In the same way the popes of old suppressed the theory that Earth orbits the sun, liberation theory in SA has historically staked out the limits of discussion about land reform and its place and role in a democratic SA. The gospel that land in SA, stolen by settlers, must somehow be returned to the people has become such an article of faith that few even bother with elaborating on the details of forcing the round peg of the past into the square hole of the future. Any attempt to interpret the land issue with a solution that rights historical wrongs by anything less than the reverse engineering of history is shouted down, its bearer burnt at the social-media stake.
The middle and chattering classes, who take it upon themselves to plough the furrow of the land question on behalf of the rural masses, obsess over ownership. In part, and we are told this, ownership can be used to leverage wealth. The preachers of the religion of expropriation without compensation fail to see beyond their Elysian Field of title deeds. Behold the monocrop of ideas.
Given the potency of the land question, and that it is the Thunderflash in the fireworks box, it is unsurprising neither the ANC nor EFF want to light it any time soon. Much better keep it dry for now, and that is what they have done in failing to agree on amending the constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation.
Because politics has an inbred safeguard against obsolescence no politician is prepared to look soft on land, or fix the problem. So we face the paradox: only political direction can solve the land question, yet the entire project is doomed to failure if left to politicians courting the popular will, especially the middle classes who vote for them.
For now, the ANC would ‘go it alone’, and use the Expropriation Act to get land reform going again. If that sounds like more of the same since 1994, it probably is.
Perhaps the Cyril Ramaphosa-led tendency in the ANC now feels confident enough to openly proclaim that returning land to the people does not necessarily entail changing the constitution to allow for expropriation without compensation. And who better to gift it this way out of the dilemma imposed on it by the 2017 Nasrec conference than the EFF, whose leader Julius Malema wants the state to be the custodian of the land. Not so fast, said justice minister Ronald Lamola, who the party had dispatched to lead the talks with the EFF. That would amount to nationalisation, which would lead us down the Zimbabwe path. Yet it was precisely the “Zimbabwe path’’ that the ANC had earlier been happy to follow in amending the constitution in the first place. The ground has shifted.
All’s well that ends well, except it’s not an ending, it’s just a chapter break. For now, the ANC would “go it alone” and use the Expropriation Act to get land reform going again. If that sounds like more of the same since 1994, it probably is.
What the party won’t do is offer South Africans a new perspective on land based on two fundamentals: the broadest possible real-time upliftment of the greatest number of people, and a reimagining of rural SA and its place in the broader economy, rather than the wasteland it threatens to become. This has to be achieved by accommodating, in an orderly and progressive way, as many people as need be on modern and productive farms and other agricultural enterprises linked to markets and supply chains and supported by a well-organised and corruption-free agri assistance programme. People have to be put to work. This within a policy context that promotes an agrarian revolution in SA, and harnesses agriculture as a key growth area with myriad multiplier effects in related industries.
This is precisely what our land reform efforts have lacked since 1994. Too many would-be farmers have been left to fend for themselves on reclaimed farms, facing a hostile bureaucracy and a drought of knowledge, expertise and modern inputs. They were set up for failure.
Drive past any town in Limpopo and you’ll see the creeping shanty towns on the edge of townships, people living in corrugated iron shacks. Many of them will have been pushed off farms, victims of the sullen standoff that government’s policies and indecision have sown in farming areas.
It’s not about title deeds alone, it’s about people’s dreams and expectations.
It needn’t be like this. The ANC in government should take a lateral leap into new territory. Where are the state-backed farms where people can live in modest prosperity on co-operatives, where resources like tractors and harvesters are pooled, and trained extension officers give expert advice? Are we doing enough to encourage large-scale foreign investment in our agriculture, and is our policy flexible enough to allow for various types of schemes, for local initiatives, for partnerships with white farmers?
Nor should state ownership necessarily be off the table. If that involves expropriation in a decision made in an open and equitable process that recognises the value of improvements, if not the value of the land itself, then let it proceed. If state ownership of agricultural holdings above a certain size, with farms reconfigured in such a way to accommodate many more people who gain the expertise to be part of the enterprise, is feasible, then we should look at that too. But the state would have to be competent, because ownership in itself will not transform the countryside in the way needed.
It’s not about title deeds alone, it’s about people’s dreams and expectations. It’s about planting the seeds of hope, with modest, attainable and incremental policies that do more than let the elite add a farm to the family asset register.
Sunday Times Daily
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