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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.
