Farm attacks or ‘White Genocide’? interrogating the unresolved land question in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract: Apartheid South Africa was noted for historical land dispossession, domination of the white group and disempowerment of its black population. Post-apartheid South Africa has struggled to address the land-related structural and physical violence in the country. Despite the implementation of land reform programmes since 1994, land inequality and impoverishment of black South Africans persist. The government’s failure to use land reform as instruments for socio-economic empowerment engendered frustrations among the major targets of land reform, which have found expressions in farm attacks and murders. The subsequent instability in the farming sector and categorization of farm attacks as ‘white genocide’ has shown the dynamics of the conversation, the urgency to combat farm attacks, erode the racial discourse and resolve the land question. Through unstructured interviews of key actors involved in the land and farm conflicts in KwaZulu- Natal and Northern Cape, the article engaged the land attacks and ‘white genocide’ discourses and provided a nuanced understanding of the recurrence of the conflict in South Africa. I claimed that unequal access to land, and other intrinsic factors account for the destruction of lives and property on farms. In conclusion, while white farmers are the major victims of farm murder, the conceptualization of such as ‘white genocide’ does not entirely capture the reality. Among others, the government must inaugurate a ‘Panel of the Wise’, comprising of well-respected elders from all races to be involved in the peace processes on the farms