Wake up‚ so-called leaders! The land-grab revolution is already raging

I should visit my mother more often. Driving to see her last weekend‚ I saw what political scientist Professor Somadoda Fikeni calls “the fire from below” – people no longer just demanding land‚ but being encouraged to take it and actually doing so.

In the space of one hour I saw four different land “occupations” in and around Soshanguve and Winterveldt‚ just north of Tshwane.

Later the same day I saw a fifth one in Wallmansthal‚ Tshwane. All on a Saturday afternoon.

What’s going on? Well‚ 28 years after a whole wave of Mandela villages were born across SA‚ it is clear that there is still hunger for land‚ certainly urban land. What I saw may be led by unscrupulous “entrepreneurs”‚ but they are responding to a real need.

There are very few sensible solutions on the table. We have a crisis of leadership on this and many other issues.

• For more on this story‚ please visit Times Select.