![Lion]()
Aside from the lion factor, the trial shows an ugly
side to South Africa |
The
conviction of two South Africans for throwing a black man into a lion
enclosure is a reminder of the deep-rooted racial antagonisms that
remain in South Africa's rural areas, BBC News's Justin Pearce reports
from Johannesburg.
South Africa has just celebrated the 11th anniversary of democratic
rule under a human rights-based constitution.
Yet on Thursday, a white man and his black employee were convicted
for feeding a former black employee to lions.
Outsiders could be forgiven for wondering what happened to the
"rainbow people" vision expressed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the end
of the apartheid era.
In fact, what limited racial integration has happened in South Africa
has been confined to the cities.
If anything, racial tensions in the countryside have increased since
the end of white minority rule.
Slow change
Under apartheid, black people dispossessed of their land had little
option but to work for white landowners who could hire and fire
employees at will.
![Crossley]()
South Africans have been gripped by the
trial |
Police were at
the service of the white farmers, helped by the "commandos", civil
defence units manned by the farmers themselves.
The landowners also controlled access to housing, in a system that
bore many of the characteristics of feudalism.
On the one hand, this system has been slow to change; on the other
hand, those changes that have taken place have been regarded with deep
suspicion by whites who are keenly aware of the large-scale
expropriation of land from white farmers in Zimbabwe.
South African land reform legislation, allowing black people to
reclaim land from which they or their ancestors were dispossessed, has
added to white fears; at the same time, the slow implementation of these
laws has deepened black frustration.
Violence
At the same time, attacks against white landowners have become more
frequent.
Eighteen months ago, South Africa's Human Rights Commission concluded
a two-year investigation into rural violence.
![White lion]()
The victim was dumped at a white lion breeding
project |
The
commission condemned a continuing culture of violence against black
workers, and documented the murder of 1,500 white farmers in the
previous 10 years.
The report blamed the problems on the slow pace of land reform, and
gaping inequalities between blacks and whites in rural areas.
One of the sharpest analyses of contemporary South African society
comes in a book called Midlands, by journalist Jonny Steinberg who
investigated farm violence in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands region.
The author describes a world where black labour tenants still hold
bitter memories of dispossession, while white farmers see themselves as
the victims in something close to war.
Collaborators
Some observers of the "lion case" have asked how the two black
co-accused could have collaborated in the killing of their former
colleague.
Again, the answer has to do with racial power relations in the
countryside.
According to one Johannesburger who grew up in a rural village: "In
the bundu (bush) the white man is still baas (boss)."
A large part of the argument turned on whether Mr Chisale was alive
or dead when thrown to the lions.
Did the big cats eat him alive, or did they consume his dead body?
Such gruesome details ensured the case got more than its fair share
of attention in the national media, in a country where many murders
warrant no more than a line or two in the local paper.
But quite aside from the gore factor, the lion trial is one of those
cases that have held up a mirror to South Africa - and reflected an ugly
face that most South Africans would rather not confront.
