South Africa is about 8,500 miles from Michigan.
But it’s home for about 50 agricultural workers in Michiana this summer and some carnival employees at the St. Joseph County Grange Fair last month.
South Africa is a beautiful country, but tumultuous, riddled with crime and corruption, some say.
It would be hard to spot these South Africans summer workers in a crowd — only their accents set them apart. They are of European decent.
Their first ancestors moved to South Africa in 1647. Their forefathers were seeking a better life and some sought religious freedom. But the results have been quite different on the African continent.
Two agricultural workers living in the area this season talked to the Journal about their life in South Africa. For safety reasons, we are not using their names.
“Basically why we are here (in the U.S.) and not in South Africa is because white people are being targeted and killed,” said Farmer 1.
The white population is about 8 percent of South Africa’s population and has been a minority for centuries.
A read through of the tumultuous South African history shows nearly four stormy centuries since the first Dutch settlers arrived in 1647. There was fighting between Dutch settlers and British Colony authorities. There was fighting among various African tribes instigated by the Zulu. There was fighting between the European settlers and the Zulu.
The most recent stain in their history book was Apartheid — extreme racial segregation by law from 1948 to 1994.
“Apartheid was wrong, but there should have been a better solution than just giving the country away,” Farmer 1 said.
Both farmers are in their early 30s.
“We had nothing to do with apartheid,” said Farmer 2, “and yet we are being targeted for it.”
In retaliation for those laws, the black Africans “started blaming white people for everything. It got so bad they started targeting white farmers because we are conservative and very religious,” he said.
The African National Congress has been the governing party since the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Other strong political parties in the country include the Economic Freedom Fighters led by Julius Malema and the Black Economic Empowerment.
The ANC president recently legalized confiscation of white farmer’s property without compensation, said Farmer 2. A measure to right the wrongs of apartheid as they see it.
But can apartheid, which ended 24 years ago, be blamed for current problems such as the violence across the nation, regardless of race? There are an estimated 100 murders a day, Farmer 1 said.
“At the moment, South Africa is the most violent of all of Africa,” Farmer 1 said.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled to a recent photo of a bandaged man in a hospital bed.
“This is my niece’s grandfather,” said Farmer 1. “He is 80 years old. He lives alone on a farm. Five black men attacked him. They left him for dead. He’s 80 years old. He can’t hurt a fly.”
Usually in such attacks, the farmer, his family and workers are tortured, raped, then killed, said Farmer 2.
As white men, both struggled with employment. Neither is currently farming back home, but their parents and grandparents did. They looked for safer options. But one lost his job because he was white and the other was put on the payroll under a different company name than the international car dealership for which he worked. It was how the company avoided employing too many white people.
In search of a safer life, many white South Africans are leaving the county. Farmer 1′s sister has moved to the United Kingdom. When he went to an American Embassy to get a visa, the staff employee said they have 600 interviews a day for visas —12,000 people a month are leaving South Africa.
These two obtained an agriculture visa for the season.
Farmer 2 plans to leave his country soon. They will keep their summer pay in U.S. currency because “our currency is toilet paper,” he said.
They won’t move to neighboring African nations because they are undeveloped and have no market for crops and no medical care. “Doctors Without Boarders is all you have,” said Farmer 2. At the end of the season, they will return to South Africa to make plans, but they said they will be on the first plane home if a civil war breaks out. “Expect to fight a civil war. That is the mind set you need to have as a South African,” said Farmer 1.
“We will probably be killed,” said Farmer 2. “But we might take someone else out.” “It will sound like we’re not telling the truth,” Farmer 1 said. “But you need to think about, what would make you leave and go to another country. What would make you leave this country?”
How bad would it have to be? That’s how the bad situation is South Africa, they said. “I need to find a way to get out of the country because things are going downhill and going downhill very quickly,” said Farmer 1.
A huge frustration is the way the plight is ignored in the media. A quick online search reveals that Australian and Canadian news stations report most on the topic. Last October, a peaceful protest to raise awareness of murder of white farmers called “Black Monday” was held in several major cities — Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg.
When the issue was brought up at the United Nations it was overlooked, said Farmer 1.
“Even the UN ignores it,” he said.
