Posted on August 22, 2018

‘Farmlands’ by Lauren Southern

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, August 22, 2018

White people can’t be victims. They can’t be discriminated against. Whites — as a group — can’t even be harmed. In the words of Stuff White People Like author Christian Lander, “It is always OK to make fun of white people, because no unhappy ending is possible.” The multicultural system assumes an all-encompassing “white privilege” — the idea that our political, economic, and social systems are sharply biased to serve whites. Indeed, claiming you are not racist or “colorblind” is proof of racism, since it denies the inequality and discrimination inherent in the system.

A film documenting systematic violence against whites is therefore a blow to the ruling orthodoxy. “Farmlands,” a new documentary about South Africa from Lauren Southern, is invaluable.

Miss Southern begins by noting that the most desperate reports about “white genocide” in South Africa come from the “far right.” She travels there to investigate “stories and rumors” that the legacy media refuse to investigate.

Miss Southern also gives us some history. This is important because it establishes that whites did not simply march in and begin lording over a population of indigenous blacks. Indeed, many of the blacks now claiming ownership over South Africa are historical newcomers who conquered or even exterminated other tribes. What’s more, Afrikaners bought their land for fair prices from tribal leaders, some of whom went back on their word. Miss Southern recounts the tale of Piet Retief, a Voortrek leader who made a deal with the Zulu chief Dingane but was betrayed. Retief was forced to watch his companions — including women, children, and his own son — beaten to death in what is known as the Weenen massacre.

Though Miss Southern tells this bloody story, she does not to mention the aftermath, the Battle of the Blood River, in which fewer than 500 Voortrekkers (pioneers heading east in wagon trains) defeated more than 10,000 Zulus. The victors made a vow to God to remember His help in the battle, and the Day of the Vow became a mythic event in Afrikaner nationalism. This is critical to understanding the mentality that built apartheid South Africa, a land that Miss Southern admits in her film has something of a “biblical” quality to it.

When Miss Southern arrives in South Africa, she finds a nation in turmoil. She drives past buildings destroyed by arson. She mentions media reports of as many as 32 protests a day and almost constant attacks on government buildings, including schools. She also finds a “remarkable scarcity of information” about farm attacks from the government and from media outlets such as the BBC. Seeking more information, she locates the “Blood Sisters,” a group that works to clean up crime scenes on farms. A member of this group, Eileen de Jaegar, says on camera that she has “absolutely” seen an increase in farm murders. Another, Francois de Jaeger, claims a 72.9 percent increase in farm attacks between 2012 and 2016. However, both de Jaegers refuse to speculate about the motives behind the attacks, citing fear of the government.

Parts of the documentary are difficult to watch, as white South Africans recount the sadistic murders of family members. The government is either unable or unwilling to prevent or prosecute these attacks, meaning that farmers themselves must track down the killers for the police.

Miss Southern also interviews farmers suffering from the effects of drought, a problem that may be exacerbated by the government’s so-called “Black Economic Empowerment” program, which is driving skilled white workers such as water-supply engineers out of their jobs. As less competent blacks replace whites, the water infrastructure farmers used to count on becomes less reliable. Farmer Louis Lateghan suggests that the farmers’ plight is at least partially intended by the government and states “everything points towards them trying to break us” through discriminatory policies and ruinous taxation. “They want us starving or dead,” he says.

Miss Southern also covers the nightmarish reality of crime in South Africa. Elizabeth Silli, a shopkeeper outside Johannesburg, reports she has had over 100 break-ins at her paintball shop, including two armed robberies. Because gun laws are so strict in South Africa, Miss Silli says many of her sales are for self-defense, with South Africans reduced to shooting pepper balls at attackers. Miss Silli was also forced to hire armed security guards during the daily run of cash to the bank. Miss Southern notes that only a few days after filming Miss Silli, she was robbed yet again, closed her business, and is trying to leave the country.

According to the documentary, the governing African National Congress is indifferent to white farmers. Miss Southern interviews Thabo Mokwena of the ANC’s Executive Committee, who assures her that the long-heralded farm-confiscation process will be done within the law. Yet this misses the point: Confiscation without compensation by the government is arguably worse than mob action. Farmers can at least fight a mob. Mr. Makwana actually represents the centrist position in South Africa; Miss Southern also interviews Zanele Lawana of the more radical Black Land First movement. “We are already at war!” says Miss Lawana. “We are coming for you and we are going to get everything that you own.”

Of course, thanks to years of ANC rule, many white South Africans already own very little. Miss Southern tours a camp for impoverished Afrikaners, mostly women and children. They report that the government gives them no help. Some even claim they have been denied basic medical care because they are white. Like the white refugees who have fled the conflict in eastern Ukraine, there is no media sympathy for them — no journalists demanding that the world offer aid.

Of course, there is a solution: self-reliance. Miss Southern tours the one place in all of South Africa where Afrikaners can be truly secure, the mini-ethnostate of Orania. She describes the experiment in Afrikaner self-reliance as “just one potential solution to this crisis,” and notes a “sense of peace” in the town that contrasts with the violent chaos in the rest of the country.

Orania is a topic of fascination and horror to the international media, which covers it as if it poses a threat to the entire world. However, Miss Southern offers an excellent argument against Orania’s detractors. The “Bantustans,” or tribal homelands set up under the old South African system, were hundreds of times larger than Orania and were exclusively for blacks — but apartheid South Africa’s opponents denied the legitimacy of “Bantustans” because they were supposedly too small and underdeveloped.

Miss Southern notes that during her visit, both blacks and whites said segregation is preferable to what is happening today. Miss Southern also profiles the Suidlanders civil defense organization and their preparations for a possible race-based civil war. She points out that these preparations include large supplies of food, water, and medical equipment, not weapons.

Miss Southern concludes her documentary optimistically, saying that whatever the Afrikaners are about to face, they will no longer face it alone, since the rest of the world is paying attention. Yet while there may be increased media scrutiny of South Africa, Afrikaners have received little help from the rest of the world.

At the same time, Miss Southern points out that most white South Africans can’t leave the country because they cannot take their assets, especially land — though farms are likely soon to be taken from them. Indeed, even as this is written, the first land confiscations are already taking place, and Western governments are largely silent.

Miss Southern’s documentary should be a warning not just for white advocates, but for anyone who claims to believe in individual rights, private property, and equal treatment under the law. President Donald Trump must immediately hear from his supporters that we should accept Afrikaners as refugees. We must immediately suspend foreign aid to South Africa. Finally, we must confront South African government officials about these terrible policies wherever they go.

Ultimately, South Africa is what could be in store for us. As Miss Southern notes in her documentary, the Afrikaners have been in the country for hundreds of years. They did not steal farms; they carved them out of untouched wilderness, and their claim to the land is as legitimate as that of whites to America. In a white-minority America or Europe, wealth redistribution on racial grounds could take place in the same way. The South African constitution is no barrier to the eventual theft of Afrikaner land, and with a few more lefty Supreme Court Justices, the US Constitution wouldn’t be, either.

Miss Southern has courageously done a job mainstream journalists won’t. She offers a glimpse not just of South Africa’s present, but of our people’s future if we do not act. All white people should see this film. Then they need to do everything they can to help the besieged Afrikaners. Their fate is inseparable from ours, and as a global minority, it is time for whites to recognize the dangers we face. What happens in South Africa today will reflect what happens to all of us tomorrow.