Transport difficult in rural areas

HOT TOPIC: Criticism of bakkie driver

AFTER reading Zukiswa Pikoli’s In My View opinion article in The Herald of February 13 (“Need to examine how we’re still affected by apartheid”), I felt that her interpretation of events was totally out of line with reality. I, therefore, felt it necessary to respond.

Pikoli’s comment on the relationship between farmers and farm workers, as being “disingenuous”, proves to me that she does not understand what the rural way of life is all about and probably has never been to our part of the world.

I think that Professor Jonathan Jansen was correct in suggesting that one should not apply urban ideology within rural or small town contexts (“Behaviour change a challenge”, January 26).

Let us first examine the facts here, as these are ignored by Pikoli.

A man, who incidentally is not a farmer but who was travelling in a bakkie with a livestock weighing machine on the back, was prepared to give a lift to a woman wishing to travel to town.

There was no space on the back of the vehicle, other than within the weighing machine.

She was nonetheless willing to climb into this in return for a free ride.

There is plenty of space within a cattle weighing machine, which should not be described as a “cage”, as Pikoli has done.

This was not forced upon the woman, but was agreed to after discussion.

Now let us examine some of the realities that exist within the rural communities of our province, which she obviously has no insight into:

ý There is no public transport system available today within our rural areas;

ý There were many farm schools scattered all over our province where the children of the farm workers were given a decent basic education.

These schools have all been closed for reasons of realignment as being part of state policy.

Now these children have to be transported to boarding institutions in towns many kilometres away from the farms on which they reside.

So, what are the consequences of these realities?

ý Farm workers and their families now have either to hire taxis to transport them to their nearest towns, at huge cost, because of the generally vast distances between farms and towns, or they can choose to walk the distance.

The only other option for them is to accept a ride on the back of bakkies free.

As they would say, “a second class ride is better than a first class walk”;

ý Transporting the children of farm workers to schools in towns has also become the responsibility of the farmer, at his cost, because the state does not have the capacity to supply this.

Their numbers mean that they have no option other than to ride on the backs of bakkies.

What Pikoli has successfully achieved with her opinion article is to help drive a wedge between the farming community in the Eastern Cape and their employees, simply because the farmers have made it quite clear that they will no longer accept being insulted as racists.

Her clear obsession with race means that every debate will be translated into a racial issue.

Perhaps it is this attitude that Jansen is in fact objecting to.

The upshot of all of this could result in our farm children now being deprived of a basic right to education, together with unhappy farm workers who will no longer be offered lifts to town.