Steve Hofmeyr is going on hysterically on Twitter about remarks in my book A Rumour of Spring around crime statistics. Im lying, he says. Here is the piece in the book hes complaining about (and note my support for making farm attacks a priority crime): Right wing white South Africans launched a national and international offensive that described whites as the victims of a massive, racially motivated criminal assault, some even using the word genocide. Farm murders are especially used very emotionally to prove this new white victimhood. Popular Afrikaans musician Steve Hofmeyr, for example, wrote on his Facebook page and his website in 2013: “My people are being killed like flies.” He added that a white farmer was murdered every five days. Tens of thousands of Afrikaners rallied behind Hofmeyr, some urging him to start a political party and “lead the Afrikaners”. But virtually every single statistic Hofmeyr quoted was quickly refuted and his sources discredited, among others by an investigation by Africa Check. The Institute of Security Studies says white South Africans are far less likely to be murdered than their black or coloured counterparts. An analysis of some 1 400 police murder dockets in 2009, for instance, revealed that whites only accounted for 1,8 percent of the cases, despite making up almost 9 percent of the population. Hofmeyr declared that the number of whites murdered by blacks since 1994 would fill one of the country’s largest football stadiums (thus 60 000 plus). The real figure of murdered whites is probably around 7 000, almost certainly less than 10 000. Africa Check says the current murder rate of white South Africans is equivalent to or lower than murder rates for whites between 1979 and 1991. Hofmeyr’s insistence that a white farmer was “slaughtered” every five days was also wrong. According to the police, at least 38 percent of farm attack victims were black, coloured or Indian. Several studies over the last few years found that farm attacks were, with possibly a few isolated exceptions, not politically motivated but can be blamed on the vulnerability of people living far from neighbours. The right wing hysteria about farm murders and the claim of genocide had the unfortunate effect that many people dismiss them as propaganda. But it is a serious problem. According to the Institute for Race Relations and the activist group AfriForum, farmers are three times more likely to become murder victims than ordinary South Africans – their murder rate is 98,8 per 100 000 per year. Anecdotal evidence suggests farm attacks are often more brutal than other murders and assaults. AfriForum’s campaign for the minister of police to recognize farm murders as a crisis and a “unique crime” and to prioritise it is thus not unreasonable in my view.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 08:26:37 +0000
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