We live in a world where others have arrogated to themselves the role of speaking on our behalf, as the black oppressed and exploited, as the wretched of the earth.
Books and books fill libraries, and bookshelves in homes and everywhere, on the living and working
conditions of farmworkers and farm dwellers by people who know nothing about what it is to be a farmworker or a farm dweller.
From the age of 10-15 I lived on a farm where my grandfather was a labour tenant at Thwathwa in the Eastern Cape.
I have written two books, Living Under Apartheid and Living Beyond Apartheid.
I am to this day familiar with what farm living is like.
It is a breath of fresh air that we are going to hear the actual voices of those who live this life.
This is more authoritative and more authentic.
The time indeed has come when we must say emphatically, “Nothing About Us, Without Us!"
We know best our pain, as well as our joys.
We are best capable of articulating these ourselves.
We cannot so identify with the master, that when he is sick, we say, “we sick boss”.
That is a slave mentality and we reject it out of hand.
In fact time has come for us as farmworkers to own some farms that our forefathers and fore-mothers have been breaking their backs working on these farms in the scorching sun in summer, and in bitter cold in the winter months, yet we have little or nothing to show for it.
But this day would be just another day, nothing would be historic about it, if it was just about talk, and not doing
something about this predicament.
My friend Kosie van Zyl of Agri-Dwala shared with me the expression in Afrikaans: “Praat is afdrans, en doen is opdrans” (To talk is like
downhill, but to do is like uphill).
For this day to be a historic moment, we must at least resolve to embark on a course of action that will radically change the status quo – bring about a radical transformation in the real sense, not just as a rhetoric.
The phrase radical economic transformation is bandied around without giving it content these days.
While we accept that not all of us can be farm owners, so things like the minimum wage have a place, but we must contend, fight for those who can be owners of land and farms to do so.
The Agri-Dwala experiment in Napier has demonstrated beyond doubt that a group of destitute, hopeless, evicted ex-farmworkers and farm dwellers can become farm owners, who in 10 years now, own jointly two farms and lease a 640 ha common-age land, which in the eighth year, they have cut a piece of 295ha for another group - AMAQHAWE also to follow their example.
They are mentoring them just as they were mentored by Van Zyl.
They started with accessing common-age land, hence the plan of action going forward must, among other things, include:
* Unearthing all common-age land in every town, including all the land municipalities over the years have leased to white commercial farmers, who have become rich at the expense of black farmworkers and farm
dwellers.
Making state land in the form of municipal commonages is the place to begin, to give people access to land they can use productively, profitably and sustainably.
Common-age land can be used as training ground until farmers graduate to the next level of commercial farming.
It may not even be necessary to do a pre-colonial audit of land, if only we unearth who leases common-age land in every town in South Africa.
In fact it an indictment of the Department of Public Works that there is no inventory/register of common-age land in every town in the country, as it is state land.
* Beyond making access to land the component of land acquisition by the state in the market is critical because it is this component of land reform, which is going to narrow the gap in land
ownership between black people and white people in the country.
As a matter of fact right now, as we speak, the Foundation For Human Rights, a great ally of this cause, are considering a research proposal aimed at establishing: the location of the common-age land; the extent of every commonage in selected towns, in three provinces – in the Northern Cape, Western Cape and the Eastern Cape and in the former homelands:
* What contracts are on that commonage land;
* When they were entered into;
* In favour of whom they were entered into?
* How long those contracts are for into the future?
The idea is that when we have this information we will decide for example on a course of action to have those lease agreements set aside, to the extent that they were entered into during apartheid years on a racially discriminatory basis in a manner inconsistent with our constitution.
This whole exercise would not have been necessary had this information been on hand in the records of the Department of Public Works, as the custodian of state land or the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.
The research is estimated to cost R2.8 million.
We will also know what to do to pressure municipalities where we live to open up common-ages to farmworkers and farm dwellers.
We will also pressure them to know that they are doing us no favour when they must allocate adequate land for common-ages, but are under a duty to do so, as part of the developmental agenda of local government.
We will also force them to stop harassing people like Oom Pops whose horses they impounded for a year now, depriving him of his source of income, in his old age causing him to die a bitter man, reducing him to grinding abject poverty.
We will force them to stop actions such as they committed in Riviersonderend in fining an elderly pensioner R30 000 and when she could not pay, impounding and auctioning her goats, thus depriving her of her only source of income.
We will teach them to pass municipal by-laws that promote life and development, not oppression and impoverishment of the people.
Local government is there to uplift people not to oppress them.
The plan of action must also include a grand plan like they have adopted in the Northern Cape – the Vineyard Development Scheme, aimed at developing vineyards to be owned by farmworkers and farm dwellers, thus creating opportunities for large
numbers of people to be employed.
Organised in such a way that where there is state land where we live or communal land and we get the Department For Rural Development and Land Reform to implement the One Household, One Hectare of Land programme in a more vigorous manner, increase its paltry budget of R100m into a more substantial budget like R1 billion for funding a large number of households to participate in this programme more meaningfully.
There is no shortage of models to get these things done.
In Kenya, there is the One Acre Fund, which started 11 years ago mobilising African farmers who were starving, a fund was set up to train them, to supply them with seeds, agricultural techniques and the wherewithal to make them successful.
Today, it is supporting in excess of 350 000 farmers not only in Kenya, but also in Burundi, Rwanda, the Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi in central and east Africa.
In 2020, it aims to have 1 million farmers on their books.
If one farmer can support five people in their family, this means 5 million people will be lifted out of poverty.
We can achieve the same results or more in South Africa, if we followed their example.
If the president is genuine about radical economic transformation in land reform and they are unwilling to expropriate land without compensation, then they must find funds, from the trillion rands in (government) pension funds, to fund land reform.
Put up a R1bn Fund for Land Acquisition, over and above the R1bn of operational funds, then we can say, we are in business.
Those who benefited unduly so in the past from the exclusive benefits offered by the apartheid dispensation should come forward voluntarily.
We must also find a way of getting to those companies, now listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, that previously were co-operatives who benefited from receiving loans and grants, from the Land Bank on a racially exclusive basis, (for white farmers only) from 1912 until 1993,
accumulated billions, and on realising that the ANC was coming into power, the Nationalist Party government, passed a law, (the Co Operatives Amendment Act No 37 of 1993), enabling these co-operatives to convert from public entities into private entities, which they are today, with only white membership.
They benefited hugely from this undue enrichment.
There may be a way of making them pay those descendants of farmworkers and farm dwellers, who would have benefited, but for the racial exclusion.
This is also a matter under investigation.
I would not have said all that is in my heart, if I did not mention the transformational work being done at Goededacht for rural children living on farms in the Malmesbury-Riebeek Kasteel area, where children from 4 months to 6 years, from 32 farms are fetched every morning, Monday to Friday, brought to the Rural Children Centre for care.
Upon arrival at the centre, every day they have a nutritious breakfast, are educated, entertained, have another nutritious meal for lunch, made to sleep and around 3pm are transported back to their homes throughout the year.
The centre also has a Rural Youth Development Centre where young people are trained in Steward Leadership - hence they participate in all the activities of the centre, preparing for their adulthood roles.
The centre emphasises the importance of educating young girls and boys about the dangers of having early sex, and girls the dangers of taking alcohol during pregnancy.
It emphasises the critical period of the first 1 000 days in a child's life and acts upon this realisation.
It is only if we make all these considerations part of our way forward that this day of this book launch will become a memorable day, a day on which we can say, indeed, on that day, we turned the corner.
In summary, the critical things that must form part of an action plan are:
* An audit by government (DPW) of common-age land in every town or village, which was allocated common-age land in SA; Release of all common-age land from all burdens upon it, so that it can be allocated to the poor for productive use, profitable use and sustainable use.
* Government to set up a serious operational fund to implement a programme like One Household, One hectare of land, ala One Acre Fund; Funds must be mobilised on a serious scale.
* Government to set up a serious Land Acquisition Fund to promote and fast-track ownership of land by black people.
* In each province to come up with a Comprehensive Agricultural Plan for the radical economic empowerment of farmworkers and farm
dwellers.
Needless to say, gender must be mainstreamed in all these things, for too long women have been marginalised.
This time around, they have to be at the centre of it all.
Let us commit ourselves to such a plan of action, then we shall say looking back to this day, indeed, we turned the corner.
It is about repositioning.
To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven;
A time to be born,
A time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
And a time to heal,
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
A time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain,
And a time to lose,
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to silence,
And a time to speak,
A time to love,
And a time to hate.
A time of war,
And a time of peace.
Eccl.3: 1-8
A time for the landless,
To become land owners!
That time is NOW!
Once again congratulations for this great achievement.
Your children and their children will hear your voices through the ages telling them of what you went through and will surely honour you for it all.