I am James Pieters, grew up in Hermanus South-Africa, a town that was discovered 100 years ago by my fathers great grandfather. I grew up under an apartheid’s regime where we slept with our windows open at night, we had no burglar bars or alarm systems in our homes. I never saw any type of violence against any people white nor black in my home town and life was peaceful for a little white boy who roamed the streets and mountains, smelled every leave and flower on every tree he climbed to see what was on the other side.

My family was extremely poor and my father grew up being a labourer on another white mans farm where they worked hard as family to get what they needed to survive. My folks worked for survival and we never picked any fruits from apartheid, in fact my sister tells me of times we had no food in our home. The roof of our home leaked and I had to move my bed to the middle of the room when it rained as it dripped everywhere and water would stream down the side of the walls as the stench of the soil under the wooden floors embarrassed me from time to time when we had visitors. My parents could hardly ever pay school fees to the government school I attended and I was made to stand up in class quite a few times asked why my parents have not paid any school fees.

After apartheid ended we as a nation were promised a place in the rainbow nation. Some where excited as the struggle was something of the past, the sanctions I new so little about came to an end and there was talk about unity and a bright future. But the dreams faded as the little rope around my peoples necks became tighter and tighter. Of course my people were made to disarm first. Just a little law that was changed that made it such an effort to hold on to your legal fire arm that most just decided to give it up, the war was none the less something of the past and we were all part of Nelson Mandela’s rainbow nation now. Soon only the criminals had fire-arms and the once effective police force was reduced to a incompetent joke. Slowly but surely we were made to understand that there is little hope for us or our children to have a bright future in this rainbow nation. Murder and rape in our once peaceful living areas became so common that it became part of our every day lives.

Soon the murders, rape and torture of our woman and children became unbearable, but on opening our mouths we were told by the ruling ANC party that “If we didn’t like it we should leave”.

Today we are part of a country where we are looked down upon, everything that goes wrong, every murder, rape, torture gets thrown back to “its the whites, because of what you did in apartheid”. One of my biggest dreams were to own a piece of farm land, but that dream has been stolen as the Robert Mugabe model of farm invasions seems to be the talk of our black government almost on a daily basis. Where it is said that land grabs is at the order of the day. Being a farmer has proven to be the most dangerous occupation in our rainbow nation as these passionate people and their families get literally slaughtered like animals on a daily basis as the police, politicians and press turns a blind eye. The very people that voted for change yesterday, today are the ones that are paying the price, voiceless, discriminated against and have no hope for their children on what was supposed to be our soil also.

I brought my son and daughter up to accept and treat with respect all individuals they share this planet with. I taught them that we were all the same, no matter what color, that inside we all have a soul. Sadly my children have had so many incidences of racism from the very people I taught them to respect, even on teacher levels at school that they have grown into understanding that what they experience out there is reality. When the President of your country sings and dance to a tune that says, kill the boer kill the whiteman, the news papers read that some high ranking official said the previous day that you are a not welcome in a country that is part of your own heritage, and when indeed you read every morning of the young and old that died at the hands of the very race you taught your children to respect, it indeed has become a sad day for reconciliation.

South-Africa, has sadly become a paradise for a people that believes that the world owes them everything. A lazy multitude that expects everything to be placed in their laps. That hates the white man so much that he is able to even at the plea of their victims would rape daughters in front of their fathers, rape mothers in front of their sons, kill and wipe out a whole family and then walk away justified that he is the victim just as his ruling ANC government had made him believe to be. A people that hates everything about the white man, except his fancy luxury vehicles, life saving medication, his Rolex watches and the riches that goes with it. A people that will quickly hold his hands out in front of him to tell that its empty and that the white man has a responsibility towards feeding Africa, but at the same time hates him with passion.

I hope and pray that your eyes will open to the atrocities that befalls my people. We have tried and kept silent and cried all in vain. To end off my very own a personal slogan, “I would rather lose my life to a civil war, than to see my people slowly and silently murdered“!

May God bless you all, don’t make the same mistakes, learn from a nation in tears.

James Pieters