Toodles Eugene!

The recent murder of Eugene Terre Blanche brought to light racial tensions, previously thought to have been erased. To the naked eye of the common South African, it would seem that no one cast more than a cursory thought in the direction of Terre Blanche for the last decade or so. He fettered away his last days living in a modicum of poverty on his small farm, without doing much to offend anyone. Suddenly, after his murder, it seems that Terre Blanche had not left anyone’s mind for a single second. The level of chaos and racial segregation present at the trial of his accused murderers speaks of old racial tensions that were never quite eased.


As Dennis Beckett explains in his article, “Eugene the arch-ogre”, Terre Blanche was not necessarily a frightening man, but simply a man with frightfully misdirected passions and paranoia. While he partook in a system of racial exclusion and violence, he seemed to do it from a place of honest concern. Whether or not this can be believed is up to personal scrutiny, as Beckett also outlines that Eugene was a phenomenal orator.


With Terre Blanche’s murder, it became evident that white Afrikaners feel threatened by a coming genocide. You can’t really blame them either. With the country’s youth singing energetically along with their leader, Julius Malema, to a song that promotes their genocide, and no one but their own representatives doing anything about it.


It also became apparent that black South Africans feel that Terre Blanche and those similar to him should be murdered, due to their current youth leadership. It is hard to tell at this point whether Julius Malema has become the new Eugene Terre Blanche, and whether he will spark a racial pogrom similar to that of Terre Blanche.