Talk:South African farm attacks

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Should this be a subsection of the genocide article?

I'm not sure this is worth an article on its own--an allegation from an organization which is nowhere near as notable as the big players in the field of international homan rights (AI/HRW/ICRC or even people like MSF) (Genocide Watch is essentially a website, nothing more), and a link to a Wikipedia article. Not much to do here. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 18:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Could work, although it wouldn't really fit into the genocide article as it currently is. I'll do some work on it over the next few days (I can add information from these articles from this New York Times article for a start) and then we can see whether it's worth keeping. Balaam (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The victims of farm murders, meanwhile, include a higher percentage of white people.

If Blacks/Indians comprise 48% of farm murder victims, does that mean 52% are white? And what percentage of farm owners are white? And if robbery is a prime motivation in these murders (I don't know that it is), does a disparity in the number of white victims say more about the question of who owns the stuff worth stealing than it does about an attempt to commit "genocide"? For this to really pass the sniff test of genocide in a legal sense, there has to be a clear intent to eliminate a defined racial/ethnic/religious group as such. Are the people killing these farmers expressing an attempt to eliminate white people as a group, or are they killing people who happen to share an ethnicity while committing crimes? PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 18:59, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm still making my way through this 18-part report (if you or anyone else could chip in with the research that'd be grand), but to answer your questions as best I can...

The section I got the demographics from is rather ambiguous, but here it is:

Approximately 60% of victims of farm attacks are farmers (or their families) and 40% farm workers (or their families). About half (48%) of the victims of farm attacks (including those not involving physical violence) are black, coloured and Indian. These figures are calculated from case-studies. However, a much higher percentage of murder victims are white and male. The reason may be that some white farmers resist more and tend to be verbally more abusive.

In regards to motives, I just found a chapter in the report stating that 90% of the perpetrators interviewed in one study said that robbery was their motive. I'll add this to the article in a second. Balaam (talk) 19:21, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, if robbery was their motive, calling it "genocide" is really not applicable, at least according to the UN Convention, which is the only meaning that counts, legally speaking. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 19:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, there's been a lot of hype here over a racial motive to farm attacks, especially given the stink over Malema and the 'Kill the Boer' song. However, it's more likely a combination of a) more farms and smallholdings still owned by whites, b) many cases of employees behind the attacks e.g. Terre'blanche and c) bias by the media, reporting more white murders. However, the rumours don't go away, much like those of the ANC funding themselves through cash in transit robberies. PsyGremlinSermā! 20:13, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if there's a place for this or elsewhere, but I see Sarah Maid of Albion has a link to a running total of farm murders (and murdered whites in general) on her blog. --PsyGremlinSnakk! 09:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, Trump has decided to push the farm attack/white genocide in South Africa shtick - time for an update?

I was surprised when a totally unrelated YouTube video, which simply reviews old and current military rations, was suddenly flooded with white genocide comments in a new video that reviewed a South African ration.

Then I checked out Wikipedia’s article on SA farm attacks and found out that Donald Trump has tweeted about this just a few days ago, apparently to dog whistle about whites being oppressed (incl. SA farmers having their land expropriated. In the spring, the Australian “Liberal”National Coalition government has also tried its hand at similar dog whistling by proposing to offer asylum for white SA farmers (after previously denying that same farmers were persecuted when they actually reviewed an asylum request, btw).

Perhaps it’s time to revamp/update our article to reflect this? One interesting link from Wikipedia’s talk page is this BBC November 2017 fact check on the numbers used in the “farm attack as white genocide” narrative. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:33, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

I do think this article needs to be updated to reflect the current status of the situation — it doesn't appear to mention anything later than 2010. --Luigifan18 (talk) 15:52, 3 April 2024 (UTC)