Mayday... Mayday...

MAY DAY REST IN PEACE: Nanda Soobben takes a hard look at at Worker's Day from the perspective of two of South Africa's hardest working groups; farmers and their labourers. Racially divided, each one is buried in their own fears, and desperate for help.

Their plight was brought together one month ago in the murder of the iconic farmer Eugene TerreBlanche, allegedly at the hands of two abused labourers. But the problems are widespread and deep rooted. Radical interventions are urgently required to protect the dignity and safety of both labourer and farmer.

But, more importantly for our country's long term stability, until such time as an equitable and workable solution is found for the mass transfer of land to able black farmers to better reflect our racial demographic, such abuses (which should be seen and dealt with as criminal cases), will continue to be seen as race issues, as quite aptly depicted in Soobben's cartoon.

The cartoon's distress call; "MAYDAY! MAYDAY!", should perhaps be seen in the serious light of all these considerations.