It’s a bloody country
There comes a time that one succumbs to paranoia. Irrational as it is, it somehow gets to you. Twenty-five years ago, although none of us had ever fired a shot, we decided to sleep with a hunting rifle under the bed, fearing the annihilation that would be sparked by Chris Hani’s assasination on 10 April 1993.
The men of the house were away and the reality of two women alone in a typical pre-democracy Free State town, was too close for comfort.
We opened the safe and stared at the rifle, waiting for the other to touch it first. Eventually, we dragged it out by the barrel, touching it as if contaminated.
Townsfolk in those days, acted like doomsday preppers. Farmers covered their windows with mesh to ward off petrol bombs. Gravel was strewn a certain radius around homesteads in order to hear anyone approaching in case of a stealth attack at night. Canned food was stocked up in pantries where you’d usually find freshly baked bread and farm butter.
As a family, we questioned this behaviour as much as we were quizzed about our ignorance regarding the expected apocalypse. With my father actively involved in politics at the time, we were positive about the change coming as the first democratic elections neared.
I would like to believe that most South Africans who participcated in the first democratic elections, found it an unforgettable day. I remember the warm autumn day. The long line of people outside the Handelshuis, where not everyone, prior to that day was able to enter freely. Some voters were chatting gaily. Others looked stern. The rest clung to their ID documents still disbelieving that the day had finally come.
And so the tide turned. Change came. The town wasn’t swamped by an angry mob. Farms weren’t petrol bombed. Who knows what happened to all the non-perishables …
But the bliss didn’t last. On 29 March 1996, a school friend, a member of an outstanding family by all accounts, was murdered in his sleep during a farm attack. He was shot in his bed. Never even woke to realise that his family was being held up in an adjacent room. He was 24.
An internet search this week, brought me to his name on a list of farm murders recorded between 1994 and 2012. Six hundred and twenty nine pages of victims. Their cause of death being shot, tortured, burnt, stabbed, throat slit, axed, slashed, bashed, strangled, kidnapped.
I learnt that my friends’ family, dairy farmers, started breeding highly reputable Boerboels. A spin-off from their own horrifying experience.
Much blood has been shed in this country. Mostly because of the evil that resides in man. In hindsight, that gun was contaminated - with fear. If anything, we should keep singing - Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika!