The problem of farm murders is an emotive one that relates to many other social issues in South Africa, especially the issues of racially skewed land ownership, government corruption, and constant and visible racism of white people against black people. A decent treatment of the question has to touch on those other issues, and, I think, requires a bit of historical knowledge and social awareness.
The white rights shitrag where you found the article does not show anything like that.
Here's a better take by Rebecca Davis, if you're interested.
Since the mid-17th century black South Africans have been enslaved, had their land stolen, were forced to sell the rest of their land while essentially negotiating over the barrel of a rifle, had their societies ripped apart by colonial government's opposition to family migration, been stripped of political rights and dignity, been denied opportunities in the economy, been fobbed off with substandard education, been tortured in police dungeons and had their kids shot dead in the streets. More lately they have been confronted by opposition on the part of the white ownership class to demands for even modest transformations in ownership and opportunity, and especially to a relentless, demeaning racism from whites who refuse to understand what colonialism and apartheid meant. In other farm news this month (which gets a mention in
the Politicsweb article your New Observer article references, but which the New Observer didn't find relevant):
A farmer allegedly shot and wounded a farm worker with a pellet gun in Letsitele, after allegedly mistaking him for a monkey, Limpopo police said on Thursday.
Mathanene Ishmael, 55, was returning from a store room on his bicycle when the farmer allegedly shot him in the head with a pellet gun on Wednesday, Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo said in a statement.
...
In KwaZulu-Natal, an 87-year-old man appeared in the Umzinto Magistrate’s Court on Monday for allegedly shooting and killing a 12-year-old boy he apparently mistook for a monkey. The boy was climbing a guava tree on the man's property in Braemar on Sunday when he was shot in the head and upper body, Sergeant Patrick Msomi told News24.
In another case, Stephan Hepburn, 38, allegedly shot and killed farmworker Jan Railo, 23, on a Limpopo farm on February 11. He was hunting with his wife and apparently mistook Railo for a warthog. The Modimolle Magistrate’s Court granted him R15 000 bail on February 24.
Afriforum represents those fuckers, and all the others who don't see the need for any further change now that 'the blacks' nominally have political power. For them to clutch their pearls when a black person uses hate speech is ethically small and politically retarded. It's why they aren't very popular, even among Afrikaners. Their big problem is that they rely on donations from morons who believe the 'white genocide' myths, so they have an interest in being dishonest (or at least shockingly selective).
As for your shallow Open Society dig at the end, it may interest you to know that Open Society is actually funding a different, liberal NGO called Save SA. It is very much opposed to the left-populist side of the ANC and to any policy that might look like a threat to property 'rights'. Isn't that what you like?
