How would you feel if you, as a woman, are stripped naked, then kicked and beaten with sadistic glee until you are utterly helpless and bloody before the attackers?
And then they shove you into the shower and open only the hot water, and if that is not hot enough to satisfy their craving for cruelty, they pull you out and press a red-hot iron onto your naked skin, holding it there until your skin scorches and starts to peel off.
All while knowing that these same creatures torturing you have most probably already murdered your beloved husband.
While gripped with the overwhelming fear that the worst may be yet to come.
For no reason whatsoever.
They already have all they want. Guns, money, keys, cell phones, TV sets. Everything they want.
The torture is purely for their own entertainment. For fun.
According to government’s official statistics, there have been nearly 2 000 deaths. Some people estimate it to be more. Maybe closer to 3 000; the number of people killed in farm attacks since 1994.
Add to that, 2 000 or more who were attacked and tortured, like Elsa Richter from Thabazimbi. Her husband, Marthiens (68), was beaten to death outside their home.
Add to that the thousands of workers whose lives were directly affected, who have most probably lost their job and income.
The loved ones. Broken and shattered. The scars that an attack as brutal as this leaves on loved ones never really disappear. Some are able to forgive. Others cannot.
The hate, resentment and raw emotions are a burden you carry with you for the rest of your life.
That is the bigger picture of a farm attack. The real picture.
The almost daily, weekly reports in the media have desensitised people to the true horror of a farm attack.
Their senses, emotions and sympathy cannot keep up with the numbers.
At first, it was an almost unheard-of phenomenon. One here, and then one there. And then there were a few more. Ten, a hundred … A thousand. Two thousand. It has become as common as the daily weather report.
And so, the gruesome reality of death and mutilation starts to lose its sting.
These are some of the thoughts going through my mind every time that I, as the provincial leader of the FF Plus, visit the scene of a farm attack. Or speak to the victims or their loved ones after an attack.
It is an atrocity that we must never become accustomed to, because that would mean we have lost all traces of our humanity, emotion and compassion.
When a court finds no fault with a politician, like Julius Malema, singing a song saying that farmers must be murdered, there are no words.
You feel compelled to convey some of the inhumanity, pain and suffering of it all to the judge. Those motionless figures covered with bloodied sheets. But you can’t.
I am saying this while knowing for certain that in the next few weeks, I will turn into yet another farm gate where yet another farmer has been murdered.
Yet one more to add to the number of 2 000.
I will probably end up standing next to the bed of another broken victim, like this morning at Elsa Richter. One more to add to the 2 000.
These people will never be just a number to me. And not to my party either.
This is indeed an atrocity that we must never become accustomed to.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Marcelle Maritz on FF Plus
Read: Dwaalboom farmer (68) brutally murdered, wife tortured, shootout leaves attacker dead
Read about South African farm murders and farm attacks here
Read: Racial murders: 1000’s of white SA farmers killed by blacks – I also cant breathe !
