude that the actual number of farm attacks could be much higher, while the number of farm murders is fairly accurate. These figures (which should be treated as the minimum figure) constitute more than one farm attack per day and about 1,4 farm murders per week.

  As a result of the high frequency of these incidents, it is reasonable not to expect the media to report on every farm attack that happens where no one is murde
red. However, a decision not to report on these attacks due to the vastness thereof, could not coincide with severe condemnation and excessive reporting of isolated incidents where farmers or even white people are perpetrators. The former is understandable. The latter is unethical and conducive to negative stereotyping. That is, however, the unfortunate reality with South Africa’s media.

  During the course of the study, a total of 2 331 media reports were published, dealing with a total of 264 incidents. These incidents were mentioned 2 773 times in the media (some reports mentioned more than one incident). Of the 264 incidents, 241 were farm attacks, of which 105 were farm murders and 136 were attacks during which no one was murdered. This effectively means that the media reported on 71% of farm murders and 33% of farm attacks. (Other incidents that were reported included: twelve vigilante incidents, three incidents where people had been shot because they were thought to be animals, three incidents of worker abuse, four incidents of crime, one incident of domestic violence, and one incident which we categorised as ‘other’.)

  It is, however, not sufficient to simply count which incidents are covered by the media and which are not. The more important question is the extent to which particular incidents are mentioned repeatedly by news outlets, as this provides an indication of the weight attached to the particular incident by the editorial team, the type of information that tends to be emphasised in the media’s choice of what the public at large should take note of, and the possible negative stereotyping that could take place as a result.

  The goal here is to determine the number of mentions that a particular type of incident tends to receive in the mainstream media.

  Table 12: Media mentions per incident, by crime categories25

  It is clear that vigilante incidents, such as the so-called ‘coffin case’ – an incident where two white farmers allegedly caught someone stealing on a farm and stuck him in a coffin while making a video of the incident – or the ‘Parys killings’ – an incident where farmers were accused of murdering two farm workers who had attacked an elderly farmer and had fled the scene, only to be caught by the local farmers – receive substantially broader media coverage than farm attacks or farm murders, for example. Vigilante incidents are covered on average more than ten times as much as farm murders.