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Dutton steps between South African farmers and hate

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke
Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

The South African government’s vote to expropriate land without compensating farmers has grave human rights implications. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is considering how Australia can offer targeted farmers shelter from persecution by tailoring our humanitarian program. The South African government has rebuked Dutton by denying it is endangering farmers. The denial is unconvincing.

A regrettable fact of history is that genocide is written in retrospective terms. In 2010, the African National Congress was accused of racial hatred. ANC youth league leader Julius Malema performed Ayesaba Amag­wala, which features the lyrics “shoot the boer”. In the South ­African context, boer is generally held to refer to Afrikaners or farmers. AfriForum, a group representing the Afrikaner minority, protested the performance. It provided the ANC with a list of more than 1600 victims of farm attacks. The Daily Maverick reported that the ANC youth league threw the list into a gutter.

ANC lawyers defended Malema, arguing that kill the boer didn’t really mean kill the boer at all. Genocide Watch took a more credible position. It clarified that while the chant was used by the anti-apartheid movement, in the post-apartheid era it has become a vehicle for anti-white race hate. The genocide watchdog said: “Not only did ­revival of the song strike fear into the hearts of Boer farmers, but it has actually been sung during ­attacks on white farmers. It is an incitement to murder white Afrikaner farmers.”

Those who suggest Dutton erred in identifying South Africa’s white farmers as a persecuted group should consider the ­extreme nature of racial hatred they endure. AfriForum reported that the South African government decided to “deprioritise farm murders” in 2007, despite its own commission of inquiry finding there were 1254 farm murders and 6122 farm attacks between 1991 and 2001. Paul Toohey’s ­recent reports for news.com.au brought the issue to the fore. He described the farm attacks as ­“abnormally cruel”. There are many survivor testimonies that detail the horrific torture inflicted on victims. An old woman tortured with a drill. A father broken bone-by-bone in front of his family. People burned, raped, tortured and murdered slowly.

Denial and rationalisation ­accompany the emergence of terrorist regimes and genocide. When possible, terrorists use physical characteristics to divide people and isolate a group for persecution. Skin colour is a blunt and effective tool for sowing ­social discord and fomenting revolution against dissidents. In South Africa, the horror of white-on-black racism is being reversed. The new racism is as foul as the old but human rights activists are slow to denounce it.

One source used to discredit Dutton’s statement on the persecution of white farmers is the African Farmers Association of South Africa. Chief executive Neo Masithela was quoted by SBS and Huffington Post as saying land expropriation wasn’t a race matter but a socio-economic one. He claimed they helped “all farmers, black and white”. But the AgriFood news network earlier quoted Masithela using a race-based rationale for land ­expro­priation without compensation: “Black farmers, in particular, are at the receiving end of this slow pace of land reform … It cannot be that 24 years down the line, only around 11 per cent of the targeted 30 per cent of farm/agricultural land is transferred to black farmers.”

South Africa’s parliamentary and public debates on land expropriation are framed in racial terms. White farmers are cast as the oppressors and blacks as the ­oppressed. The parliamentary motion on land expropriation was moved by the socialist Economic Freedom Fighters party. Its leader is Julius “shoot the boer” Malema. In a parliamentary address on the subject, Malema described farmers as “the criminals who stole our land”.

There were high hopes new President Cyril Ramaphosa would steer South African politics to the centre. But the centre will not hold. In February, Rama­phosa framed taking farmers’ land without compensation as a cure for colonialism. He vowed to return land to “those from whom it was taken under colonialism and apartheid”. In a 2015 speech to the South African Communist Party, Ramaphosa celebrated “Comrade Joe Slovo” as a standard bearer for political leaders. Slovo advocated the transformation of South Africa from a ­national democratic to a socialist state. Land redistribution was a fundamental pillar of Slovo’s theory: “This will take a variety of forms, including state ownership of large-scale farms.” The “realisation” of land reform was the “basic task of … revolution”.

The ANC is embarking on a course of radical economic transformation. Seizure of private property is a common policy of totalitarian states. In 1951, Foreign Affairs observed that land reform was the principal feature of the Chinese Communist Party line since Mao Zedong rose to power. As in South Africa, the state framed the seizure of private land as a policy of redistribution for the sake of the oppressed masses.

Communists and socialists commonly targeted landowners and churches for persecution in order to steal property and ­destroy dissent. The genocidal Bolshevik leader Lenin wrote: “Now and only now, when people are being eaten in famine-stricken areas, and hundreds, if not thousands, of corpses lie on the roads, we can pursue the ­removal of church property with the most frenzied and ruthless ­energy.”

The hostility against white people in South Africa is becoming more pronounced. This month Malema targeted a dissenter from his parliamentary motion on farm expropriation, Democratic Alliance member Athol Trollip. Africa’s news24 ­reported that Malema ­declared to a packed arena his plans to ­remove Trollip because he “is a white man”. Malema said: “Go after a white man … we are starting with this whiteness. We are cutting the throat of whiteness.” That is the language of genocide.

If reports are accurate, the man who moved South Africa’s parliamentary motion to expropriate land without compensation is inciting genocide. White farmers should leave South Africa.

Dutton recognises South Africa’s white farmers as persecuted. He believes they need help from a civilised nation. On both counts, the evidence supports his case.

Read related topics:Peter Dutton

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/jennifer-oriel/dutton-steps-between-south-african-farmers-and-hate/news-story/0adccbfe8d1e90be727d691e10eff4dc