These Are Not Gentle People by Andrew Harding: My Reflection on the Farm Murders That Happened in the Free State.

I cannot finish the book.

I know the ending and it's more than just a hard read. The thing with fiction stories is that although you take it seriously, although you weep with the pages and laugh loudly with the characters, it is still not entirely in the world you exist in. In the world I exist in, these people live. In the world I exist in, 6 January 2016 did actually happen. In the world I exist in, Sameul Tjixa and Simon Jubeba were murdered on a farm in the Free State and justice was simply far-fetched and impossible to reach. It is not just a crime novel. You're being pushed deeper, and you're woken up by the real injustices of the world.

Image of the accused from TimesLIVE Article.

Why have people forgotten? Am I late to the party? Does it happen everywhere that no one really cares anymore? In the midst of flipping through the pages and wondering how much of a masterpiece this novel actually was, I stopped and broke down in tears. I heard of this story, I heard of what happened once back when it was still "relevant", but I hadn't been drawn to it then. I was sick of the "racist stories."

BBC Africa Correspondent Andrew Harding.

I thought we had moved on from the black this and white that without really listening to what happened. I, like Tintswalo, was born somewhere around "the new dawn of democracy," as Cyril Ramaphosa mentioned at the SONA but these murders, these crimes, the court, the lies, the deaths were all twenty-two-years after this new dawn of democracy. What has been done? What justice has been served?

We never really got away from it, have we? The K-word the accusers used in the voice notes and calls revealed in court is probably still lingering around somewhere in Orania, in our President's perfect new dawn of democracy. I can't help but wonder what this means to me as an upcoming journalist. Can I handle all of these suffocating truths? What does bias mean? What does truthfulness mean? When do I know that I'm doing the right thing, the right way? I find myself saying the names over and over - Sameul Tjixa, Simon Jubeba.

Why on earth have you been forgotten?