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| The Promise of Land |
by Christopher Merrett, The Witness
A STRUGGLE for land has been central to the history of South
Africa, complicated by the fact that to the protagonists it represented very
different world views.
The recent centenary of the Natives’ Land Act was a reminder
that land was a cornerstone of white domination, a reason why Fred Hendricks
argues in The Promise of Land that its reform is a “barrier to a unitary
imagination of the South Africa nation”.
Instead, a revolution is required to complete the process of
decolonisation and creation of a national identity. Twenty years after
liberation, democracy, social justice and the symbolism of restitution should
have made the country look very different, he suggests.
His target is white-owned commercial farms in particular
where labour law still has a limited reach.
A point consistently made in this book is that the land
issue is not simply a rural matter, but integral also to the urban condition.
The reason is historical: capital accumulation by dispossession without
provision of long-term alternative means of survival.
The South African labour system created a mining and
industrial proletariat while resisting urbanisation, the consequence of which
was both landlessness and a lack of adequate housing. The burgeoning informal
settlements that surround our major cities today contain an “industrial reserve
army”, for most members of the modern economy has, and will have, no useful
role.
Hendricks, Lungisile Ntsebeza and Kirk Helliker argue that
rural areas must hold the key. Their argument is radical regarding both the
psychological and practical importance of land, although they acknowledge there
is limited knowledge about the desirability of land-based livelihoods and the
prospects of establishing a modern peasantry with strong urban links.
Bill Martin agrees, seeing rural development as a positive
response to the global economic crisis (which he regards as structural, not
cyclical) as well as a challenge to the commodification of land, the last great
enclosure in history.
Helliker points out that commercial farms have for decades
been places of work and home, production and reproduction, for all who work on
them.
In spite of the Extension of Security of Tenure Act, which
recognised historical residential rights, between 1994 and 2004 there were one
million evictions.
Farmers have often arranged for workers to live off their
property, thus breaking their long-term residence rights, and have reduced
reliance on labour by moving away from field crops to livestock and
horticulture.
The wage component in agriculture has declined and the
proportion of casual labour increased to the extent that in the Western Cape it
now predominates.
Helliker dismisses warnings about food security as a reason
for caution about change by posing a higher argument about long-term investment
in people. And he points out that many white farmers have opted for game
farming that has forced up the price of land, led to evictions and left the
“power of agricultural capital intact”. Interestingly, he mentions favourably
the share-cropping that was deliberately destroyed by the 1913 land
legislation.
This book’s overall recommendations are surprisingly modest.
Rejecting government attempts at land reform as
“inappropriate and inadequate” (only restitution has achieved some success),
its authors argue for expropriation of un- and underemployed land to relieve
the acute pressure on the former bantustans.
Here, freehold title on communal land, as described by Tendi
Murisa in Malawi, and the establishment of well-supported producer
co-operatives are advocated. There remains the problem of the non-agricultural
population, although there is employment potential in ancillary rural services.
For commercial farms, the Zimbabwe A1/A2 model is favoured: farm workers become
small-scale farmers in co-operative ventures with worker control of larger
farms.
This is a far cry from the current, stuttering government
efforts at land reform, described by Hendricks, Ntsebeza and Helliker as inert.
They believe that South Africa is at a turning point after the Marikana strike
and massacre, and the rural unrest in the Western Cape. The state has turned to
killing in order to maintain the established order, which in turn is challenged
by growing numbers of those who imagine “a vastly different country”. This
vision has, however, yet to grow into a coherent movement.
Sam Moyo, writing about the Zimbabwe experience, points out
that its rural upheaval began 20 years after liberation in a context of imposed
neo-conservative economic policy, massive unemployment and the failure of
market-based land reform. This, he argues, is where South Africa finds itself
today. However, by denying the blatantly political factors underlying the
Zimbabwe land grab, and the abrogation of the rule of law and the human rights
violations involved, he seriously devalues his comparison.
Hendricks, Ntsebeza and Helliker surprisingly underplay
government mismanagement as a reason for the slow progress of land reform and
instead blame South Africa’s subordination to a globalised economy.
There is no effective substitute for the willing-buyer,
willing-seller model yet, although a system of compulsory purchase based on a
fair price is said to be in the pipeline.
Hendricks grasps the thorny issue of the property clause in
the Constitution and puts forward the debatable view that it entrenches
inequality. Short shrift is given to non-government organisations which are
seen as prone to statist, technocratic influences.
These are fairly predictable criticisms from the political
left, but more interestingly, blame for lack of progress is also placed
squarely on traditional authorities.
Correctly they are identified closely with the colonial and
apartheid past when they were co-opted by an illegitimate government and used
as a means of enforcement.
Ntsebeza describes chiefs as “junior partners” in apartheid
in which control of land was a decisive factor and incited the 1960 Mpondo
revolt. Denialism of this past and a move under the Zuma administration towards
entrenching traditional authority and its courts will make an imaginative and
forward-looking rural policy and democracy in the ex-bantustans impossible.
Ntsebeza labels the Communal Land Rights Act unconstitutional.
The authors of The Promise of Land have little faith in
government and point out that the ANC has historically been an urban-focused
party.
Evoking the rural struggles of the last century, they put
their faith in a grassroots movement they believe to be emerging. Their only
evidence is the protest that started at De Doorns and spread to 25 Western Cape
towns; while the post-liberation history of the rural movement and the lack of
sustained organisation spelled out by Ntsebeza provide little room for optimism.
The latest alliance, Tshintsha Amakhaya (transforming households), is committed
to an alternative rural economic model.
This book presents an unashamedly left-wing view of the land
question and rural development. But the right-wing Free Market Foundation is
currently promoting equally radical solutions. It argues that present policy
effectively nationalises land while black South Africans should be given the
deeds to freehold title to provide incentive and collateral for sustainable
livelihoods. The Truth Commission recommended a land fund based on one percent
of revenue from companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The odd
man out in the debate, generally devoid of imagination and action, is our
government.
