All lives matter

"I feel so powerless, I wish I could do something for the country's farmers ... It's only when you create chaos that you are heard."

These are the words of an emotional Chris Loubser who recorded a message on his phone after his friend, Stellenbosch wine farmer Joubert Conradie, was shot dead. Loubser asked the "few people I know" to pass the message on to others to wear black on Monday to pay their respect to farmers who were killed this year.

Perhaps because his message is so sincere, it went viral, clearly hitting a nerve with a community who genuinely believe they are being targeted. But it did not take long for the campaign to become politicised. AfriForum joined in, saying its latest count of farm murders since January stood at 71.

The farming community came out in their droves to support #BlackMonday. Sadly, in many cases the old South African flag got dusted off for the event, and divisive posters such as "Don't kill the hand that feeds you" sparked anger instead of sympathy on social media.

Seventy-one farmers have been murdered since January, but 19016 South Africans were murdered over the past year. One murder victim is not more special than the other.

A photograph of white crosses laid out to pay tribute to slain farmers is reminiscent of a news photograph from last year, when white crosses were laid out in a street by the families of psychiatric patients killed after being moved to nongovernmental institutions. While farmers were protesting on Monday, a group of foreign nationals and locals joined hands against xenophobic attacks in a door-to-door campaign in Motherwell, Eastern Cape.

"Love your neighbour," said an announcer at the back of the bakkie, driving from one ward to the other.

It would have been so much more powerful if #BlackMonday had been an all-inclusive protest action to, in Loubser's words, "create chaos" so that our government "can hear" that all lives matter.