{"id":119893,"date":"2018-08-10T02:47:37","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T00:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/south-africans-differ-on-land-reform-but-there-needs-to-be-a-meeting-of-minds-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2018-08-10T02:47:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T00:47:37","slug":"south-africans-differ-on-land-reform-but-there-needs-to-be-a-meeting-of-minds-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/south-africans-differ-on-land-reform-but-there-needs-to-be-a-meeting-of-minds-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans differ on land reform. But there needs to be a meeting of minds | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africans differ on land reform. But there needs to be a meeting of minds<\/a>: <\/p>\n

South African land reform debates reflect a tricky balance of power post Jacob Zuma's rule.<\/span> GCIS<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s late night announcement that the government was going to push ahead with implementing a decision taken by the African National Congress (ANC) at its national conference last year to expropriate land without compensation has set the cat among the pigeons. <\/p>\n

Speculation is widespread that Ramaphosa gave in to the land expropriation without compensation proposition to appease a faction of former president Jacob Zuma which has positioned itself as a champion of \u201cradical economic transformation\u201d. <\/p>\n

There is also the view that Ramaphosa is out to promote party unity and to outflank the Economic Freedom Fighters, to the party\u2019s left, in the buildup to the 2019 general election. <\/p>\n

All this appears fair comment, and is no way unduly cynical. Politicians say things, whether or not it is entirely wise to say them, to get votes.<\/p>\n

Yet the land debate is about much more than party politicking. In many ways, it goes to the heart of South Africa\u2019s post-colonial politics. It speaks to fundamental racial chasms. This points to the very real danger that the different terms on which the land issue is debated simply don\u2019t address each other.<\/p>\n

It would seem to me that there are three broad approaches to which the land issue is debated \u2013 the instrumental, the functionalist and the symbolic. <\/p>\n

All three approaches have a number of things in common. They all recognise the dangers inherent in the grossly disproportionate amount of land owned by whites, they accept that this has arisen out of the injustices of the colonial past, and agree that it needs to be addressed for reasons of both social justice and political stability. <\/p>\n

Beyond that there tends to be disagreement about ways, means and the urgency of land reform. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to understand these different approaches and how they relate to the ANC\u2019s proposed implementation of land expropriation without compensation. It\u2019s particularly important for people who hold these different viewpoints to understand and find one another. South Africans can\u2019t afford to let the land debate be reduced to a shouting match.<\/p>\n

The instrumental approach<\/h2>\n

This argues its case upon both ideological and constitutional grounds.<\/p>\n

There is the argument that the ANC\u2019s move represents a fundamental undermining of property rights, to the extent that it might even threaten the ownership rights of ordinary house-owners in urban areas. As such, it constitutes a major disincentive to investment and totally contradicts Ramaphosa\u2019s highly-touted goal of attracting USD$ 100 billion in investment over the next five years. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, because of the threat to security it involves, the move will serve as major discouragement to commercial farmers, who are unlikely to pour money into infrastructural improvements if they fear being expropriated. As such expropriation without compensation is a major threat to both jobs and economic growth. <\/p>\n

The property rights argument is backed up by those who posit that the considered constitutional amendment is unnecessary because the constitution already allows for the expropriation of property by the state for public interest purposes.<\/p>\n

This, the constitutionalists argue, gives the state all the armoury it needs to pursue land reform with urgent speed without threatening property rights.<\/p>\n

The functionalist approach<\/h2>\n

This says that there is a desperate hunger for land among impoverished black poor. This needs to be addressed on grounds of need and political stability.<\/p>\n

Economically, the argument is that, while the role of commercial agriculture as the principal producer of the nation\u2019s food supply and of significant exports need to be recognised, there are many areas where farming could be successfully undertaken by black farmers, given the right support. This perspective is steeped in history. It points out how white commercial agriculture was systematically advantaged by the state under white rule, and how prosperous black peasant communities, whose competitiveness constituted a threat to white farmers, were dispossessed. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s argued that there is much land available in South Africa which could valuably be transferred into private or communal black hands. Such land includes property owned by the state, land held by speculators, and farms which over the last two decades have shed most of their workers as they have turned over from direct food production to become game farms.<\/p>\n

## The symbolic approach<\/p>\n

This angle to the debate appeals to the heart as much to the head. It harps on the point that land belongs to Africans. It was stolen by the colonialists and should be given back.<\/p>\n

The symbolic approach is overwhelmingly about African dignity. As such, it often involves notions of reparations. It tends to brush aside all the difficult policy issues about how land transfer should be managed, let alone the injustices which may be heaped upon white landowners who had nothing to do with the original theft of African land.<\/p>\n

Your heading here<\/h2>\n

Ramaphosa is well known for playing the long game, a pragmatist who is ready to bend to political pressures to achieve his long-term objectives. <\/p>\n

It may well be that he will bow to the ANC imperative to pass a law allowing for expropriation without compensation. But he will want to make sure that it will pass constitutional muster. He will ensure that this amendment meets the requirements of the property clause in the constitution.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, it\u2019s tempting to conclude that the huffing and puffing about the ANC\u2019s pursuit of expropriation without compensation is really about nothing. But that\u2019s not the case. The Zimbabwean experience confirms this.<\/p>\n

It was the Zimbabwean government\u2019s lack of urgency about land reform in the first decades of independence which provided the backdrop to the war veterans\u2019 seizure of white farms in the late 1990s. It was then that the Robert Mugabe government stepped in to give the land seizures legitimacy and to claim the credit.<\/p>\n

Much controversy attends the land question in Zimbabwe to this day. Certainly, the post-2000 land reforms have not been a total failure. Nonetheless, what is beyond dispute is that the way they have been carried out has come at enormous cost to overall agricultural production. As such, the Zimbabwe mode of land reform is one South Africa cannot afford to adopt \u2013 or to be bundled into by a panic-stricken government scrambling to keep up with events on the ground.<\/p>\n

The address of the land issue requires a meeting of minds. The instrumental, functionalist and symbolic approaches all have their important role to play, and humility and willingness to listen to competing perspectives should be at a premium.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

Roger Southall receives funding from the National Research Foundation <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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South Africans differ on land reform. But there needs to be a meeting of minds: South African land reform debates reflect a tricky balance of power post Jacob Zuma's rule. GCIS President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s late night announcement that the government was going to push ahead with implementing a decision taken by the African National Congress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4728,8890,31812,4570,5397,9922,4198,7126,3576,5324],"class_list":{"0":"post-119893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africans","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-differ","10":"tag-land","11":"tag-meeting","12":"tag-minds","13":"tag-needs","14":"tag-reform","15":"tag-south","16":"tag-there","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}