Swartruggens burning

In 1964, Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, set in motion a preconceived plan for the elimination of Michael Schwerner, a civil rights worker.

Schwerner, a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (Core), was trying to help African-Americans gain the right to vote in Mississippi, which was perceived by the KKK as a major threat to its ideal of white supremacy.

As a result, Schwerner and two other civil rights activists, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, were murdered by members of the KKK and parties sympathetic to its cause.

The FBI in turn launched a full-scale investigation into the disappearance of the three, resulting in the arrest of a number of suspects. This would culminate in US vs Price et al where the accused would not be tried for murder but rather denying the deceased their civil rights.

The trial was heard before ardent segregationist Judge William Harold Cox in scenes that may well be reminiscent of South Africa at the height of apartheid — lest we forget, segregation in the United States was alive and well in the 1960s, although it was not legislated federal policy.

Important for this exercise is an understanding of the society in which these events took place. Mississippi was considered to be one of the most racist states — if not the most — in the US at that time. James McPherson, writing in the New York Times in 1989, sums up his feelings of living in the state during that era in his review of the film Mississippi Burning.

He submits that the KKK is merely representative of the hidden feelings among the majority of whites when considering the black people of the US; Mississippi merely being more blatant than the rest.

And yet the government before an all-white jury and a racist judge sought justice in Mississippi.

While the charges were ridiculous and the outcome a poor substitute for real justice, the fact that the trial took place and the offenders were punished for acts relating to racism was vital. It meant that regardless of where this evil arose in the US, people could be reached and touched even in their own backyard.

It was a vital link in the civil rights chain that would lay the foundations for greater inroads into racism and injustice in areas that had previously seemed inaccessible.

Every journey, no matter its length, begins with a first step.

Fourteen years post-apartheid, we have made great strides towards normalising relations between the races of our country.

This, however, must not stay our efforts in trying to rid our country of what remains a substantial disease, with each painful step in the process of rebuilding still requiring a careful analysis — Skielik being one classic example.

When I read about the people of the area, primarily whites, claiming that the attack was not racist, I despair. Of course it was racist, as is the perpetrator who selected the victims at the settlement. To claim it was anything other than racist means our point of departure becomes distorted.

We have to begin by looking at why a previously convicted white child saw fit to turn on a black community with the ferocity that was witnessed here. If he was merely a loose cannon looking for some human target practice, then he would have, in all likelihood, sought victims where he first found them and closer to home.

The basis of this racial hatred, his mental state and the impact both had on his actions will become pivotal when sentencing is considered.

The fact is that a racist attack with disastrous consequences has visited us.

The fact is that the white people of Swartruggens and surrounds are going to great lengths to try to convince us that the attack was not racist. This is a step in the right direction: that they are acutely aware of the racist implications of the incident and desire to distance themselves from it.

It is far from ideal but closer to where we would like to be — when attacks based on racial hatred become a thing of the past because society demonstrates its abhorrence at the very thought of such conduct.

Of course should this boy be mentally ill, then we, as a civilised society, will also have to accept that the courts are required to consider this when sentence is passed. If a person is unable to distinguish right from wrong and cannot be held accountable for his or her actions, then the sanctions and protections built into our law for society and perpetrator must apply.

This does not mean we should ignore the factors giving rise to this abomination, but rather accept that the measures to deal with the accused fall to the courts, while the responsibility for educating our communities, black and white, falls to society.

Unlike Mississippi, a hard, racist environment thumbing its nose at the authorities, Swartruggens is appalled at the conduct of one of its own. Where racism once roamed unchecked by government and society, the communities themselves are expressing outrage and grief at what has happened here.

What is desperately needed is strong guidance to concentrate this despair and anger into channels that build firm, non-racist foundations for the future.