Revenge of the Murder of Eugene Terre'Blanche is not the answer revenge is a vicious circle

The dreadful death of AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche at the hands of purportedly two farm workers has started a storm.

The AWB has since ramped up the language of a race war. Its spokesperson, Andre Visagie, said: "The death of Mr Terre'Blanche is a declaration of war by the black community of South Africa to the white community that has been killed for 10 years on end."

Visagie warned other countries to avoid sending their teams to the Soccer World Cup in June as they would be travelling "to a land of murder". He added: "We will decide upon the action we are going to take to avenge Mr Terre'Blanche's death."

The AWB accused African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema of having blood on his hands. It blamed the killing on his recent singing of the apartheid-era protest song Ayesaba Amagwala [The Cowards are Scared] with the words “Kill the Boer” Boer meaning farmer.

The killing sparked fierce debate on race relations in a country where white farmers have become increasingly vocal, claiming thousands of them have been murdered since the end of white minority rule in 1994.

Last month the former president F W De Klerk wrote to Zuma warning that Malema was creating an increasingly febrile mood. He said: "All this is beginning to create a volatile atmosphere in which any additional intemperate statement or action might spark an unfortunate incident."
Perhaps sanity will now prevail and the stupidity of cheap politicking using violent or racial slogans will be stopped on all sides. It is sad that it takes blood to change attitudes.

I can only hope that tolerance will come to the fore and that justice will be allowed to prevail in an orderly manner.

We live in a country where violence is seen as the quick and easy solution to all problems. Violence has been seen in most of the strike action by unions it has been seen in protests for service delivery and violent crime is part of our way of life I am afraid to say.

So it takes very little prompting in the way of speeches and songs to ignite the violent tendencies in our society. Let us hope that government and civil society alike will unite now to stamp out the Demon called violence in all its guises subtle or crude we need to address it from children up and soon with no exceptions for the sake of our country and well being of all who live in it