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I attended the gathering at the Vegkop battlefield site for about two hours and plead guilty to warning the people there that SA is getting so unstable that organised genocide on the scale of Rwanda is a possibility not to be discounted too lightly.

The discussion around genocide over the past few weeks in Afrikaans was set off, not by a “right-wing bigot” as you continue in your tribal Johannesburg-English way to stereotype Afrikaners, but by the left-wing, ANC- supporting theologian Nico Smith.

On September 11 he wrote an article in Beeld, Pas aan of pas op (Adapt or beware), in which he forecast that Afrikaners insisting on language rights and complaining about affirmative action will end up like the French Algerians who were given the choice of “the suitcase or the coffin” by the National Liberation Front in the early sixties.

No one can deny the wall of hate from the state directed against Afrikaner farmers, teachers, schools, universities, museums, monuments and so on. Huge amounts of taxpayer rands are being spent on court cases and other actions to eradicate Afrikaans from educational institutions and to remove Afrikaner farmers from the land they have farmed for generations.

The nature of injuries sustained in military-style attacks on farms and suburban houses are not of a civil or even criminal nature.

At a recent medical conference on trauma surgery held in the US, a high- ranking officer from the US army called the South African delegate aside and told her: “Judging from the type of injuries you have shown us, I am afraid there is a war in your country. Such injuries do not occur in peacetime.”

I am sorry to disturb you in your liberal dreamworld where you are “cremating deceased livestock and sucking on a beer”, but this country is already engaged in a low-intensity ethnic conflict that may well escalate into dominee Smith’s vision of a white genocide.

The umKhonto weSizwe and Apla- controlled SANDF, of which we have recently seen the levels of discipline, has about 500000 automatic weapons at its disposal.

Likewise, the SABC is the perfect weapon to exhort the majority population to drive the hated white racists or “bigots” into the sea.

The tide of history, as is amply demonstrated by Algeria, the former Portuguese colonies and, of course, Zimbabwe, is against the continued presence of whites in Africa. We are all living under the sword of Damocles.

Comments from Business Day:

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Dis vir my interessant hoe die hele utopie rondom veelrassige en multikulturele demokrasie (ek noem dit: demonokrasie) besig is om uit te rafel. Al die Britte en Amerikaners se propagandiste wat ons wou oortuig dat ‘n stelsel wat nêrens in Afrika gewerk het nie – en waar minderheidsgroepe soos blankes en Indiërs uit een land na die ander verdryf is – oplaas hier gaan werk, word tans deur die werklikheid oorval. Die afgelope vyftien jaar is die werklikheid, ook ons geskiedenis, konstant misken en onderdruk, maar nou – skielik – slaan dit toe soos ‘n dief in die nag. Selfs Nico Smith sien die probleem raak, maar Harald handhaaf die lagwekkende siening dat ‘n “gesindheidsverandering” onder blankes die toekoms van hierdie land kan verander. Dis so goed as om te sê die tienduisend oorblywende blankes in Zimbabwe moet net hulle “gesindheid verander” en dan sal die mielies outomaties opkom, die hospitale en skole sal weer begin werk en die Zim-dollar sal weer ‘n paar miljard persent in waarde toeneem. Of die SA blankes van swartes hou of nie, of hulle selfs die ANC-regering ondersteun of nie, is irrelevant. Hier is ‘n historiese en etniese logika aan die werk wat slegs deur politieke handeling gestuit kan word, net soos wat politieke handeling dit ontketen het. Ons moet Nico Smith se waarskuwing van volksmoord ernstig opneem. Lees ook wat ek vandag hieroor geskryf het (ondertoe). En indien enigeen van my verskil, sou ek graag die teenargument wou hoor, nie blote ontkenning van die probleem soos Harald P. dit hierbo beoefen nie.

Harald Pakendorf in Rapport:

Wittes se kans kom om hul knorrigheid af te skud

Die wittes, en veral die Afrikaner, se plek in die nuwe Suid-Afrika is skielik deel van die openbare debat. Die vreemdste sieninge kom na vore.

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Soos wat die onderdrukking van Afrikaans onder die toenemend totalitêre ANC-bestel met sy “demonokrasie” toegeneem het, het verskeie Afrikaanse organisasies en individue spontaan begin om 14 Augustus as ‘n belangrike datum op die Afrikaanse en nasionale kalender te gedenk.

Vir diegene van my geslag wat in die ou tweetalige Suid-Afrika grootgeword het – en wat eintlik ‘n model vir taalbillikheid was, gegewe dat elke tuislandregering ook ‘n swart streekstaal kon bevorder – het die Engelse brander wat sedert 1994 oor die land gebreek het as ‘n groot skok gekom.

Vandag swyg die regime se media in Afrikaans en veral natuurlik in Engels oor 14 Augustus en die wonderbaarlike verhaal van enkele Afrikaners wat op dié datum in 1875 die besluit geneem het om die wêreld se jongste standaardtaal te begin “skryf soos jy praat”.

Die feit dat hulle hulself die “Patriotbeweging” genoem het, het ook geslaan op die sterk Republikeinse opwelling wat in die 1790s onder Kaapse Afrikaners plaasgevind het, toe daar insgelyks ‘n politieke Patriotbeweging bestaan het.

Die mate waartoe die geskiedenis hom, veral op taalgebied, in Suid-Afrika herhaal, is eenvoudig verstommend. Terwyl taalregte en taalgelykheid ná Hertzog se taalwet van 1925 in die land byna as ‘n gegewe beskou is, het ons in ons tyd weereens die byna kolonialistiese arrogansie van Engelse jingoïsme gesmaak.

Net soos in die verlede en veral die 1940s toe verengelsde Afrikaners die sterkste voorstanders van verengelsing was, beskik ons vandag oor sogenaamde “stryders vir meertaligheid” wat Afrikaans wil marginaliseer en uiteindelik tot ‘n stukkie ignoreerbare folklore wil verskraal. Tereg is sulke mense, waaronder die magtige bruin of “swart” akademici – soos hulle verkies om hulself te noem – in hul vername poste aan voorheen Afrikaanse universiteite as Trojaanse perde bestempel wat die uitwissing van Afrikaans met hul mooiklinkende gemeenplase wil verhaas.

Gister skryf prof. Jaap Steyn in Die Volksblad ‘n waar woord teenoor juis een van die Trojaanse perde, die Afrikaner- en Afrikaanshater Jonathan Jansen wat teen die “taalhouding van Afrikaners” uitgevaar het: “Jansen praat van die “afdwing” van Afrikaans, maar geen taal is in ons geskiedenis in so ’n groot mate afgedwing as Engels in die afgelope 200 jaar nie – veral nou weer in die laaste vyftien jaar.”

Dat Engels vandag in Suid-Afrika afgedwing word, so te sê met wapengeweld, is ‘n feit. Sowel die staat- as die korporatiewe sektor ly aan geheueverlies oor die feit dat Afrikaans bestaan. Taalstryders wat bloot logiese vrae oor die illusie dat Suid-Afrika ‘n Engelstalige land sou wees, vra, word deur die SAUK en die korporatiewe media doodgeswyg, gesensureer of belaster.

Vandaar die feit dat ‘n “nie-Afrikaanssprekende” soos Jansen vandag as die buikspreker en gelukbringer van fascistiese Engelsheid in Suid-Afrika optree.

Afrikaners, asook daardie tweedetaalsprekers of selfs vreemdelinge wat met ons onregverdige en ongelyke stryd meegevoel het, sal moet besef dat ons voortaan veel harder teen ‘n magtige en ongenaakbare vyand sal moet veg.

Gegewe die volslae vertrapping van ons taalregte en die graad van etniese suiwering wat daar reeds teen Afrikaners toegepas word, hetsy in die sin dat ons vanuit ons eie instellings geweer word, hetsy in ‘n letterlike sin waar gruwelike moorde en verkragtings teen ons gepleeg word, is die natuurreg voortaan aan ons kant.

Ons het die reg om ons teen Engelse taalaggressie te verdedig. En al moet dit uiteindelik uitloop op meer radikale optrede soos die afbrand van Engelse skole, net soos wat die pro-Britse swartes van Johannesburg teen Afrikaans beswaar gemaak het deur hul eie skole af te brand, mag ons nie nou tou opgooi nie.

Een van die lesse van 14 Augustus is dat ‘n Gideonsbende in 1875 – teen die hoon en bespotting wat hulle van die destydse Kaapse burgery ontvang het – die strydvlag vir Afrikaans opgeneem het en uiteindelik geseëvier het. Die aantal mense wat vandag Standaardafrikaans liefhet en wil bewaar, is moontlik nie veel groter as in 1875 nie. Hulle verteenwoordig egter die room van ons kultuur en van ons volk.

Dit het tyd geword dat ons die SAUK-TV en KykNet met hul lagwekkende en dom Kreools afskakel en televisielisensies begin boikot. Dis ook hoog tyd dat ons ons onderdrukte, maar steeds aristokratiese en voortreflike taal met skokkende welsprekendheid begin praat, skryf en op die mure begin verf.

Die Britse Ryk kon Afrikaans nie doodmaak nie. Die Nguni-ryk en hul verteenwoordigers vanuit die Engelstalige Ooskus van die land gaan dit ook nie regkry nie.

Solank as wat daar nog “regte Afrikaners” met “Afrikaanse harte” bestaan.

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Dít wat Dan Fourie en Pieter Redelinghuys op LitNet my “fantasieë” noem, is dalk besig om gouer as wat selfs ek gedink het, te realiseer. Die byna landwye opstand teen die ANC wat in die swart woonbuurtes aan die gang is, toon dat hierdie orde wat FW de Klerk en sy Britse marionetmeesters op ons afgedwing het, besig is om in duie te stort.

Dié foto wat in Thokoza aan die Oosrand geneem is, druk dit alles baie mooi uit. Op die plakkate van die swart betogers staan: “AWB was better than ANC” en “We vote for better life not for worse. We live like pigs.”

Die tyd is nie meer ver dat die miljoene verarmde en verhongerde swartes in die land na Afrikanerregering gaan terugverlang nie. Ek identifiseer geheel en al met die frustrasies van die huidige revolusionêre beweging – en ek gebruik, anders as Theuns Eloff van Potch, André P. Brink of ander salonmarxiste nooit die woord “revolusionêr” ligtelik nie – wat besig is om in die swart woonbuurtes momentum te verkry. Volgens ‘n intellektuele swart vriend in Kwa-Thema naby Springs vind daar Saterdag ‘n massavergadering daar plaas. Ek is amper lus om dit self by te woon en die mense daar te vertel dat hoe gouer ons van dié korrupte groep plunderaars ontslae raak wat FW de Klerk en Robin Renwick, die destydse Britse ambassadeur, in 1994 oor ons aangestel het, hoe beter sal dit vir ons almal wees. My swart vriend noem hulle “gangsters” of skurke en ek dink nie daar is ‘n ander woord vir hulle nie.

Hierdie orde, al sy mooi beloftes van demokrasie en voorspoed ten spyt, is nie net tot op die been verrot nie, maar is ook werklikheidsvreemd. Tensy mens, soos die Britte, glo dat Zimbabwe eintlik ‘n sukses is omdat daar af en toe ‘n verkiesing plaasvind en daar ‘n anti-wit regering aan bewind is, kan niemand die ANC-orde meer ernstig opneem nie. Hoe op aarde gaan anti-wit rassisme, transformasie en regstellende aksie vir enigiemand – ook vir die breë massa swartes – welvaart en geluk bring?

Die tyd is ook haas nou ryp dat ons op ‘n volkstaat, wat deel van ‘n Suider-Afrikaanse konfederasie sal wees, moet aandring. Hoe gouer die betogers na die Uniegebou opruk en die spul waBenzi – wat die land met die De Klerk en die Britte se goedkeuring besteel – gaan uitsmyt, hoe vinniger kan ons tot werklike onderhandelings – pleks van die skyn van Kodesa – oorgaan en die ernstige probleme in Suider-Afrika begin aanspreek.

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Rapport herhaal in vandag se hoofartikel die geykte stelling dat swartes in die verlede op grond van ras benadeel is. Maar hulle is ook op grond van ras bevoordeel, deur:

- die 1936-wet wat groot stukke blanke grond aan hulle oorgedra het

- die vorige onderwysbeleid wat duisende skole op die blanke belastingbetaler se onkoste laat oprig het en wat miljoene swartes geletterd gelaat het en tienduisende swart gegradueerdes aan die tuislanduniversiteite gelewer het (met Zambië se onafhanklikwording in 1964, was daar net 17 graduandi in die hele land)

- die tuislandbeleid waar honderde miljarde rande in vandag se geld aan swart ontwikkeling bestee is.

Indien daar so ‘n groot onreg teenoor swartes in SA gepleeg is, waarom was hul lewenstandaard volgens internasionale maatstawwe van die VN en die Wêreldbank die hoogste in Afrika suid van die Sahara en daal dit sedert 1994?

Rapport praat bloot die heersende ideologie na wat ten doel het om blankes met ‘n skuldgevoel opsaal sodat hulle geen weerstand bied teen die uiterste anti-blanke rassisme en geweld wat tans woed en wat Zimbabwe uiteindelik na ‘n piekiek gaan laat lyk nie.

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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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