The Moment Before the Gun Went Off

“He knows that the story of the Afrikaner farmer—regional Party leader and Commandant of the local security commando—shooting a black man who worked for him will fit exactly their version of South Africa.”

Van der Vyver, the Afrikaner farmer in question, expects that international media coverage will manipulate the tragedy of Lucas’s death in order to fit what is, in his mind, an unfair narrative of injustice in South Africa. In the same breath, though, Van der Vyver’s active role in perpetuating the racist systems that grant him power over Black people is made clear. This opening, which forces the reader to view the world through Van der Vyver’s racist lens, introduces immediately the theme of The Importance of Perception.

“People in the farming community understand how he must feel. Bad enough to have killed a man, without helping the Party’s, the government’s, the country’s enemies, as well.”

Unlike the anti-apartheid agitators that Van der Vyver imagines, other white Afrikaners in his farming community align with Van der Vyver’s priorities. It is a shame that he killed a man. But arguably of greater concern is that the death, which was a simple accident, has given the anti-apartheid movement fodder for its cause. As white South Africans who largely benefit from the apartheid system, these community members view anti-apartheid activists as “enemies” of not only their party but also of their government and country, which they also feel entitled to hold power over.