Newsweek | The architects of South Africa’s transition to democracy in the 1990s
envisioned a much different outcome: The post-apartheid constitution
says the government must help citizens get better access to land. The
African National Congress, which has been in power since 1994, now wants
to transfer 30 percent of the country’s agricultural land from white to
black ownership. In addition to buying it from white owners and
redistributing to black ones, the ANC runs programs to help people claim
territory and firm up the rights of those whose tenure is insecure.
But
apartheid’s legacy has been difficult to dislodge, and many think land
reform has been a disaster. To date, only 9 percent of commercial
farmland has been transferred to black owners through claims and
redistribution. The backlog to settle existing claims is 35 years; for
new ones, there’s a wait of well over a century. Many large agricultural
reform projects have failed; success stories like Msimanga’s are the
exception. “You can move as many hectares of land as you want, but if
you don’t get them to be productive, then society’s problems will
remain,” says Wandile Sihlobo, an agricultural economist for South
Africa’s Agricultural Business Chamber.
The slow pace of change has made land one of the most polarizing issues
in South Africa today. With national elections looming in 2019, the
small but influential Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition group
has tapped into popular frustration over the ANC’s failure to address
the problem. The party has been pushing the government to seize
white-owned property without paying landowners, as former President
Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe, which borders South Africa to the north.
Critics of Mugabe’s policy point to the period of economic collapse that
followed: Food production dropped, due in part to a lack of equipment
and training, and unemployment soared as thousands of evicted white
Zimbabwean employers left the country.
The ANC, whose popularity plummeted under the controversial tenure of
former President Jacob Zuma, declared in December it would use “land
expropriation without compensation,” as the process is known, to speed
up reform. The party promised to do it without compromising the economy,
food security or jobs. President Cyril Ramaphosa, who replaced Zuma
this year, has repeatedly said the taking of land from the indigenous
people was South Africa’s “original sin,” and that its return to its
rightful owners will unlock the country’s economic potential.
In
February, Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution to
pursue the expropriation policy and appointed a committee to investigate
whether the constitution needs to be amended to do it. The committee is
due to report back on its findings later this year, before the 2019
elections.
Unsurprisingly, the prospect of state-sanctioned land
seizures has spooked white landowners in South Africa. Media coverage of
“land invasions” has increased across the country, where black South
Africans have moved onto unused, privately owned property and claimed
the right to live there.
“Once it becomes a free-for-all, how are you
going to stop millions of people from lawlessness?” says Louise Rossouw,
former regional chairperson of the Transvaal Agricultural Union of
South Africa in Eastern Cape province. “It’s crazy. People are already
starting to talk of civil war. ”
The
ANC has tried to stamp out fears that South Africa’s economy is going
to crash like Zimbabwe’s. It has emphasized that unused land would be
targeted first, but party leaders have also doubled down on their
original pledge. “For people who think that the issue of land in South
Africa will be swept under the carpet, I say, ‘Wake up, my friend,’”
Ramaphosa recently said in Parliament. “Our people want the land.”
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