White South Africans will be resilient to the end. Their only regret is the speed with which it now comes.
“It’s been a rough month,” says Jess.
Coming from a one-man mountain with more shrapnel scars than most, things must be looking bleak in South Africa.
And it’s worse than any of us can imagine. Eighty-four farm attacks since lockdown began, twelve white farmers slaughtered from their land. The footage of the aftermath of one of the attacks circulating on Telegram and sent to me — too brutal to share. Only monsters could do such things to the elderly in their own homes.
As many of us celebrated the 4th of July this weekend, there were three murders in two days, one of them so unspeakably cruel that even those hardened to the news of torture of farmers by black gangs have found themselves white-knuckled at the speed of the horror.
When these massive men like Jess feel it, we need to stop and listen. They are the first people I would run to if I needed protecting: strong, sturdy, unflinching. These strong South Africans are part of the land, they have it coursing throughout their blood just as the sunshine and water spills through the crops and trees on their soil.
Hearing the horrible news I want to grab my little daysack — sitting ready with my passport and power plugs — pull on my boots and go. I am desperate to head back to their country, somehow leap into the struggle and to help the murdered be heard. For now I share their pictures with you, hopelessly trying to reanimate them as individuals, instead of more bodies on a pile.
This is Wynand Breedt. He was a well-loved Afrikaans singer.
He was ambushed and shot dead outside his farm on Friday. Nothing was stolen; there was no motive for the attack apart from the color of his skin. He was 46.
This smiling gentleman is Julian Stobbs. He was a Brit, a Royal Navy man and veteran of the Falklands War. A black gang raided at his home as he slept alongside his partner on Friday 3 July. They stole everything in the house and fled, only to return briefly to...
