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Everyone has been commenting the South African matric results lately, including the fact that whites outscore blacks in marks and distinctions.

One black columnist doing some soul-searching is The Sowetan’s Sandile Memela. He writes:

A FEW days ago I had a conversation with my niece Nomfundo about matric results.

She is a second-year science student at Wits University. She obtained one distinction at a private school in matric.

Nomfundo does not believe that whites have greater intelligence than blacks.

“It is not that whites are smarter. The fact of the matter is that black students are just lazy and uninspired. They lack focus, discipline and determination ,” she says.

It is a fact that in the post-liberation period, African students in matric hold the record for being the worst performers.

If you look at the faces of smiling and happy pupils who have obtained more than six distinctions in matric this year, they are mostly white.

Of course, that tells us something, not about who has superior intelligence but who is willing to work, work and work hard even if they go to parties.

Nomfundo says during her high school days, what struck her was what African students were obsessed with.

“Black pupils seem to be interested in hairstyles, designer labels, parties and, of course, booze.”

Read the whole article here.

What Memela argues, is that black failure and white success may be ascribed to a difference in attitude. But just like two individuals may differ in both attitude and ability, it is certainly admissable that races, too, may differ not only in attitude but also in ability. How much of the one can be explained by the other? After all, if I am a bad golfer and I find the game frustrating, I am more likely to give it up than pursue and practise it until I become a low handicapper.

What goes for golf, goes for maths and science, as well as school or university in general. Since The Bell Curve, not to mention may scientific studies published in peer-review journals, we all know that blacks have a lower average IQ than whites. In South Africa, the white IQ is somewhere around 100 whereas the average black IQ is about 70.

Blacks generally prefer parties and festivals because a lot of them lack the mental ability to excel at such demanding subjects as mathematics and natural science which require logical reasoning and cognitive ability. Of course, a small minority – less than one percent – of such abilities and even the mediocre ones are showered with praise, bursaries, corporate scholarships and so on.

What government should do, is to bring back IQ tests in school like they used to exist under the old government. Research in this area should also be funded by companies and the National Research Foundation. Only when we have a better idea of South Africa’s cognitive and intellectual capital, will the debate about the matric results become meaningful and scientific, instead of vague exhortations to blacks to drink less beer and study more.

However, while ignoring race differences in IQ, Memela is quite right when he says:

“It is time black society accepted it is raising lazy and uninspired pupils who are encouraged to rely on false affirmative action.

In fact, black pupils have internalised a culture of entitlement that over-emphasises skin colour, worshipping at the altar of materialism and political connectivity over merit.

This marks the beginning of the end of black rule and self-determination as ultimate power, knowledge and intelligence will always rest with whites.”

The only problem is, South African whites have been so bamboozled by 0ur liberal media and the ANC government’s propaganda that they are starting to doubt their own talents.

Except for those white matriculants, mostly girls who, year after year when school-leaving results are published, continue to surprise us by shooting the lights out. One Afrikaans girl from Hoërskool Florida, Wilmé Olivier, obtained a 100% pass rate in the more difficult and demanding Alpha Mathematics.

But what kind of future is there for her and so many other white kids who obtain brilliant marks but who will soon be demotivated by anti-white discrimination in South Africa?

Read the latest news on similar issues on Race and ethnicity.

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In Suid-Afrika is die werklikheid altyd vreemder as fiksie. Elke dag lees ons van nuwe absurditeite, soos betogers teen “dienslewering” wat munisipale kantore afbrand, vermoedelik in ‘n poging om “dienslewering” te verbeter. As jy die polisie bel, kom hulle nie. Maar wee die vrou wat ‘n gewapende rower uit noodweer in haar huis doodskiet, dan daag twintig gewapende polisiemanne terstond op om haar vir moord te arresteer.

By hierdie surrealistiese werklikheid moet gevoeg word die moroniese gesanik van joernaliste in die hoofstroompers oor apartheid. Dis asof hulle terugverlang na apartheid, want toe was daar vir hulle – gewaande – morele sekerhede wat hoegenaamd nie meer in ons kakistokrasie geld nie. En vir diegene wat dink dat ek nou op Grieks vloek, “kakistokrasie” beteken inderdaad “regering deur die slegstes en onbekwaamstes”.

Die jongste voorbeeld van iemand wat in sy poging tot morele selfregverdiging ‘n kinderlike karikatuur van apartheid aan ons voorhou, is ene Gert van der Westhuizen in Beeld.

‘n Mens kan seker elkeen van Van der Westhuizen se stellings oor hoe erg apartheid was met statistieke en ander historiese gegewens weerlê, maar die algemene houding van dié tipe hoogheilige rubriekskrywers in Beeld, Rapport, Die Burger en soortgelyke media kan opgesom word met die stelling deur een of ander Marxistiese geskiedskrywer: “Moenie my met die feite verveel nie!”

In elk geval, soos ‘n briefskrywer hier op praag.co.za uitgeroep het: “…die vraag (ontstaan) of Van der Westhuizen hoegenaamd bewus is van die hede? Het (hy) nog kontak met die werklikheid?”

Ek dink die antwoord is ‘n besliste nee. En dan dink ek, hoe meer geweld en onreg daar in ons tyd plaasvind, hoe harder gaan Van der Westhuizen en diesulkes hul agtergehaalde stryd teen hul apartheidsfiksie voortsit.

Teenoor apartheid, wat alles wat boos en sleg is, voorstel, staan daardie toonbeeld van voortreflikheid, geregtigheid en morele vlekkeloosheid wat vandag as transformasie bekendstaan.

Gestel nou toe die Nasionale Party in 1948 met ‘n minderheid blanke stemme maar ‘n meerderheid setels ingekom het, het hy pleks van apartheid, hedendaagse rassetransformasie toegepas? Dan sou Verwoerd die Nobelprys vir vrede gewen het en sou Gert van der Westhuizen en sy bende napraters vandag popelende lofprysinge aan die NP se transformasiebeleid geskryf het. Moontlik sou hulle dan vandag oor die veel groter vergrype van kommunisme, pleks van apartheid, geskryf het in ‘n soortgelyke poging tot morele selfregverdiging.

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Ek sien dit word nou allerweë betreur dat die reënboognasie skipbreuk gely het. Maar die hoop word op Jonathan Jansen en diesulkes geplaas wat die jonger geslag gaan dwing om in mekaar se geselskap te verkeer en so “nasie te bou”.

Die ironie is natuurlik, soos onlangse navorsing in die VSA bevind het (en waaroor Newsweek enkele weke gelede berig het), dat hoe meer geleenthede mense van verskilende rasse kry om te assosieer, hoe meer kan hulle insgelyks deur mekaar afgestoot word. Jansen se gedwonge integrasie by Kovsies mag dalk die teenoorgestelde uitwerking hê as wat hy beoog: meer wedersydse afkeer en rassehaat.

Al wat ons met sekerheid kan sê, is dat Suid-Afrika nie uit ander lande, soos die VSA, se foute kan leer nie.

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By al die absurditeite wat hierdie droewe land tans teister, is daar Cosatu se jongste betigtiging van ministers met uitspattige voertuie. Asof “demonokrasie” van die Afrikatipe nie juis rondom ‘n keiserlike lewenstyl vir politici in bankrot lande draai nie.

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Prof. Jonathan Jansen, wie se omstrede uitlatings dat hy nie na “kak oor kultuurverskille” gaan luister nie en Kovsies summier gaan transformeer onlangs in die nuus was, het reeds in 2005 by die Afrikaanse Taalberaad op Stellenbosch sy anti-Afrikaner-houding op ‘n kenmerkend vulgêre manier getoon. Onderstaande rubriek deur Dan Roodt het kort ná die Afrikaanse Taalberaad op die Praagwebwerf verskyn.

Die swak beriggewing in die hoofstroompers oor verlede week se Taalberaad op Stellenbosch het soos gewoonlik ‘n skewe beeld gegee van wat daar werklik gebeur het. Dit was drie dae van verskeie laagtepunte met weinig hoogtepunte. Uiteindelik het die beraad onverrigter sake geëindig, met slegs die vae belofte van ‘n tweede beraad aanstaande jaar sonder enige wesentlike aksieplan.

Een rede waarom daar geen konsensus bereik kon word nie, was die teenwoordigheid van ‘n aantal bruin intellektuele soos drs. Christa van Louw, Neville Alexander en prof. Jonathan Jansen van die UP. Van Louw het op die laaste dag ‘n vloermoer gegooi uit vrees dat sy nie langer voorsitster sou wees van die Nasionale Taalliggaam vir Afrikaans nie, terwyl Jansen op dag een aanbeveel het dat ek “seksuele omgang met ‘n swart persoon behoort te hê sodat ek kan regkom”.

Wat hierdie soort vulgêre uitlatings met ‘n bespreking oor die Afrikaanse taal te make het, weet nugter. Maar dit is kennelik die vlak waartoe regstellende aksie-akademici aan Afrikaanse universiteite deesdae besig is om te daal. Trouens, die aand ná die fameuse onderonsie tussen my en Jansen, het ek in prof. Christa van Louw van die US en prof. Hein Willemse van die UP vasgeloop en sy het Jansen se uitspraak smalend teenoor Willemse herhaal, en nog iets bygevoeg in die trant van, “maar hy moenie slaap nie, hy moet wakker bly.”

Wat Jansen veral omgekrap het, is dat ek na myself as ‘n Afrikaner verwys het. Die meeste bruin intellektuele verkeer onder die indruk dat drie miljoen Afrikaners in 1994 verdwyn het of ten minste een of ander kontrak ten gunste van hul eie ondergang onderteken het. Terwyl Jansen Woensdag sy vuige kommentaar teenoor my betuig het, het Neville Alexander reg langs my gesnou: “Die Afrikaner is ‘n lyk. Dis net jy wat nog daaraan glo omdat jy oningelig is.”

Ek moet sê dat die sogenaamde bruin intellektuele nogal ‘n bron van vermaak kan wees. Vier of vyf jaar gelede reeds het prof. Hein Willemse in ‘n internetdebat rondom die einste taalkwessie teenoor my beken dat hy swart is, maar dat swartheid vir hom geen rassekategorie is nie, maar ‘n “analitiese konsep”.

Tussen akademikaans, engfrikaans en die ANC-bargoens wat oor die afgelope tien jaar ons taal besoedel het, gaan dit maar swaar met Afrikaans. ‘n Woord wat my die horries gee, is “bemagtiging” en dit is oor en oor op die Taalberaad gebesig. As die woord bemagtiging nie deur die KGB uitgedink is nie, kom dit ten minste van Kuba of Noord-Korea.

Maar terug by die begrip “swart”, ekskuus, die analitiese konsep. Toe die Xhosas begin het om die Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland te oorstroom in die vroeë tagtigerjare onder die rektorskap van Jakes Gerwel, was al antwoord wat die bruin intellektuele kon vind om hulself insgelyks as “swart” te beskryf. Dit verklaar moontlik Jansen, wat wel baie donker van kleur is, se obsessie met swart wat naderhand so erg geraak het dat ek hom moes betig oor sy onbetaamlike rassetrots.

Byna erger as die kroeggrap-redenasies van Tukkies se dekaan van opvoedkunde, is die neo-Marxistiese taalkunde van sy blanke kollega, prof. Vic Webb. Laasgenoemde het ‘n pleidooi gelewer dat die Afrikaner alles moet aanvaar wat die ANC-regering op hom afdwing. Benewens sy neo-Marxisme en die feit dat hy sy grys haardos in ‘n poniestert vasbind, vermeld die Taaloudit wat voor die beraad uitgedeel is dat “kruisbestuiwing met Indië” een van Webb se navorsingsareas is.

Twee weke gelede het ek reeds verwys na dr. Gerrit Brand as ‘n akademiese hanswors. Vergeleke met Jonathan Jansen, Hein Willemse en Vic Webb kan ‘n mens hom amper ernstig opneem. Die ironie van die saak is natuurlik dat hierdie kreature wat uit die UP se sirkus onsnap het, deur Naspers opgehemel word as die profete van ons tyd.

Volgens Rapport het ek vir “vermaak” op die Taalberaad gesorg. Veel eerder het ek die rol van narretemmer gespeel, want vermaak was daar genoeg sonder dat ek daartoe hoef by te dra. Benewens prof. Jonathan Jansen se seksuele fantasieë – hy het behoorlik begin kwyl toe hy die gehoor vertel het van sy pogings om die blanke skoolmeisies van Pretoria Girls High te breinspoel om van taal- en rasse-segregasie ontslae te raak deur minnaars uit ‘n ander etniese kategorie te neem – was daar die bespreking oor Afrikaans en die media waaroor hieronder meer.

Terloops, ‘n mens wonder hoeveel ouers van dogters by Pretoriase meisieskole daarvan bewus is dat ‘n swart Humbert Humbert die blanke Lolitas bekruip en hulle boonop toespreek by skoolbyeenkomste. (Vir my lesers wat nie weet nie, het Wladimir Nobokof ‘n roman oor ‘n middeljarige man se verhouding met ‘n dertienjarige meisie genaamd Lolita geskryf, iets wat in die vroeë sestigerjare ‘n skandaal veroorsaak het.)

Hier gaan dit egter nie om fiksie nie, maar om die werklikheid. Is prof. Jansen se invloed op ons jeug in die vorm van seksuele innuendo en rasse-ideologie heilsaam? Behoort Tukkies so ‘n man aan te hou as opvoedkundige dekaan? Wat kan ons van hom leer in verband met die handhawing van Afrikaans?

Dat ras, taal en seks egter ‘n gewilde tema by die Taalberaad was, is gewis. Onder andere het mnr. Theo Erasmus van die betaalkanaal KykNET ‘n beleidstuk versprei waarin die volgende vermeld word: “Die kanaal mag nooit gesien word as een wat eksklusief op ‘n wit mark gerig is nie. Die persentasie bruin mense wat DStv besit en dus toegang tot KykNET het, is bitter klein, maar die kanaal moet ook toekomstige gehore teiken – nie net in sy eie belang nie, maar in belang van Afrikaans.”

Die enigste afleiding wat ‘n mens hieruit kan maak, is dat KykNET nie van sy huidige kykerspubliek – blanke Afrikaners – hou nie. Daar is min sakeondernemings ter wêreld wat soveel minagting teenoor hul eie kliënte koester soos KykNET.

Dié beleidstuk is versprei tydens die sessie wat gewy is aan Afrikaans en die media. Onder andere is Magdaleen Kruger deur die digteres Lina Spies ingevlieg oor die swak taalgebruik op Radio Sonder Grense, oftewel Radio Sonder Mense. Ook Tim du Plessis van Rapport moes erg deurloop oor sy redaksionele beleid wat neerkom op ANC-sikofansie en Afrikaner-verguising.

Ná so ‘n Taalberaad voel mens dat jy jou pêrels voor die swyne gewerp het. Afrikaans baat kwalik by besprekings waar rassepropaganda die botoon bo taalkundige kwessies voer.

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Have another look at this, my classic article from late 2004; it is still as valid as ever.

During the time of National Party reforms in the seventies and eighties, the cliché “adapt or die” used to do the rounds. Nowadays, given the highest murder rate in the world, this should be modified slightly to read, “adapt and die”. For the endemic social violence in South Africa is probably incurable.

Optimists think that violent crime can be solved through better policing, more efficient courts and more secure prisons. Even assuming that such improvements were possible under conditions of hard-core affirmative action, it must be admitted that criminal justice treats the symptom and not the cause of social violence. The Department of Correctional Services, for one, has lost 496 out of 500 former Deputy Directors since 1994, representing most of the intellectual capital in the department. Newcomers may learn their job properly, or they may not, but they have to be flown to overseas countries to find out how prisons work as most of those previously involved in managing our prisons are no longer there.

South Africa used to have a problem of political violence. It was not as bad as elsewhere in Africa, but for some reason elicited hysterical international condemnation. However, actors in political violence are mostly driven by some sort of creed or belief system. Whether such a person is a communist, an anarchist, a neo-Nazi or an ethnic or religious guerilla fighter, he is usually amenable to persuasion or compromise. Even a group of Muslim suicide bombers might declare peace if they were given a territory in which to set up an Islamic theocracy, governed only by themselves and not subject to any outside influence.

In the same way, South Africa’s so-called liberation movements who were at one time fanatically convinced of the need for violent and bloody revolution, laid down arms and bombs upon being told that F.W. de Klerk would surrender power unconditionally. Solving political violence is often intractable, but not impossible.

Not so social violence. Endemic crime, the breakdown of the social fabric, a sense of drift regarding norms of good conduct, point to a far deeper problem. The freedom fighter or urban terrorist is ultimately rational, despite a value system that normal society might find idiosyncratic.

But what is “normal society”? It is only the sum-total of behaviours prevalent in any given society at any given time. The Aztecs, infamously, practised daily human sacrifice to appease their sun god. It might revolt many of us today, but to them it was entirely normal. South Africa currently sacrifices about 87 humans per day to violent crime, or 32 000 per year. Those are only the ones who actually die. Scores of others are injured, maimed, traumatised, robbed, raped, burgled and so on.

In any suburb today an entire history of murders, hijackings, and other violent events can be written, if only the locals were narcissistic enough to consider their own history worth recording for posterity. On the other hand, social violence lacks the charm and grandeur of political violence as it is usually not committed in the interest of some glamorous cause like national liberation or world revolution but simply to acquire some hapless person’s BMW or rape his wife because she happened to be inside.

However, some time ago a Johannesburg newspaper engaged in chronicling some local history in the suburbs of Westdene and Lakefield in Benoni. Nearly every resident had a story to tell, an entire litany of mayhem. Mr. John Gee miraculously survived a shot through the eye, but now feels traumatised. His wife says, “One lives in fear in one’s own home. One does not sleep. One prays for protection, yet only more fears come.”

But who are the authors of South Africa’s social violence? Even asking this question presents one with a sense of discomfort, because most violent criminals in South Africa are young black men between the ages of 16 and 36. As one surgeon who had stitched together at least three child rape victims, two of whom were infants, said recently, “Probably white men commit such acts too; it is just that no-one in South Africa has come across such a case.”

Of course, it would be preposterous to say that all young black men are prone to violence. Judging from our daily experiences in crime-torn South Africa, however, a sub-section of that population, large enough to cause more havoc than even a well-equipped guerilla army of a few thousand men, has taken up practices such as heists, hold-ups, murders, sexual violence exacted upon women and children, and so on.

Explanations for such deviancy are manifold. The ubiquitous answer of it being due to apartheid might have been satisfying if other African societies never subject to group areas and a homeland system did not display similar traits. The Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone come to mind. There is a whole nature/nurture debate around black violence, except that no adherent of the “nature” side would publicly admit to being one, for fear of being branded a racist. Even though mainstream American cancer research has conclusively shown that black men have higher levels of testosterone than their white counterparts, few would hazard the notion that this might be linked to their greater propensity for violent crime.

America has a gargantuan prison population of two million, over half of which consists of African-Americans. This is despite their minority status in the USA, comprising only 12% of an overall population amounting to 290 million. South Africa could neither afford nor succeed, given the dire state of our criminal justice system, in jailing a similar number of black male offenders. Currently, only 10% of murderers in South Africa get arrested and only 6% are convicted. Any murderer therefore has a 94% chance of getting away with it.

If by some miracle all serious criminals in the country had to be caught and imprisoned, the prison population would surely treble or quadruple from the present 200 000, which is already high by world standards. Not only is such an improvement inconceivable under current conditions, but it would also be politically unpopular with the ruling ANC who would be incarcerating large numbers of young black males who are mostly its own supporters at the polls. Few whites, if any, commit violent crime and there are only 3 900 of them in prison, mostly for white-collar offences such as fraud or insider trading on the stock exchange.

All that remains in the world’s most violent society, is precisely to adapt and die. Twice as many South Africans of all races now die of murder than of road accidents – even though the road accident rate is also the highest in the world, surpassing that of Turkey. Crime extends to trade in driver’s licences, so that a large number of drivers use so-called “bought licences”, hardly a contribution to road safety.

There are some people naive enough to think that “something can be done about crime” in South Africa, mostly opposition politicians who dream about diverting funds from arms procurement to policing, but this would be futile. There are already three times as many private security personnel as state-employed policemen, and even they do not succeed in containing what has become Africa’s only peacetime killing field.

“I killed them because they were white.” These famous words were spoken last year by William Kekana, who participated in one of the most horrendous incidents in which the entire family of Mr. Clifford Rawstorne was wiped out, consisting of his fiancée, baby, as well as his own mother. Even this massacre of an entire family would not have made headlines, were it not for the fact that one year-old Kayla was executed on her very first birthday with a shot in the head. Needless to say, the two adult women were first raped before being killed. Both William Kekana and his accomplice, Charles Fido Baloyi, fell into the high-risk group of young black (and Coloured) males who commit almost all violent crime in the country.

South Africa actually has a Minister of Safety and Security, which to some might seem like an example of absurd humour. His Excellency Mr. Charles Nqakula, whose official résumé proudly states that he was once “a waiter and wine steward”, has immortalised himself by euphemistically stating that there was no real crime problem in South Africa, except that it was “a little on the high side”.

All in all, South Africa has got remarkably used to its new-found status as the crime capital of the world. The high-rise districts of Hillbrow and Berea in Johannesburg have been officially designated by Interpol as having the highest murder rate in the world, that is, 600 people per 100 000 population members per annum. Consider for a moment that such a figure represents 12 times the rate found in inner-city ghettoes in the United States, often seen as no-go zones by many Americans.

One British immigrant to South Africa who has survived three car hijackings, refuses to emigrate, stating that he is now accustomed to having Kalachnikovs pointed at him from point-blank range. Everyone knows a relative or friend who has been killed or at least subjected to some form of violent crime, and no South African can remotely imagine a society where people do not live behind razor wire, electrified fences, high walls, burglar bars and similar decorative props.

Outsiders might find our lifestyle bizarre, but many pundits in South Africa consider our society to be much more “normal” now than at any time in the past, which was tarnished by ethnic separation albeit without the present large-scale violence. At the height of segregation and apartheid under Hendrik Verwoerd, South Africa was almost as peaceful as Switzerland but she was immoral. Today we are the apotheosis of racial morality and political correctness, yet as violent as the Congo or Liberia. Surprisingly, however, our economy continues to function amid the carnage. No economist has ever studied this as far as I know, but not only is crime our biggest industry – bigger than gold-mining or manufacturing – it also stimulates consumption as stolen goods are replaced; it is a boon to the insurance and security industries and ultimately makes surgeons and undertakers rich. The government earns billions of rands in Value-Added Tax on stolent goods being replaced with new ones. So crime pays.

News about killings or shoot-outs no longer elicits the slightest surprise. It is part of our daily existence, and one assumes the lethal risks attending to something as simple as going shopping or driving to work. My wife, for example, has twice been to the local shopping centre where in the one instance a shoot-out was taking place in the parking area so that she had to hide between the cars with our 18 month-old son in her arms; in the second case an armed robbery had just taken place with the robbers casually strolling by with their guns and their loot.

Everyone knows someone who has been killed, raped or maimed. Just this week, the wife of a friend and former literary editor of Die Burger, François Smith, was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in their home in Wellington, near Cape Town. Her murderer was a 16-year-old squatter camp resident whose race was omitted by the press but presumably few, if any whites, reside in his particular squatter camp which is dedicated to black Africans. Lisbé Smuts-Smith was a well-known academic and head of the Afrikaans literature department at the University of Cape Town. Just two weeks ago, another UCT academic, mathematician Brian Hahn, was attacked by a former student, dr. Maleafisha Steve Tladi (35). Hahn died in hospital a week later, while Tladi was released on bail of R500 (about $80).

Two years ago Louw Rabie, a brilliant albeit reclusive geologist and brother of author Jan Rabie, was beaten to death with a fence pole by two Coloured men to whom he had lent some money a week earlier. Police in the small Cape town of Montagu readily caught his murderers because they happened to have drinking money during the week, taken from his home. He was 80 years old, but in good health. He is reputed to have been one of the most brilliant geologists and intellectuals this country has ever produced, writing copiously throughout his life but disdaining publication and public esteem. Africans with their oral tradition are fond of saying that “when an old person dies, a library burns down”. What strikes me about the relentless killings of educated whites, is that the criminals are indeed “burning down the libraries” of this country and physically exterminating the intellectual class, much like Pol Pot did in Cambodia. The media are celebrating youth, dance, colour, being black and exuberant – as opposed to the quiet studiousness of middle-aged and elderly whites, the bearers of knowledge and understanding. Are these learned whites who are being killed in exuberant, paradisiacal outbreaks of violence simply the remnants of a civilisation that is being eradicated in the name of decolonisation? No government spokesman has ever condemned such killings; so we may assume that the present regime is completely indifferent to them, where such killings do not enjoy their tacit support.

Around our local school in the past week there have been two car hijackings, as well as one murder. It is not really considered to be an exceptionally violent area. Most of this is not even reported in the press, because there really is not enough space and ordinary crime is no longer newsworthy. It needs some further sadistic element to make the front page, such as babies getting killed or raped, or elderly farmers being tortured to death. Farming in South Africa is now arguably the most dangerous profession in the world with more than 1600 farmers murdered since 1994, often in macabre and dehumanising ways.

To the outside world, white South Africans are congenitally evil. If our murderers and rapists had been white and their victims black, Europe or the United States would long ago have sent an expeditionary force to put a stop to it. At present, news of white suffering in South Africa inspires the occasional yawn in Western capitals. This is why a recent article in The Despatch, detailing the rape of a dog by three black men, gave me some hope that a chord will be struck somewhere in the coolly indifferent breasts of our fellow-Westerners. Even if the lives of Louw Rabie, Brian Hahn, Lisbé Smuts-Smith, Kayla Rawstorne and tens of thousands of others are of no value to them, perhaps they will take pity on the mongrel bitch in Grahamstown that was recently raped by three black men. Or perhaps two black men, as the third one protested his innocence upon being dragged out of the shack by screaming, “I came here to relieve myself. These two were raping the dog when I arrived!” Cruelty to humans, especially white humans, is today a normal feature of our society, just like human sacrifice used to be in the culture of the Aztecs. Cruelty to animals, or non-consensual sex with dogs, may still evoke some sympathy, not only locally, but also internationally. I therefore feel sorry for Masganda – the name of the dog concerned – who was rescued with a bleeding vagina and in need of veterinary attention, but perhaps this lowly creature of uncertain lineage could become a martyr for our cause in alerting opinion-makers and political leaders of our plight.

Cycling has become a popular sport in South Africa. However, its practitioners regularly get shot at by gangs of black youths in the street, so that many of them carry guns and knives for self-defence on their bicycles. Members of the Johannesburg mountain-bike club were outraged a while ago when two cyclists, Scott and Lloyd Griffith, were charged with murder after an armed battle with their four black assailants, one of whom succumbed to his wounds.

Most of the time, however, whites are helpless victims of crime. The government has recently passed a new gun law which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to own a fire-arm. They have also abolished rural commandos of military reservists entrusted with crime-prevention in the country, without any police units replacing them. Occasionally the newspapers carry stories of crime victims successfully defending themselves against attacks, offering armed resistance. As a result of the new gun law, this will soon end and we shall simply be able to hide or flee from our assailants. Defending oneself against a marauding robber or rapist might be a manifestation of racism, and is therefore frowned upon as being a kind of “right-wing” response.

Being robbed of one’s vehicle or household belongings is now considered quite normal, and often people ascribe escaping with their lives to their own astuteness, such as being friendly to the robber, helping him load the effects into a vehicle, not looking him in the face so as not to recognise him afterwards, et cetera. A friend of mine in Kempton Park kept up a reasonable conversation with the thieves emptying his house, tied up as he was with a gun pointed at him. He survived, although his elderly mother was badly roughed up and had to be hospitalised. In other instances, of course, people are not so lucky and they become just another murder statistic. Then they simply adapt and die.

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