Post by cjm on Jun 25, 2016 7:15:05 GMT
If Boers were to stop producing food, black people would know Bothaville
Every year farmers from across SA converge to celebrate Nampo Harvest Day at a venue called Nampo Park in the sleepy maize-farming town
Prince Mashele
21 June 2016
Some very important event went unnoticed last month. It took place in a dorpie called Bothaville in Free State, from May 16 to 20.
Every year farmers from across South Africa converge to celebrate Nampo Harvest Day at a venue called Nampo Park in the sleepy maize-farming town in the middle of nowhere.
You drive through vast expanses of maize and sunflower farms until, suddenly, you get to a hive of activity where there are countless 4x4 bakkies that look like someone has just distributed them for free.
While you are still in awe of the 4x4s, your mind tells you that what you are seeing can’t be true: an enormous fleet of private aircraft and helicopters parked on a gravel terminal.
These 4x4s and helicopters bring farmers from all over the country, not just to celebrate Harvest Day, but to showcase all manner of animals, crops and giant agricultural machines you have seen only on TV.
More importantly, the farmers use the week at Nampo to have serious discussions on the state of agriculture in South Africa. The discussions are called “Nation in Conversation”.
What strikes one is that the “Nation” that is in “Conversation” and is almost all white, mainly Afrikaner.
Radical darkies might wonder, what do we have to do with Boers meeting in a town whose name sounds like South Africa before 1994?
It does not matter how radical you are, the breakfast and lunch you have today was produced by the Boers who meet every year at Nampo to have a conversation.
If those Boers were to stop producing food, millions of us will starve, literally. If they were to do that, black people will suddenly know Bothaville, the place where Boers talk about our food.
Have you ever wondered where the tomatoes you buy from your supermarket come from, and who produces them? Does it occur to you that without Boers you would not have pap?
What is striking about Nampo Harvest Day is that not only are there no black people, black politicians too are not there.
Yet every day our politicians announce all sorts of crazy ideas about what they will do to expropriate land from whites and hand it over to black people.
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe brought hunger to his people by behaving like our black politicians who propound lofty ideas from their air-conditioned offices about land.
If we do not want black people to go hungry, we must first educate ourselves about how modern farming works.
This means that we must stop shouting fancy slogans about land, without having a sound discussion with those who feed us.
We must never allow Boers to talk to each other and claim that our nation is in conversation, when we are not there.
If black people want to own land, and produce food for our nation, we need to know how many black students are training to become agronomists and how many of them have qualified as professional farmers.
Such are the black people who must be given land, not MaMkhize and her hand hoe. MaMkhize can feed herself and her grandchildren, but she cannot produce tomatoes for the fruit and vegetable market.
To Afrikaners, land is an emotional possession, it reminds them of their persecution by the British during and after the Anglo-Boer War.
Land is equally emotional for us blacks, it reopens the old wounds of the Frontier Wars and the 1913 Land Act that rendered us foreigners in our own country.
But emotions will take us nowhere. Both blacks and whites must come together and talk about how to share land, and how to do it in a manner that does not disrupt the food security of our people.
Mugabe probably had a good, sadistic feeling when he saw the tears of a white farmer, but today his own black people are without food. They are scattered all over the world as paupers.
In South Africa this can be avoided. The beginning would be for blacks to go to Bothaville next year, and tell the Boers there that we want to be part of the real “Nation in Conversation”.
Imagine Julius Malema at Nampo Harvest Day, having a mature conversation with Boers, telling them why he believes they must share land with black people.
It is possible that Malema could come back with a better plan as to how blacks and whites can work together in agriculture.
The greatest challenge facing South Africa is not scarcity of resources, or resistance to change. We don’t talk to each other. Blacks don’t talk to whites, and whites don’t talk to blacks. We are good at shouting at each other. We don’t appreciate how much we need each other.
Whether we like it or not, when Boers meet in Bothaville to talk about food, black people are part of the conversation, even if they are not there.
This article first appeared in Sowetan
Every year farmers from across SA converge to celebrate Nampo Harvest Day at a venue called Nampo Park in the sleepy maize-farming town
Prince Mashele
21 June 2016
Some very important event went unnoticed last month. It took place in a dorpie called Bothaville in Free State, from May 16 to 20.
Every year farmers from across South Africa converge to celebrate Nampo Harvest Day at a venue called Nampo Park in the sleepy maize-farming town in the middle of nowhere.
You drive through vast expanses of maize and sunflower farms until, suddenly, you get to a hive of activity where there are countless 4x4 bakkies that look like someone has just distributed them for free.
While you are still in awe of the 4x4s, your mind tells you that what you are seeing can’t be true: an enormous fleet of private aircraft and helicopters parked on a gravel terminal.
These 4x4s and helicopters bring farmers from all over the country, not just to celebrate Harvest Day, but to showcase all manner of animals, crops and giant agricultural machines you have seen only on TV.
More importantly, the farmers use the week at Nampo to have serious discussions on the state of agriculture in South Africa. The discussions are called “Nation in Conversation”.
What strikes one is that the “Nation” that is in “Conversation” and is almost all white, mainly Afrikaner.
Radical darkies might wonder, what do we have to do with Boers meeting in a town whose name sounds like South Africa before 1994?
It does not matter how radical you are, the breakfast and lunch you have today was produced by the Boers who meet every year at Nampo to have a conversation.
If those Boers were to stop producing food, millions of us will starve, literally. If they were to do that, black people will suddenly know Bothaville, the place where Boers talk about our food.
Have you ever wondered where the tomatoes you buy from your supermarket come from, and who produces them? Does it occur to you that without Boers you would not have pap?
What is striking about Nampo Harvest Day is that not only are there no black people, black politicians too are not there.
Yet every day our politicians announce all sorts of crazy ideas about what they will do to expropriate land from whites and hand it over to black people.
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe brought hunger to his people by behaving like our black politicians who propound lofty ideas from their air-conditioned offices about land.
If we do not want black people to go hungry, we must first educate ourselves about how modern farming works.
This means that we must stop shouting fancy slogans about land, without having a sound discussion with those who feed us.
We must never allow Boers to talk to each other and claim that our nation is in conversation, when we are not there.
If black people want to own land, and produce food for our nation, we need to know how many black students are training to become agronomists and how many of them have qualified as professional farmers.
Such are the black people who must be given land, not MaMkhize and her hand hoe. MaMkhize can feed herself and her grandchildren, but she cannot produce tomatoes for the fruit and vegetable market.
To Afrikaners, land is an emotional possession, it reminds them of their persecution by the British during and after the Anglo-Boer War.
Land is equally emotional for us blacks, it reopens the old wounds of the Frontier Wars and the 1913 Land Act that rendered us foreigners in our own country.
But emotions will take us nowhere. Both blacks and whites must come together and talk about how to share land, and how to do it in a manner that does not disrupt the food security of our people.
Mugabe probably had a good, sadistic feeling when he saw the tears of a white farmer, but today his own black people are without food. They are scattered all over the world as paupers.
In South Africa this can be avoided. The beginning would be for blacks to go to Bothaville next year, and tell the Boers there that we want to be part of the real “Nation in Conversation”.
Imagine Julius Malema at Nampo Harvest Day, having a mature conversation with Boers, telling them why he believes they must share land with black people.
It is possible that Malema could come back with a better plan as to how blacks and whites can work together in agriculture.
The greatest challenge facing South Africa is not scarcity of resources, or resistance to change. We don’t talk to each other. Blacks don’t talk to whites, and whites don’t talk to blacks. We are good at shouting at each other. We don’t appreciate how much we need each other.
Whether we like it or not, when Boers meet in Bothaville to talk about food, black people are part of the conversation, even if they are not there.
This article first appeared in Sowetan