Land Distribution Paradoxes and Dilemmas in South Africa

[Barun Mitra]

Land Distribution Paradoxes and Dilemmas
by Leon Louw
The Helen Suzman Foundation, South Africa
Oct 2013

“The land question” is seldom a question. Typically it is a slew of
dogmas and myths as tenacious as they are erroneous. Virtually every
supposed fact about land in South Africa is not just wrong, but so far
off the mark as to make the adoption of sound policies virtually
impossible.

We all know – do we not? – that black land dispossession started
precisely 100 years ago with the 1913 Natives Land Act, that blacks
had 13% of the land until 1994, that land is economically important,
that landless people are condemned to destitution, that current land
policy is to redistribute 30% of South Africa’s land to blacks, that
apartheid land policy ended in 1994 when blacks were given full
“upgraded” land title, that whites own most South African land, that
black housing is RDP housing, that black commercial agriculture is a
disastrous failure, and so on.

We also know that things changed profoundly in 1994, especially
regarding “the land question”. Yet, as we shall see, these axioms are
all largely or completely false, and, when it comes to land, plus ça
change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change the more
they stay the same).

In the emotional land discourse, nefarious motives and ideological
agendas tend to be read into whatever corrective facts are cited.
Basic facts are perceived, usually with justification, as being
political, even racist, rather than informative. Point out, for
instance, that land dispossession started long before 1913, or that
many blacks who lost land after 1913 have been denied restitution
since 1994, and you are advancing a “black” agenda. Note, on the other
hand, that “settlers” acquired much land by treaty rather than
coercion, or that some blacks were themselves settlers (from the
North) who seized the land of truly indigenous blacks, and you are an
anti-transformation racist.

Few issues are as bedevilled by the hard-wired inclination to see
issues of race in black and white, in both senses of the term. A
binary imperative seems to drive us into adopting one of two sides
when things are seldom that simple.

Since the land debate is construed as a binary black-white matter (pun
intended), it is hard to find references to land in the context of
other population groups. How many well-informed South Africans are
even vaguely aware of the tenure under which Coloureds and Asians
lived historically or live today, or how much land was “set aside” for
their occupation? What, if any, future did apartheid envisage for
them? What proportion of land do they have now, and is it included in
the white or black estimates?

You may read the complete article here
http://hsf.org.za/resource-centre/focus/focus-70-on-focus/focus-70-oct-l-louw.pdf/