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The murder of a white farm manager thrust the town into the spotlight, but a forum intervened to quell the tension.
What had threatened to degenerate into a race war has instead brought a beacon of hope to Senekal, a small town in the Free State, as black and white communities have now committed to work together for a safe and clean future.
On October 1 2020, Brendin Horner (21), a manager at the DeRots farm, was murdered. This led to racial tension between the EFF and the farmers in the sleepy town. Amid the chaos that followed, the Senekal/Matwabeng Community Forum was formed, which brought together members from both black and white communities who had a shared agenda – to beautify their town and turn it into a tourist destination.
Pastor John Mathuhle, the chairperson of the forum, said he had learnt of Horner’s death via Facebook, the day after he was killed.
“He was a young man and something about his face shook me inside. I saw a human being and I asked myself what was happening in this country. Why should I be okay when someone has died? It was personal for me. I spoke about it on Facebook, and it didn’t go down well [with some people]. Instead [of support], I received a lot of questions from friends,” he said.
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On October 6 2020, Mathuhle and his wife decided to join the farmers’ march even though they knew they were going to stick out.
“The whole day was marred by violence. A police vehicle was turned over and set alight. That evening, I went back home so disappointed. I realised that what had happened was bigger than Senekal; it had triggered debate even outside the country. I was prompted to go and pray.
“I felt a conviction in my heart to speak to the [community, political and church] leaders. Fortunately, I knew all the leaders from both groups [black and white]. I called all the leaders – farm association leaders, political and religious leaders – to a meeting.”
He said that was his “first miraculous encounter”, as emotions were running high and he didn’t know how it was going to end:
“However, it was Kenny Motai from the EFF who agreed with me that we needed to take responsibility [for what had happened] and do something about it at the meeting. It was then decided that we should identify the things that would bring the black and white communities together.”
Mathuhle said that, on October 20 2020, they decided to have a braai as part of the reconciliation process, but that evening, EFF leader Julius Malema allegedly said the red berets would “paint Senekal red”.
“We organised a pastors’ prayer [meeting] just to trust God to bring peace in Senekal. We went up the mountain and we created a covenant with stones that there shall never be a fight between the black and white communities. If one stone [was thrown] or bullet was shot, it could have been a mess. We had a potential civil war starting in Senekal.”
He said their prayers were answered and there was no violence. Instead, the communities decided to work together to fix potholes and clean up their town.
Today, as you drive into Senekal, you notice how clean and quiet it is, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
“Senekal was branded a racist town, but now it is becoming a beacon of hope. It doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges; we are still a work in progress. As a forum, we have already started identifying projects and established a relationship with the [Setsoto Local] Municipality to let us fix the potholes. We also have security companies that are responsible for setting up all the 20 CCTV cameras in town out of their own pockets. Now we are working on having security cameras mounted on street lights in the townships.
“We will secure Senekal to make it safer and more investor friendly because we want to attract tourists. We had a white farmer who took his scraper and cleaned the township. Before this, we had never had white people helping in the township.”
Mathuhle said the forum had also helped fix the broken windows at a local high school and the members had cleaned illegal dumping sites and cleared overgrown sports fields. Former South African cricketer Frans Cronje is a member of the forum. A film producer, director and writer, Cronje said he thought it was God who orchestrated peace after Horner’s death.
“The beautiful thing for me was that Pastor John put up his hand and said: ‘I don’t want to just be popular, I want to do the right thing.’ He orchestrated peace in a wonderful way. He didn’t just stand up, he also reached out to the farmers and got all the leaders to pray together. That really helped a lot. There was no violence, even though we were so close to it.”
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Cronje said the forum had helped a lot, as Senekal’s service delivery had improved after the town had been without water for five years.
“We had infrastructure problems and the town was not being cleaned. When this all happened, I had been living in Cape Town for 20 years but decided to move back to Senekal the night before our first clean-up campaign. We decided as a community that we were going to use the broken window theory. If you fix all the broken windows, you clean the town. Eventually, if you do that for long enough, you will uplift people’s spirits and make it less comfortable for criminals. The dirtier the place, the easier it is for criminals to be there.”
Cronje said the forum also decided to work with the municipality and signed a memorandum of understanding stating that they were not politically driven, but wanted to see a town that was functioning in unity and harmony:
“Many people were sceptical at first and didn’t believe it would work; others didn’t want us to succeed. One political party even told its people not to get involved because the leaders thought we would be political. We had a good number of people helping. It’s a costly exercise with no help from local government,” he said.
He said things had changed after the local government elections in 2021 and the executive mayor, Seipati Mbiwe, had been very helpful: “We have new plans and new hope that the cooperation between the municipality and the community will help us create a successful town.”
Irma Heymans, a Freedom Front Plus councillor, said it was great now that the racial tension was gone and people were working together in harmony.
“The whole idea of starting the forum was to bring people together. We saw the farmers working in the townships, they brought their bakkies to take away all the rubbish and the people from townships were working in town. We have all our basic needs attended to, no matter the colour of your skin, and we have the trust in each other,” Heymans said, adding that there were still sceptics, but not that many.
But the EFF’s Motai said “nothing much has changed”, as the farm workers were still complaining about bad treatment.
“The municipality is also not playing its role to integrate the communities. However, the white people who belong to the forum do come and clean here in the township,” he said.
