Still walking to freedom? A historical retrospective of the first 20 years of South African democracy (original) (raw)

Sense of frustration: the debate on land reform in South Africa

2019

In December 2018, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the opposition party, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), agreed to draft an amendment to the constitution in the South African Parliament. Its intention is to give concrete form to existing options to expropriate land without compensation. The narrative of land reform discussions in South Africa often creates the impression that the expropriation of land owned by white farmers without compensation could solve the country’s problem of unequal income distribution. It would, however, take a whole set of political reforms to create more social justice. Visible successes might help appease those groups that are disappointed with South African democracy 25 years after the end of apartheid, but if the reforms fail then this will likely exacerbate the already palpable sense of frustration felt by ordinary South Africans.

The land question (un)resolved : an essay review

Historia, 2008

Despite bold claims by Zanu(PF) and President Mugabe that the land question has been resolved in Zimbabwe, thanks to the controversial fast-track land-reform programme initiated in 2000, its contested authority and emotive capacity continue to play an influential role in Zimbabwean politics. This is evidenced by none other than Mugabe himself, who again played the land card in his recent electoral campaigns. With no hint of irony or remorse, Mugabe simultaneously called for the country's new farmers to consolidate the "gains of our land-reform programme", whilst adamantly proclaiming that this summer was going to be the "mother of all agricultural seasons" despite the fact that "there is hunger in the country and a shortage of food". This seemingly contradictory rhetoric was accompanied by a massive vote-buying exercise involving the handing out of millions of dollars worth of agricultural equipment and inputs. As unsurprising as the employment of t...

From Freedom Charter to Cautious Land Reform - The Politics of Land in South Africa

2011

South Africa's celebrated transformation from apartheid to bastion of non-racial democracy has earned it an international reputation as a site of political plurality and market stability, underwritten by a liberal constitution. And yet, with the most biased land distribution in the region, South Africa is arguably the country with the most pressing land question and in many ways the one which is most intractable. Land reform was one of the main components of the ANC's agenda during its ascension to power. By stating that 'Restrictions of land ownership on a racial basis shall be ended, and all the land re-divided amongst those who work it to banish famine and land hunger', the Freedom charter presented land reform not only as a decisive element of South Africa's ideological transition, it is also seen as one of the conditions of political, economical and social stabilisation of the country. These motivations have however faded. Despite the high profile officially...

Land and justice in South Africa

The Boolean: Snapshots of Doctoral Research at University College Cork, 2010

When Nelson Mandela took office on 10th May 1994 as South Africa’s first democratic president, he pledged that out of “an extraordinary human disaster” would come “a society of which all humanity will be proud”. Since then, South Africa has been praised for overcoming racial division and hatred in a peaceful manner while developing economic growth. This positive picture of post-apartheid South Africa has been compromised in recent years by rising crime, xenophobic violence, unemployment, and service-delivery protests. My research looks at how the new democracy has redistributed land and why less than 1% of the population still own the majority of the land. To understand the slow pace of land reform, I have examined the policies of the ANC, the polarised public debates on land reform, and the constraints on economic transformation. In order to achieve justice and ultimately reconciliation, problems with redistribution must be addressed. This requires not ...

Radical Land Reform in South Africa – a Comparative Perspective?

Journal for Contemporary History, 2017

A great deal of political rhetoric has been uttered regarding radical economic transformation that includes calls for more radical land reform proposals. This rhetoric is the source of political mobilisation in both the governing African National Congress (ANC), as well as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition. While the ANC call for the end of the willing buyer, willing seller principle in land reform policies and legislation in line with their National Democratic Revolution (NDR), the EFF support a more extreme expropriation without compensation approach. Both these approaches can be regarded as forms of radical land reform that are grounded in their specific ideological orientations. Since no academic definition exists regarding the concept "radical land reform", it is necessary that this is conceptualised. In order to analyse the possible implications of radical land reform, this article explores the outcomes of similar approaches in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Zimbabwe. The lessons of this comparative analysis indicate that land reform requires a balance between existing land rights and food security on the one hand, and the urgency for historical redress and redistribution on the other.

Restitution versus Populism: Revisiting the Dominant Tropes of the Land Question in Zimbabwe

Open Journal of Social Sciences , 2019

Zimbabwe's land revolution at the turn of the millennia cast the country on the international spotlight for a myriad of reasons, ranging from laudatory admiration to negative criticism and bad publicity. Narratives and doomsday predictions of economic disaster, social upheaval and ultimately internal implosion were awash and not off the mark given the manner in which the political economic status quo was shaken and restructured. The Fast Track Land Reform (FTLRP) was hailed in some quarters as the long overdue corrective measure against historical injustices while other sections castigated it as chauvinistic and fascist machinations of a capricious regime battling for political survival. These ensuing contestations around land expropriation are not an aberration in that they form part of a repertoire of the languages of life and/or the teleology in the history and transition of post colonies with settler heritage. Land reform continues to gain policy traction in much of the developing South with a colonial history where the economic logic of settlerism was the dominant mode of exploitation, expropriation and accumulation. Widening inequality in much of the developing South particularly in post settler economies in southern Africa has heightened demands for greater access to land and other productive sectors putting land as another new frontier of conflict. Therefore the question remains, is land reform being driven by a genuine desire for restitution and a progressive redress of colonial wrongs or whether it is just another pretext for populist demagoguery and patronage politics? This paper posits that these two dominant tropes are deeply interwoven within Zimbabwe's political economics fabric within its transition as a post colony and the matter is much more complex and cannot be reduced to such binary terms of reference. The paper therefore traces the trajectory of land reform in Zimbabwe since independence until the turn of the millennia and the attendant policy contradictions, constraints and rationalities that undergird land expropriation and redistribution.