The land question

by Editor · March 7, 2012

The government�s engagement with the Catholic Church on questions of the equitable distribution of land is much welcome. With a view to next year�s unhappy centenary of the 1913 Native Land Act, it is also timely.

The Land Act, which set the ceiling of black land ownership in South Africa to 7%, continues to haunt us, even a century later and even after almost two decades of our inclusive democracy. Of course, the Act did not start the process of dispossession, but it entrenched, protected and perpetuated the land grabs of previous generations.

It was the basis of the economic enslavement of much of the black majority, especially under apartheid. The effects of this are felt acutely even today, posing many, perhaps most, of South Africa�s social and economic problems.

The post-1994 dispensation is still struggling to find a way of arriving at a coherent and feasible agrarian land reform policy. Since 1994, the government has redistributed only 8% of land, of which 90% has been unproductive. The government knows that this represents an abject failure.

The status quo, whereby a small number of people control most of the privately-held land, is not sustainable. South Africa is facing an explosion of anger by the landless, one that does not require its fuse being lit by populist demagogues. It is born of frustrated desperation. Indeed, escalating cases of land invasions and protests suggest that the pot of discontent is already on the boil.

For South Africans, the portent of anarchic Zimbabwe-style land grabs looms large. The government knows what utter privations the morally and logistically corrupt agrarian land reform in Zimbabwe created, so caution must be exercised as we move towards a responsible and equitable land reform policy.

In South Africa, such a policy must meet the expectations of the landless poor while at the same time comply with the state�s constitutional obligations. Crucially, a land reform policy must not compromise the country�s food supply.

Therefore, if land is redistributed, it must remain productive. The idea that 90% of the small portion of land that was redistributed since 1994 has remained barren signals that it will not suffice to simply change ownership of land, by whatever means that is accomplished. Those who work the land must be provided with the skill, technology and capacity to be productive.

Clearly, the willing-seller willing-buyer model has failed, with the government taking much of the blame for that. New equitable means must be found. The mechanics of land redistribution will require good will and sincerity from all sides in collaborating for the common good, with an understanding that past injustices must be corrected.

For example, Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder�s recent suggestion in parliament that Africans cannot lay claim to land in the Western and Northern Cape, because historically these regions were not inhabited by them, contributes nothing constructive to the debate�unless he was proposing that land redistribution must include the much ignored descendants of the indigenous populations of those regions.

The Catholic Church, basing its position on Scripture, proposes that land is not merely a commodity, but a gift to humanity of which we take stewardship for the common good.

A document on land issued in January by the Justice & Peace Department of the Southern African Catholic Bishops� Conference explains: �In the social teaching of the Church, the process of the concentration of landholdings is judged a scandal because it clearly goes against God�s will and salvific plan, inasmuch as it deprives a large part of humanity of the benefit of the fruits of the earth.�

Therefore, the �Vision for Land Reform in South Africa� document says, care for the land �implies seeing it not simply in material terms as geographical space, but in moral and theological terms as an opportunity for sharing and caring for the poor, the dispossessed, the stranger, the sojourner, the widow and orphan�.

Land reform and the way it is implemented concerns us all, even those South Africans living in urban centres, in terms of social stability, food supply and justice. None of us can remain detached from the process.