Counter-Currents
White Tribalism in Action:
Lauren Southern’s Farmlands
Spencer J. Quinn
1,777 words
The most dangerous and remarkable thing about Lauren Southern’s wonderful documentary Farmlands is that it promotes white tribalism. For most people – whites and non-whites alike – this is enough to make the film anathema. They will recognize it for the taboo-breaking film that it is and either stop watching or begin hating Lauren Southern as a racist or white supremacist. Sympathizing with whites as victims just isn’t cool these days, you see.
For racially aware white people, however, Farmlands deals with much more than breaking taboos. It follows Southern on her trek through South Africa as she uncovers the very real abuse, neglect, discrimination, and violence that whites as a minority must face at the hands of the black majority and their black-run government. The documentary addresses nothing less than the life-and-death issues that these people face every day, and very quickly identifies them both as white and as virtuous victims. It does so, I would gather, for two main reasons. One is the obvious, textual reason: South African whites are suffering the bald injustice of racial oppression, a fact that anyone not blinkered by the anti-white Left should appreciate. And the other is the not-so-obvious, subtextual reason: that we, the whites in the audience, should sympathize with the people in this film not just because they are innocent victims, but because we are like them. This latter notion makes Farmlands a truly radical film; radical in a good way.
The film begins with Southern describing her reasons for heading to South Africa: the rumors that a grave injustice is being perpetrated upon the white South African population, rumors not just of oppression but of mass murder and potential genocide. She admits that this is the far-Right version of what’s happening there, and that the mainstream narrative paints a much rosier picture. As a disinterested journalist, however, she wants to see for herself where the truth lies. She suspects it’s somewhere in the middle.
Before she arrives, however, we are offered a very brief history of the white Afrikaners in South Africa. These are the descendants of the original Dutch settlers who came to the southern tip of Africa in the seventeenth century and who formed what was known as the Dutch Cape Colony. Known today as Boers, the Afrikaners constitute most of the farm owners who are being victimized by the South African government’s recent land appropriation legislation. I’m sure Southern was working under time and budget constraints, since the history mentions little about the English presence in South Africa and the trauma created by the Boer War. Nor does it mention pre-Apartheid legislation, such as the Native Land Act, or go into much detail about twentieth-century black-white struggles prior to Apartheid. What it does do, however, is scandalous: It offers South African history from a white perspective.
Southern informs us that the original Dutch settlers had purchased their land from the native Khoisan population and enjoyed mostly peaceful relations with them. It wasn’t until the northward-trekking Boers ran into the southward-moving Zulus in the 1830s that trouble began. The Zulus were in the process of conquering other Bantu tribes, and thought they could do the same with the Boers. But of course, this is not the perspective typically taught in schools these days. For example, my 1989 edition of the Harcourt Brace textbook, The Mainstream of Civilization Since 1500, dedicates a couple of paragraphs to this chapter of history, and tells it mostly from a black perspective. I believe it’s safe to say that this represents the mainstream (read: anti-white) opinion on the Boers:
Between 1835 and 1844, hungry for land and determined to preserve a white supremacy they considered God had ordained, the Boers streamed north across the Vaal River and out of British control. The climax of that “Great Trek” came at the Battle of Blood River in 1838. A Boer wagon train defeated the onslaught of the Zulu king Dingaan, heir of the great Shaka, who had created the mightiest army south of the Sahara.
Well, second mightiest, but who wants to nitpick? Seriously, by describing the Boers as “hungry for land” and wanting to “preserve a white supremacy,” while praising the might and ancestry of their black enemies, the Boers are painted as the bad guys here. However, Laura Southern has none of that. In her history, she describes the horrific events which led to the Battle of Blood River. Known as the Weenen Massacre, King Dingaan broke a treaty he had made with Boer leader Piet Retief and – in gruesome fashion – slaughtered over a hundred whites, including women, children, and Retief’s own son. They saved Retief for last, so he could witness it all. She may not say it in her documentary, but after her history, it is clear Southern wishes her audience to sympathize with the whites of South Africa.
Once in South Africa, she witnesses the urban blight and the burning buildings that have become endemic. She’s told that there are on average thirty-two protests per day in South Africa. As for the infamous farm murders, she interviews people who would know a lot about them. Known as the “Blood Sisters,” this group performs the grisly task of cleaning up the crime scenes on farms. According to them, the number of black-on-white farm murders has increased recently. But it makes for rather chilling viewing, since these Blood Sisters are too afraid to speak their minds about the murders out of fear of their own government. This is what happens when you are a second-class citizen in a country without a First Amendment.
After this, it only gets worse (for the white South Africans, not the documentary). Southern interviews farmers who recount the murder of their family members. They also express their frustration that the police show little interest in their welfare, and that the system is fairly lenient on the killers. One of the latter received fifteen years for the execution of a white farmer, but was out of prison sooner than that.
Southern also meets with farmers who have been forced off their lands and who must deal with what’s called the “Black Economic Empowerment” program. This program ensures that the majority-black nation of South Africa has a black majority of workers in as many professions as possible. Farmlands demonstrates how in practice this leads to replacing competent white water supply engineers with less-competent black ones, causing untold problems for the farmers. And this very well might be on purpose, since the government is doing nothing to solve them. “They want us starving or dead,” one Boer farmer tells us. Later, when Southern visits a camp of impoverished Afrikaners, we learn that these people can’t just up and leave South Africa without paying a small fortune first. They are simply stuck there – to be exploited, neglected, or killed.
Most chilling (and vindicating), however, are the interviews with two black subjects who agreed to participate. Both of these people prove the point of the “far Right” that Southern mentions early in the film: that blacks in South Africa do not feel that whites have rights they should respect. One Thabo Mokwena, an African National Congress executive committee member, says that farm confiscation will happen, but promises that it will be done according to the law. And if the law presently does not allow for it, then the government will change the law. So the idea of a law’s immutability seems completely beyond this person. A law is only an impediment to a government stealing from its citizens – until, of course, it isn’t.
Far worse than Mokwena is Zanele Lawana of the Black Land First movement. This young woman has nothing but white-hate on the brain, and cannot wait to start a race war. “We are already at war!” she warns. “We are coming for you and we are going to get everything that you own!” Well, at least she’s being honest. That someone can say something so brazen and so threatening on camera and not expect to pay a political price for it speaks much about the anti-white state of affairs in today’s South Africa. How can anyone viewing this not see that, unless something drastic is done soon, the days for whites in South Africa are numbered?
Southern does offer some glimpses of hope, however. She visits Orania, an area in South Africa which is the world’s only true white ethnostate. Only white South Africans live there, and as she tours the place, she notes how orderly, safe, and clean it is. This is opposed to the heavily black urban centers, in which white shopowners must invest in extreme security measures to stay in business – or, in many cases, just to stay alive. The chilling story of a woman who was forced to shut down her paintball shop because of constant break-ins and a pair of armed robberies stands in stark contrast to the happy residents of Orania. This poor woman is now trying to leave South Africa.
Southern also interacts with Simon Roche and the Suidlanders. This is a South African white survivalist group which is preparing for the inevitable civil war. These people are well-funded, organized, and number in the tens of thousands. They are prepared to leave their homes at a moment’s notice and start anew. They have gear, food, and crops at the ready, and frequently do trial runs so they never fall out of practice. While it is reassuring that whites in South Africa are taking their survival seriously enough to form groups such as this, it’s also disheartening that they have let it come to this. This was the reason why they had Apartheid to begin with. It seems like some lessons will just have to be learned all over again, and at great cost. Thankfully, we have journalists and filmmakers like Lauren Southern to show us what whites are up against and what needs to be done.
Without taking race into account, Farmlands should be a slam dunk. Everyone should praise it. How many documentaries have we seen that chronicle the plight of minorities in supposedly oppressive countries like the United States and others? On a technical level, Farmlands actually has a lot in common with the Eyes on the Prize documentary series, which chronicled the 1960s Civil Rights movement. There are tales of injustice, interviews with the aggrieved, and thinly-veiled calls for action and social change. In this sense, Farmlands, while excellent, is unremarkable, because it is preceded by similarly excellent documentaries that basically tell the same story.
But of course, Farmlands is not unremarkable. It tells the story of an injustice against white people. And because of that, it’s in a league all its own.
Spencer J. Quinn is a frequent contributor to Counter-Currents and the author of the novel White Like You.
13 comments
She missed a real opportunity to compare the situation in South Africa with that of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe chased out its white farmers, and was soon begging the UN for $1.5B in food aid. The people became so desperate that they caught and consumed all the rats in some areas. Meanwhile, the farmers set up shop in Zambia which benefited greatly. When Zimbabwe begged the farmers to come back, some did, and the dozens of black families who relied on them for steady work rejoiced.
It is not difficult to imagine that something similar will occur in South Africa if the government goes ahead with its plans. She could have taken a couple minutes to show the headlines from Zimbabwe while stressing the negative impacts facing the black majority if they pursue the same sort of land grab.
The situation in South Africa illustrates, once again, the trouble that Whites will always find themselves in when they invite Blacks into their societies. Far too many of our people have been willing to allow Blacks full access or on the periphery of their societies naively imagining that it will work out good for both racial groups. Well, it hasn’t and it never will.
When are we going to learn to leave these dysfunctional people alone? When are we going to learn that we are best served when we separate from them? Every attempt to make life better for Blacks has only made life worse for ourselves. Whether it’s slavery, the civil rights movement, or affirmative action, every time at ‘fairness’ or ‘equality’ only manages to bite us in the rear end. No lasting good has ever come from it.
For those of us who are Whites in America, South Africa should serve as a lesson for what’s in store for our people if Blacks and other non-White third-world groups demographically dominate us. They will not treat us with the same sense of fairness we have treated them. We have ignored the reality that far too many ‘minority’ groups hates us not so much for alleged atrocities we’ve committed against them, but merely because we are White.
The grim scenario in South Africa, including the prevailing anti-White attitude spreading throughout our world, has at least one silver lining – it will force a growing number of Whites to become racial once again, to recognize their uniqueness among human racial groups and to never be ashamed of their identity and the kinds of great societies they’ve produced.
There are a lot of white South Africans in China. Many of them know the absurdity of the slurs and accusations thrown at whites in their home and internationally. That being said *many* of them continue to hold idiotic beliefs about race adopting the western European model of calling Africans European if those Africans have European passports. Even more absurd, many of them think the cultural norm in the UK where you simply never speak the race of someone you are talking about is a solution. Obviously, this is just my personal experience.
There were attempts by Americans to support White ruled South Africa before that country was handed over to the African National Congress in 1994. These attempts involved some activism and media operations, but got just about nowhere for a basic reason. As the leftists would put it: there was a lack of a proper party line.
i.e., exactly how was the issue of supporting White rule in SA to be framed? Usually, it was in Cold War terms of allying with South Africa in the global fight against communism. Given that South Africa controlled various strategic mineral resources, its fall to communism would compromise the Western industrial states.
It was negative at best, telling people what to be against (communism) but not what they ought to be for. With the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War rhetoric lost whatever validity it once possessed. Of course, the pro-ANC advocates could frame their agitprop in terms of a glorious struggle for equality, democracy and we-are-the-world(c). The fact that black majority rule inevitably meant a running fiasco for the rest of Africa was not allowed to enter the picture.
The honest argument for supporting South Africa would have been: White people have a common interest in defending each others’ homelands.
But this line was deemed politically impractical. There was the growing taboo against speaking in favor of White interests (a taboo which is much more dominant today. Just consider that in the 1970s-80s, a magazine like Soldier of Fortune could run articles cheering on the Rhodesians in their war against black majority insurgents and the South Africans fighting the communist government in Angola. Where today would White soldiers killing large numbers of black terrorists be considered a cause for celebration?).
Also, there were many non-Whites in South Africa (some in military units) who did not relish being ruled by the communist-terrorist ANC, and who supported alternatives other than black majority rule. A blatant pro-White line would have alienated these people. Once again, we see how a multi-racial state lacks the cohesion to defend itself.
In the bigger picture was the general lack of unity among Whites in the period from, say, 1946 to 1994. Hendrik Verwoerd, Enoch Powell, George Wallace, the French paras in Algeria, Ian Smith, the American housewives struggling against forced busing, the cops on the front line of the US war on crime, the SA troops fighting against SWAPO and the MPLA, and even elements of White Nationalism 1.0 were all up against a common enemy (the hostile elites using third worlders as their front fighters against the White world). But Whites were each fighting separate wars and could be picked off one at a time.
We see the same trend today: Whites are under siege in their own homelands, whether we are talking farm attacks in South Africa, the third world invasion of Europe, or the mayhem engendered by ‘hood based gangbanging and international financier supported Black Lives Matter.
A common defense must be developed, which means a common party line insofar as White people have the right to defend their interests. Perhaps we are seeing a start of this with the rise of White Nationalism 2.0 worldwide. Among other things, WN need to make the defense of Whites in South Africa a top priority for activism.
An attack on one is an attack on all.
I met few people in Europe who actually knew there was a war being fought in Africa south of the equator back then. They told me that they thought nothing happened over there.
Vietnam and the Berlin Iron Curtain overshadowed everything, even when the War in Africa was longer than Vietnam. If one wants to understand Apartheid South Africa, one should also understand it within the backdrop of the Cold War, and also carefully study what happened in Rhodesia, the forerunner to the events in South Africa.
The dominos Angola-Mozambique-Rhodesia-Namibia with the final prize South Africa. Moscows Sickle reaching for Africa. Then people would have questioned what was this cry against Apartheid in the first place, and would have asked some deeper questions what really was going on over there. I believe then the anti-Apartheid campaign would have fallen apart.
The embedded war correspondent Jim Hooper, who spent some time with the South African security forces during operations, said still today few people know about this war. There was a long interview with him about his part in the war on YouTube where he told this, but this interview has disappeared due to copyright reasons.
http://www.jimhooper.co.uk/bio.html
Might be a good opportunity to mention one of those asylum networks for white Afrikaaners so that people can contribute.
Asylum networks for the Afrikaners – unfortunately I am not aware of such networks, sorry.
Thank you for sharing this. I had not come across it yet.
Can someone enlighten me as to why the 8 other comments here aren’t filled with enhusiasm for this documentary?
Farmlands should be a jumping off point for a White nationalist campaign of action. One thing needed is a website network to coordinate support for White South Africans. Some things such a network could do:
Support White South Africans directly: post contact information for the various Boer/Afrikaner defense & rights groups. Provide info on where to make financial contributions, send letters of encouragement, help White families relocate to safer countries, etc.
Meme warfare: the Alt Right has shown some real effectiveness in setting the pace of online discourse with memes/campaigns like Pepe/Kek(c) and GamerGate(tm). There are all sorts of info exploits which can be launched given the situation in South Africa. Some ideas:
* It’s OK to Be a White Farmer!
* Defend the Boer, Defend the Farmer!
* Resist the ANC! (this one inspired by Mike Smith whose SA political commentary website is greatly missed)
Disseminate this video: send the URL to friendly websites with instructions on how to further disseminate it to everyone they know. Might also include some notes on how the SA situation fits into the bigger picture of third world mass migrations into Western countries, No Go Zones, Rotherham, rioting and terrorism in Paris, Malmo, London, Cologne, Ferguson, etc. Relate SA to the struggles of White people worldwide.
Live from South Africa!: have South Africans post videos of the mayhem which the ANC regime is inflicting on their country. There has to be plenty of such video out there. Get it all to go viral as a form of ever-popular ruin porn, then put the pressure on the ANC.
Contact key government offices: post the addresses (physical and e-mail) of South African embassies and consulates; your own country’s embassy in South Africa; the State Department desk for African affairs; ANC offices; etc. Then send them numerous letters and e-mails demanding they uphold the rights of South Africans under attack by the ANC.
Contact human rights organizations: same as above, but too many of these groups have been compromised by globalism for this to do much good. But it’s worth a shot.
Divest, divest, divest! No more Funding of the ANC Terrorist Regime!
Mobilize other allies: for example, journalists who covered the Bush Wars sympathetically for South Africa, Rhodesia and the Portuguese colonies; see if they want to promote this story. There are also organizations of SA and Rhodesian expats in the Western world who might want to get involved. There are even leftists disenchanted with the ANC’s apparent sellout to global corporations; they might get in on the act.
Similar online campaigns have been effective over the last couple decades. See the various studies on Information Operations to get examples and ideas. People want to do things to support White South Africans and this would a front on which they could take action.
R_Moreland, Thanks. This is all great. Here is one site where one can go to get involved:
https://suidlanders.org/
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