White Tribalism in Action: Lauren Southern’s Farmlands

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...

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....

...  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...

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....

 As for the infamous farm murders... 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...